Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

 

In one of the courses I’ll be teaching in the fall (my last semester before I can retire full time!), we are reading Frankenstein, first published in 1818. We’re using this text as representative of the Romantic Period rather than the usual Romantic poetry. I’ve been having a great deal of fun with the novel. Here are some discussion questions that I’ve come up with so far:

1. Why is the novel subtitled “A Modern Prometheus”? (We’ll have to look at the Greek myth when considering answers.)

2. Is it Victor Frankenstein or his creature who is being referred to as Prometheus? (Melanie’s excellent comments brought up this question.)

3. This is an epistolary novel. What is the reason for the various narrative frames?

4. Is Victor Frankenstein a hero or a villain or something in between?

5. The creature doesn’t have a name but Shelley apparently referred to him as “Adam” and uses Adam’s question to God from Milton’s Paradise Lost as an epigraph. What is the significance of the epigraph?

I’ll have more questions and, hopefully, some answers before the semester starts.