Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Chapter 7 reviews

Résumé du document

At the beginning of this chapter, a letter from his father explains to Victor the circumstances of William's murder. He leaves for Geneva immediately to comfort and grieve with his family. But it is dark when he reaches Geneva and gets close to home, during a thunderstorm and Victor is started to see a large figure peering at him…The geographical description of Victor's native country: “Jura, Mont Blanc, Geneva, Secheron, Plainpalais, Saleve, Alps of Savoy, Belrive…” All these names of places show that Shelley is very precise. At the age of 16 she ran away to France and Switzerland with Percy Bysshe Shelley and in the summer of 1816 she started writing Frankenstein.

Extraits

[...] The importance of light: The narration assumes a sharper tone, and events become more dramatic, with the occurrence of storms and lightning. It's a dazzling spectacle: “vivid flashes, dazzled my eyes, illuminating, enlightened”. The metaphor vast sheet of brings back the myth of Prometheus. The contrast between light and dark and threatens the reader. Shelley takes us right back into the Gothic world which is introduced with the lightning storm. III/ A past forever present The apparition of the monster : An inhuman being. [...]

[...] This creature looks very ugly and dangerous. A criminal. Victor claims the monster is murderer of [his] brother”. He repeats twice the word “murderer” to insist. But he has no real argument. He blames it because he is angry. A supernatural being: flash lightning illuminated” the monster as he appears from nowhere. This storm reinforces the suggestion that the monster was brought into being by the use of electricity a force of evil. Besides, the monster “disappeared” on the summit as if by magic. [...]

[...] Victor comes back in the true world, becomes again aware of William's death. Victor's irresponsibility: He realizes that his monster is the “murderer” but Victor himself was William's murderer since he created the fiend that killed him. Everything the monster does is Victor's fault because he is the creator. A desire of vengeance: He decides to pursue him, but the storm stops him for following the monster. In realty he maybe is not enough courageous because the monster is stronger than him. [...]

[...] It's a gothic element. An ill omen: this apparition must foretell the monster's vengeance. Shelley invites the reader to imagine what can happen And Victor's reaction: The revival of Victor's past memories. To add to the mood of foreboding, he spots "the monster" once again. Up to this point, the monster had been at the back of Victor's mind, and was slowly fading away, but in this dramatic fashion, it is brought back to the surface again. Victor's fear: after the description of his frame of mind, the fear becomes physical: teeth chattered” Victor's accusation. [...]

[...] " The style of description changes as well. “Yet' insists on this U-turn. The progression of the description: At the beginning the landscape almost looks like Eden thanks to the vocabulary of light: “bright summit of Mont Blanc, your summits are clear, blue and placid, peace” But then the atmosphere becomes dark, the genuine place of hell: “night, dark mountains, gloomily, a vast and dim scene of evil, dark, night”. A violent storm. It is gruesome: “lightnings, clouded, thunder, terrific” and surprising since it “approached rapidly, quickly, increased every minute” and then it becomes more and more violent: violence increased, thunder burst with a terrific crash, the most violent storm, war”. [...]