Characteristics Of Romanticism In Frankenstein

Romantic Characteristics in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, the author writes in the form that was different to other works from the Enlighteners. She was a Romantic but not in the sense of love towards one another. Romantics were people who admired nature and emotions and appalled order and rules. Shelly work in Frankenstein, really showed what a romantic genius she was, by challenging the unknown and the forbidden. To this day Mary Shelly is looked up as one of the pioneers next to William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge of the Romantic period. All their works helped shape literature today by getting it back in tune with nature and with oneself.

There are many characteristics of the Romantic

The Romantics have always stressed the individual compare to the Enlightenment ideals of civilization. For the Romantics, civilization is a corrupt, abusive system that strips the individual from uniqueness and humanity. Dr. Frankenstein, loses his humanity by engulfing the system power making him go down the road of destruction. He joins the University of Ingolstadt and leaves the comfort of his home to pursuit a path of unhealthy ambition that controls the University, “My father made no reproach in his letters, and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves -- sights which before always yielded me supreme delight -- so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation.” (Shelly, cha 4. 68) Leading to the dehumanization of the individual which the Romantics are

The way that Dr. Frankenstein collects the body parts in mysterious circumstances help bring out the gothic of the novel. Most of Dr. Frankenstein thoughts were gothic and dark. When he was truly at awe was when he was experiencing the beauty of nature. “But I did not feel the inconvenience of the weather; my imagination was busy in scenes of evil and despair. I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.”(Dr.Frakenstein, cha 7