Session 20 Discussion Questions

Questions for Discussion:  Frankenstein, 44-67

1. What does Victor learn upon his return to college after his happy vacation with Henry?   What does Victor’s reaction to this tragic reversal tell us about him, his friendship with Henry, his relationship to his family, and his relationship to the world at large?
2. How is Victor re-introduced to his “filthy daemon”?  What is the significance of the setting of this sighting?
3. Why is Justine given such an important role, indeed, her own “story-within-a-story,” in the novel?  How does her story help emphasize the novel’s critical engagement with the class and political system of the time?  What is the significance of Justine’s comment about her confessor, “I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was” (56)?  Or Elizabeth’s statement, after Justine’s execution, “Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?” (61)
4. What is Victor’s reaction to the trial of Justine for the death of his brother William?  How does his “secret” affect his reaction?  How does he think of his creature in the aftermath of William’s and Justine’s deaths? What is Shelley saying about the psychology of guilt in depicting Victor’s ever-deepening anger, misery, and isolation?
5. How does the contrast and interface of the sublime and the beautiful in the imagery, plot, and setting of the novel work to create a sense of existential eeriness in the novel?  Or, as Elizabeth puts it, the feeling “as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding, and endeavoring to plunge me into the abyss.” (61)  How might Shelley be borrowing literary techniques from her mother’s Letters from Sweden?
6. Thinking of the concept of the sublime, what is the significance of Victor’s ascent to the summit of Montanvert?  How does his encounter with his creature enhance the experience of the sublime for the reader? 
7. What do you make of the creature’s first conversation with his creator?  Thinking of Rousseau’s Second Discourse and Wollstonecraft’s Rights of Woman, what does their conversation say about Shelley’s understanding of human nature?
8. If you had to map out the narrative structure of the novel thus far, how would you do it?
9. Now that you’ve read Bennett’s and Gordon’s distinctive accounts of Mary Shelley’s life and work, which to you is the most compelling and why?  Compared to her mother, is Shelley’s life and work as compelling?  Why or why not?