The setting is one of the most underrated and important parts of a novel, and perhaps the most important aspect. Would Ridley Scott’s “Alien” be any different if the setting were in the middle of a town square? The use of the setting helps establish the tone of the work. “Cry the Beloved Country” uses the setting to depict the village as great and perfect, while Johannesburg and the mines are corrupt and evil. “Frankenstein” does this as well, Mary Shelley uses the setting of Ingolstadt to show Victor’s failures and his idiocy. While his home in Geneva is peaceful and happy. The uses of setting in both of these works are used to show, periods of change, to prove a major point of the novel, and to have the characters heal spiritually and physically. …show more content…
The glaring themes in “Cry the Beloved Country” and “Frankenstein” are incredibly similar. They both show the dangers of technology, but in different and similar ways. One way this is done, is through the setting. During “Frankenstein”, while Victor is away from his studies, with his family, and in nature, he is truly happy again. However, while he is immersed in his studies, he is angry, depressed, and generally unhealthy. Elizabeth tells him that he has, “...been ill, very ill,” (31). Victor plans to return home, but his return is quickened by the death of his youngest brother. The immersion in science leads to the creation of a monster that haunts Victor for the rest of his life. While studying, Victor is never truly happy, “...but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart,” (Shelley, 27). Victor fulfills his dream of banishing death from the human frame. However, he immediately realizes the mistake that he has made. The pursuit of knowledge at Ingolstadt led him to fulfill this dream of creating life, without thinking about the consequences. His judgement is clouded. In “Cry the Beloved Country”, the change in setting is used to prove the points of how the city changes everyone in some way. When Kumalo first gets there he is robbed. He bears witness to what the city can do to people, especially children. The city corrupts all, no one is safe from its influences. This is a theme that is paraded around throughout the novel. This is shown in the setting by depicting the city as a place that as previously mentioned, makes Kumalo visibly sick. He is affected by just the sight of the city. During dinner with the other priests, they talk about a whole manner of things, “They talked of young criminal children, and older and more dangerous criminals, of how white Johannesburg was afraid of black crime,” (Paton, 52). They talk about all
At first, Victor believes himself superior to nature, and he builds a creature to prove his dominance. After gathering the information and materials needed to create life, Victor begins to fantasize about what he is about to do. He sees “life and death [as] ideal bounds, which [he] should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into [their] dark world. A new species would bless [him] as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to [him]” (Shelley 55). Life and death are natural things, but Victor thinks that he can “break through” them and create life. He alone would be the person to “pour a torrent of light into their dark world,” as if he was God, ruling over all of the world. This shows Victor’s lack of respect towards life and how he intends to overcome the boundaries set by nature. Unlike the Romantic who revered and honored nature, Victor wants to use it for his own gain. He expects “happy” and “excellent natures” to obey him, and he doesn’t dwell upon the consequences of his actions. His outlook changes after the Creature comes to life. As Victor stares into the watery, lifeless eyes of his creature, he finally realizes his mistake in trying to disrupt the natural order of the world. Scared by the outcome of his actions, Victor attempts to run away and find comfort in nature. He travels to the Arve Ravine, where “the
Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, illustrates the trials including Victor Frankenstein's triumphs, a character who owned a lovely with memorable life experiences that shaped the independent college student he became. Despite Victor growing up in a welcoming setting, he struggled to find the intellectual purpose of acquiring a college education in his physical science interest to generate the likelihood of reviving a dead corpse with electricity to acquire the comfortability to feel like God. Mary Shelley used diction and imagery to convey shifts in mood that supported the plot of chapters one through five in Frankenstein to inundate the reader with the feelings the characters of the story were facing.
