Explore How Shelley Uses Language to Create an Atmosphere of Gothic Horror

Ms Gordon:
English Literature:

Explore how Shelley uses Language to Create an Atmosphere of Gothic Horror:

Gothic horror is a genre of literature that combines fiction, horror, death and Romance. In 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was seen as rather controversial because the genre had only been around since 1754. Shelley creates an atmosphere of gothic horror in her novel through a variety of linguistic devices. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious and supernatural; accordingly Shelley uses rather mysterious circumstances to have the character of Victor create the monster. Mary Shelley includes supernatural elements of raising the dead and gruesome research into uncharted fields of science not known by the readers of the 19th century to create the macabre atmosphere for her novel.

A good comparison for the gothic components used in Shelley’s novel is Dracula. During the same time period, released in 1897, Dracula incorporated a plentiful array of gothic constituents, one of them being the setting of Transylvania, a region in Romania. Likewise, Frankenstein is set in Switzerland and Germany - provinces unfamiliar to Shelley’s readers. This adds to the mystery of the setting which is enhanced by the fact that laboratories and scientific experiments were not known by the average reader of the 19th century and therefore this makes Victor’s laboratory the perfect place to create a monster. The setting continues to play an important role in this gothic atmosphere, as Victor Frankenstein goes on to face extreme landscapes such as rugged mountains, large forests and cold icy wastelands. Straight away from Walton’s letters Shelley depicts an isolated and unknown area that contains “thick fog”; “vast irregular plains of ice” and is “surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides”. The pale emptiness portrayed here links with the gothic theme as endless amounts of ice and being “many hundred miles from any land” connotes isolation. The constant repetition of “ice”, “snow” and “fog” incorporates only one colour into the mind of the readers: white. This technique almost makes the reader question Walton’s mental stability after being exposed to such environments, as a narrator he now seems unreliable adding to the mystification of Frankenstein. 

Luigi Galvani was a well-known physician in the late 18th century who had an unorthodox use of electricity. His experiment causing a dead frog’s legs to move may have motivated Shelley to incorporate lightening as a gothic unit in the novel. “The thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens” not only is this an extremely powerful presentation of pathetic fallacy implying that the monster birthed by this lightning will be very dangerous, but it also demonises “lightning”. Lightning is continually used throughout the novel to remind the readers of the final ingredient it took for the monster to become alive and to warn and create suspense adding to the eerie gothic atmosphere.