Vathek by William Beckford, published 1904

Vathek is a greatly powerful King, a "Caliph", who receives some sceptres with magical descriptions, which are translated by a mysterious stranger, the Giaour. Vathek realises that he posesses supernatural powers and worships him, by fulfilling his requests to receive a prize, the treasures of Soliman and the pre-adamite sultans. However, he ultimately ends up in Hell with a heart tormented by flames for eternity.

Lonsdale argues that Vathek is not a gothic text.
"Potential melodrama and horror are almost invariably undermined and deflated by Beckford's detached, urbane and often comic tone. When Nouronihar pursues a strange light up a mountain and hears mysterious voices promising her infinite riches, if she will desert Gulchenrouz for Vathek, we may seem to be close to the 'Gothic'; but even here Beckford is less concerned to exploit the 'terrific' possibilities of the scene than to expound the choice facing Nouronihar. When Carathis and her companions visit a cemetary and its ghouls, the result is ludicrously grotesque comedy. The final scenes of the tale are serious enough, but the sudden sombre power and sustained intensity of this vision of damnation transcend anything achieved by the Gothicists."
I personally disagree with many of his comments, as the book has many of the typically Gothic traits andI do not feel that the tone is at all 'comic'.

- wild landscapes
To find the Giaour and his treasures Vathek traversed deserts and mountains, commanded not to enter any abode.

- ruined or grotesque buildings
The buildings are grand and opulent, such as the subterranean cavern, Carathis' tower and the five palaces of the senses "five wings, or rather palaces, which he destined for the particular gratification of each of the senses"p1.

- religious settings/concepts
There are many allusions to Alla and the Koran, which are praised by the "dwarfs" and some servants. Vathek is entranced into worship of the strange Giaour. The cavern of the Giaour and Soliman is implicitly Hell as a punishment for his evils, a moralistic and religious tone concludes (with great links to Shelley's message) -

"Such was, and such should be, the punishment of unrestrained passions and atrocious deeds! Such shall be, the chastisement of that blind curiosity , which would transgress those bounds the wisdom of the Creator has prescribed to human knowledge; and such the dreadful disappointment of that restless ambition, which, aiming at discoveries reserved for beings of a supernatural order, perceives not, through its infatuated pride, that the condition of man upon earth is to be - humble and ignorant."p120

- sensibility
The every whim of Vathek is catered for, to the extent of purpose-built palaces. The descriptions are senual and opulent, with lady witch Carathis having a very stormy and temperament!

- excess and extremity
Like in Frankenstein the emotions are extreme, everything in Vathek is the rarest, the grandest, numbered in thousands, scented with jasmine, sprinkled with gold dust.. It creates intense opulence, which would have been very exciting in 1904, but it is sustained throughout the novel and becomes a bit heady.

"From thence, she resorted to a gallery; where, under the guard of fifty female negroes mute and blind of the right eye, were preserved the oil of the most venomous serpents; rhinoceros' horns; and woods of a subtile and penetrating odour"p31.

- the supernatural and the ghostly
Carathis wakes the dead to find the whereabouts of Gulchenrouz and the Giaour is certainly supernatural. Vathek becomes obsessive with the magical treasure of Soliman, wanting to acqire their power.

- darkness, shadow, decay
The subterraneous cavern is described as a huge, dingy expanse. We have this section as an extract.

- the exotic, the oriental
The novel is based in a typically exotic, far-eastern setting and the names, such as Bababalouk, opulence and spices are certainly exotic and exciting to the 1904 reader especially.

- horror and terror
The Giaour's requests are disturbing,
"I require the blood of fifty children. Take them from among the most beautiful sons of thy vizirs and great men; or, neither can my thirst nor thy curiosity be satisfied"
And so is Vathek's willingness to fulfil them. The subsequent descent into Hell with the dancing dead make use of the fear of the suprnatural.

