The Imagination In Frankenstein English Literature Essay

The importance of imagination in the romanticism period was all about establishing who you were as a writer. The imagination in Frankenstein is that Dr. Frankenstein created an eight foot tall monster out of miscellaneous body parts, turning mans greatest fear of death and turning it into life, trying to make a perfect man and the advancement of the human kind. As the quote “The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.” (Shelley 33-34) from Frankenstein is talking about the increasing role of science during the romanticism period. During the romanticism period the role of science and technology was increasing and very important to that time period because they were coming out of the neoclassical period which was all about the ending of the Renaissance time when it was all about art, self-awareness, religion, humanism, and art.

The celebration of the individual is about inspiring the achievements of the misunderstood, heroic individual outcast. The celebration of the individual in Frankenstein is about the monster that Victor Frankenstein created. No one wanted to be friends or even be around the monster, so therefore the monster became angry, bitter and lonely. The quote, “All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” (Shelley 81), from the monster, he is telling his creator Victor Frankenstein how hated he is by everyone and how alone he is. After the monster talks to his creator about how miserable and lonely he is, he tries to reason with Victor Frankenstein by telling Victor that he would stop his killing streak of revenge and exchange peace for a companion of like origin. The monster said to his creator, “If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.” (Shelley 81), after the monster said this to Victor had refused the monster of any deal that the monster wanted to make, and so therefore the monster did what he said he would do and started to go after all of Victor’s friends and family.

The romantics, which were the authors, stressed the awe of nature in art and in language and the practice of nobility through a connection with nature. The awe of nature in Frankenstein is best explained by this quote, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in it highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.” (Shelley 23), which is connecting nature through the language of that time period. The language of that time period is greatly influenced by the writers’ imagination, emotion, and experience. Mary Shelley’s writing style was greatly influenced by her imagination and emotion more than anything else. Mary Shelley’s writing style was also gothic in the sense that it when she was writing the novel Frankenstein she had put a supernatural event, which was Victor Frankenstein creating the eight foot tall monster. The writing style of William Wordsworth is different than Mary Shelley’s because his is more influenced by emotion and feelings, his poem ‘It is a beauteous Evening’ (Wordsworth 281), calm and free’ has strong emotion of dying and death, it is an emotional piece because it is talking about the death of his daughter. The writing style of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is based on the emotion of pain and disease. In his poem ‘Love’ the quote “And that she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay;-” (Coleridge 110-113) has the emotion of love and of death at the same time which is different than that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein because the emotion of love is not used as much as the emotion of death or the gothic sense that she uses of a monster with inhuman strength.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most significant thinkers of the state of nature, like most writers during that time, they were writing the poem, short stories, novels, and essay’s about or relating closely to nature. Jean-Jacques writings were about nature, because “he believed that humans were born naturally good, curious, and content with satisfying are basic needs; but it is or society that corrupts us to desire status, idleness, and luxuries.” (Jeffrey D. Wilhelm 676) Mary Shelley’s writings were about the emotion of sorrow, death, and having no to love you back. Mary Shelley’s writings are different than Jean-Jacques, because Jean’s writings are a little happier toned and incorporate more nature than supernatural beings, in I his writing the ‘Confessions’. “I am resolved on an undertaking that has no model and will have no imitator. I want to show my fellow-men a man in all truth of nature; and this man is to be myself.” (Rousseau 5) in the first two lines of the novel he is saying that I will not have a follower and I will illustrate the truth about nature for all men. As in Mary Shelley’s writing’s are more gothic and emotionally filled with sorrow.

“In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being . . . I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends . . . Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed.” (Shelley 193) is a great quote to explain the interest in the common man and childhood. The quote shows the natural goodness in Victor from Frankenstein, by refusing to create a companion for the creature that has killed all his friends and family. Victor did the right thing by not giving the monster what he wanted; but instead letting the monster kill the ones closet to him while he was trying to kill the monster.

The novel Frankenstein is both a romantic and gothic horror novel; because the novel also is supernatural but it is also connected to nature. The Byronic hero is monster; because the monster is arrogant, emotionally conflicted, has a troubled past, self-destructive, and treated as an outcast. The monster is the Byronic hero because he is an idealized yet imperfect character; he had his flaws because he was considered an outcast among everyone else, because he was hideous and no one would show him love or happiness, so he became bitter and angry at everyone that was happy and loved. The monster killed every one of his creator’s friends and family, then went and killed himself because his creator had died.