Frankenstein Blog 1

               The first four letters included at the beginning of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein establish the fact that the novel utilizes the literary technique of a frame story. The novel begins with a series of letters written by the unrelentingly ambitious Robert Walton to his sister providing the details of his journey to be the first in history to discover the glorious mysteries of the North Pole. In the process of reaching the North Pole, however, Walton and his crew venture into icy waters where they are temporarily frozen into immobility. While waiting for the ice to thaw so as to continue their travels, Walton’s crew observes Frankenstein’s creature evidently fleeing something at great speed; one day later, they save Victor Frankenstein from the icy waters by bringing him aboard the ship. After Frankenstein and Walton immediately strike up a friendly rapport, Frankenstein decides to relay the details of his perilous past with Walton, and the remainder of the novel proceeds to tell the story of Victor Frankenstein and the inconceivable being which he created. In his letter to his sister, Walton vows that, “I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day” (Shelley, 13-14). Consequently, the reader perceives that Robert Walton’s adventure to the North Pole and coincidental encounter with Victor Frankenstein becomes the frame story which provides the context in which the real story of Frankenstein’s creature will be told.

                While the fact that Frankenstein is a frame story is certain, the relevance and significance of this stylistic choice by Mary Shelley remains unclear to me. However, one critical observation is important to determining its purpose: the reader can clearly detect that many similarities exist between the characters of Walton and Frankenstein. Both men have developed strong intellectual interests and a passionate desire to discover or accomplish something which no man has ever done before. Furthermore, both men allow these convictions to take precedence over all other aspects of their lives, including relationships. The reader can therefore infer that Frankenstein chose to confide his story in Walton despite his resolution to never tell the story to anyone because he too detected these similarities between himself and Walton and wished to prevent Walton from stumbling down the same miserable path that he took. Aside from this fact, however, the true reason for Mary Shelley’s use of a frame story remains unclear to me. Shelley certainly did not require the use of a frame story in order to write the novel; therefore, the fact that she chose to use this technique implies that it has an important function of the story. Thus far, the frame story has involved a great deal of foreshadowing; for example, the reader knows because of this frame story that both Frankenstein and his creature will survive. Also, Frankenstein repetitively laments the misfortunes of his life, indicating that the novel will not have a pleasant ending. While I strongly believe that the use of frame story may have an even more important function later on in the novel, I am unsure as to what this purpose would be. As Frankenstein progresses, determining the function of the utilization of the frame story should prove to be very interesting.