Explain Mary Shelley’s use of a motif in Frankenstein and provide at least two examples of this motif from the text.
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Example 1: Passive Women Frankenstein is strikingly devoid of strong female characters. The novel is littered with passive women who suffer calmly and then expire: Caroline Beaufort is a self-sacrificing mother who dies taking care of her adopted daughter.
Example 2: Abortion The motif of abortion recurs as both Victor and the monster express their sense of the monster’s hideousness. About first seeing his creation, Victor says: “When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly made.” The monster feels a similar disgust for himself: “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.”
2. What does Frankenstein suggest about duality in life? What examples from the text can you give that relate to this theme?
The Creature's duality is his ability to show love and to yearn for people who love him (as in his mountain retreat, where he fell in love with the family he helped), and his humanity. The flip side of that is his hatred for who he is and his desire to destroy his creator, Dr Victor Frankenstein when he wouldn't make another monster for his companionship.
