Frankenstein

Frankenstein Read the book Frankenstein, write 4 pages analysis, demonstrating a thorough, critical understanding of the chosen primary source (Frankenstein), and making good use of a minimum of 4 good secondary sources (history, biography, literary criticism—other texts which help you understand and respond to the primary source). Your goal: you’re trying to identify how the conventions of Gothic fiction interact with other thematic, ideological, and/or symbolic functions of the narrative. That is: what makes the text Gothic? What does the Gothic form allow writers to explore, and readers to experience (explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously)? Critical analysis of the Gothic sub-genre has identified a few possibilities you might want to pursue: • the use of space/location as expressions of literal and figurative oppressive power (esp. sexual, racial, and class oppression) • the role of religion/superstition • the effect of the sublime and the Romantic tension between beauty and terror • the moral and physical jeopardy of the heroine • the role of place, time (the past), and conflict in expressing nationalist ambitious or anxieties • xenophobia, fear of racial contamination • anxiety about social change (race, class, gender, culture) • fear of new technology and the limits of scientific knowledge/power