Being isolated and separated from other people for a prolonged amount of time, can gradually make a person miserable. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a martyr for Shelley’s view that a lack of human connections leads to misery. Victor being from a highly respected and distinguished
This challenge which brewed deep within Victor makes him forget about his own life and leads him into isolation and a complete concentration on project. Blinded by his quest, Victor is unable to measure the consequences of what he is trying to do. Victor returns home feeling frustrated and feeling as though all his hard work had ended in the utmost failure. In addition, Victor feels guilty, realizing that his creation is the cause of his little brother’s death. During this time, he also encounters that an innocent victim, Justine, is sentenced and condemned, a person of great significance, someone like a sister, to the love of his life, Elizabeth. In analyzing the following paragraph, the reader is able to see the difficulty that Victor has in expressing his emotions.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor and the monster go through a journey filled with love, betrayal, and ambition. However, there are key differences between the two of them. Victor leads a good life, but has an inner spark within him that leads him to rebel against the normal world and seek glory. The monster starts off with derelict beginnings and simply wishes for the basic needs that every human gets to experience such as love, affection, and friendship. Eventually, they both face problems, and as a result, devise evil plans, and yet their motivations and rationale cause the reader to have more sympathy for the monster than Frankenstein.
The setting is extremely important in both novels and films. It can have immense effects on the plot and characters, establishing the atmosphere or mood
An idea becomes a vision, the vision develops a plan, and this plan becomes an ambition. Unfortunately for Victor Frankenstein, his ambitions and accomplishments drowned him in sorrow as the result of many unfortunate events. These events caused Victor's family and his creation to suffer. Rejection and isolation are two of the most vital themes in which many dreadful consequences derive from. Victor isolates himself from his family, friends, and meant-to-be wife.
Victor Frankenstein serves as an instrument of suffering of others and contributes to the tragic vision as a whole in this novel. He hurts those surrounding him by his selfish character and his own creation plots against his master due to the lack of happiness and love. The audience should learn from Frankenstein’s tragic life and character to always remain humble. We should never try to take superiority that is not granted to us because like victor we shall suffer and perish. He had the opportunity to make a difference in his life and take responsibility as a creator but his selfishness caused him to die alone just like what he had feared.
Because of Victor’s need for fame and desire for power leads to Victor becoming a monster. Victor begins his quest to bring life to a dead person because he does not want anyone to feel the pain of a loved ones death. At first he is not obsessed with his project. As he moves along in the project he thinks about what will happen to him. "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me." (Shelley 39) He realizes that he will become famous if he accomplishes the task of bringing a person back to life. The realization that he will become famous turns him into an obsessive monster. He wanted to be admired, and praised as a species creator. He isolates himself from his family and works on the creature. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation, but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 156) By spending most of his time inside on his experiment, he has no time to write or contact his family. He puts fear within his family because they fear for him.
At the age of seventeen, victor leaves his family and attends a university at Ingolstadt. Like a mad scientist, and to the knowledge of no one, he locks himself away in his apartment and after two years of obsessive labor he creates his monster. Even during this time of following his passion, Victor is miserable and suffers from illness. “and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade, than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow-creatures as if ...
Second, what is the mood of this story trying to portray with the setting. The setting c...
The setting or settings in a novel are often an important element in the work. Many novels use contrasting places such as cities or towns, to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the contrasting settings of Talbothays Dairy and Flintcomb-Ash represent the opposing forces of good and evil in Tess' life.
In Oceania, there are various predominant settings which plays a major role in the novel. These settings include the Victory Mansions, The Ministry of Truth, the room over Mr. Charingtons, the Ministry of Love, Room 101, and the Chestnut Tree Cafe. Each of these places allow readers to gain a deeper understanding of the novel as major themes such as corruption and loss of freedom are highlighted. The state of minds of the characters are also
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
The setting can also show the gloom and despair of the character's emotion. Jane is looking for a place to stay, is refused and made to stay outside in the weather. She weeps with anguish, feels despair, and rejection. The setting echoes her in that it is "such a wild night". There is a driving rain and it is cold. The setting can be a reflection of just about any human emotion.