Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein typical of the horror genre?

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Recommended: Analysis Shelley's Frankenstein

Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein typical of the horror genre?

To answer the question above, I firstly need to be clear about the

term 'genre.' Genre is a particular style in art or literature, some

examples of genres are: romantic, Romance, science-fiction and Gothic.

Each genre has its own personal features, for example the romance

genre deals with love, it normally has exotic settings and it deals

with emotional issues. I am going to try and categorise the book and

then try to decide whether or not it is just a horror story, or if it

is more than that. If it is just a horror story then it will focus on

death, darkness, fear and terror. It will also try to shock the reader

and it will use suspense heavily.

With this in mind, Frankenstein is definitely a horror story, for

example Victor Frankenstein said, on the day when the creature was

born, "a dreary night in November." This shows that the day is dark,

which is typical of a day in a horror story. "Infuse a spark... into

this lifeless thing" this is when he is talking about the creature,

and there is definitely and emphasis on death and darkness. Victor

says he also has "astounding horror" this shows that he is feeling

especially horrified with the monster.

From the beginning of the book, the horror genre is the primary genre

in the novel, even before Victor Frankenstein's story has even begun

there is evidence of horror. Just before he starts to tell his story,

he tells Robert Walton that his story has "unparalleled misfortunes"

and that he has "memories of evil" this is meant to strike fear into

the reader and into Robert Walton, it shows that Victor Frankenstein

is deeply horrified with what has happened to him. There is also evil

in this story a...

... middle of paper ...

...ypical through out all of the book.

I believe that Frankenstein is definitely a horror story and that it

is also a Gothic story, because it has many features that are typical

of these genres. I do not believe that they are the main genres

though, as the Romantic genre is a lot more dominant in this novel. I

believe that this is mainly because of the time period that it was set

in, as it was written in 1818, and this was when people were starting

to discard the horror genre, and they were starting to believe in

nature. Also the horror genre is only present in a few of the chapters

and the Romantic genre is present in most. There are many other genres

present, but none of them are feature as much as the Romantic genre. I

do believe that Frankenstein is typical of the horror genre, but only

in some of the novel, and it is more typical of the Romantic genre.

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