- isolation and loneliness
The Caliph is constantly surrounded by hundreds of slaves and beautiful wives, but when his love Nouronihar flees for Gulchenrouz, her teenage love, he has heartache.

- sanity/insanity
The reader may judge how moral Carathis and Vathek's actions and reasoning are

- sex/sexuality
Vathek was "much addicted to women"p1 and had many wives, which were kept in "cages" and disallowed to walk. There are many eunuchs in the story, showing demasculinisation and how it affects power. Imagery of towers and caverns.

- multiple narrators
there is a single omniscient narrator

- crime, lawlessness, abuse
Vathek murders innocent children and Carathis uses witchcraft.

- absolute power
Vathek abuses his power, for example making people give up their children and leading hundreds into the desert to perish. Yet still he wishes for supernatural powers.

- stock characters
Carathis is a cleopatra type seductress, who uses witchcraft.

- the devilish, the arcane
Vathek's lineage creates the first lines in the novel, showing its importance, and he seeks historical artifacts. He comes across demons in the subterraneous cavern.

- the historical past
the lineage of Vathek, his will to own treasures from before history (the pre-adamite sultans) showing excess and extremity.

- the outsider
the Giaour is a strange outsider

Frankenstein controversy

An interesting controversy is currently raging in academic circles about the authorship of Frankenstein. In brief, John Lauritsen is about to publish (May 1st)his thesis that the real author was Percy Shelley. The whole debate makes most intriguing reading and is linked to Lauritsen's gay activism! To check it out and to start forming your own responses, search for his name with Frankenstein on google where you will also see an interesting (if questionable) article by Germaine Greer.

"Villette" by Charlotte Bronte

I don't know if anyone else is going to use this site to share information on other texts they read over the Easter break, but as everyone's going to read this at some point I thought I may as well.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Aspects of the gothic present (or absent) in "Vilette"

"Villette," by Charlotte Bronte, is based on Charlotte's time in Brussels, although she fictionalises the city to "Villette" and the country of Belgium to Labassecour. The protagonist, Lucy Snowe, stoically undergoes trials whislt watching other people gain success and love, and the ending is ambiguously happy or tragic.

There are no wild landscapes, as the action of the novel is set inside a city, but it does have a very old, crooked tree which Snowe nicknames "Methusaleh"

The square where the priest lives, has a church whose "dark ruinous turrets" overlook the houses."Antiquity brooded over this region"

Religious concepts/settings are definitely used in Vilette. The school in which Snowe lives is an old convent which is said to be haunted by a nun who was buried alive. There is a conflict throughout the book between Snowe's Protestantism and the Catholicism of the inhabitants of Villette. The priest, Pere Silas, starts off as Lucy's ally, and a kind ear to her troubles, but soon becomes a barrier between her and the (Jesuit) man she loves. There is oe particularly unnerving scene when one of Snowe's very young students comes up to her desk and tells her she's going to hell.

In Villette, as in Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, fear and depression lead to "nervous disorders." Lucy is abandoned with a mentally disabled child whilst pining and this causes extreme depression - she ends up going slightly mad and runs around Villette, before being rescued by Pere Silas who takes her to the doctor's. This is again repeated later when she is sneakily sedated by the headmistress of the school - but the drugs go wrong and produce in Snowe a fevered, semi-hallucinatory state, "excited from head to foot" so she runs out of the school and goes wandering, spying on people she knows. Paul Emmanuel is constantly portrayed as irrationally grumpy and prone to violent outbursts of irriation at anyone - until we discover his seret other life! There are plenty of other examples of extreme emotion. For example, the young Paulina on being left behind by her travelling father:

she moped,: no grown person could have performed that uncheering business better...she seemed growing old and unerathly

The supernatural and ghostly - the school is supposedly hauted by a nun who has been buried alive, but the visions that Lucy and Paul Emmanuel have have a slightly more mundane reason behind them.

Darkness, shadow and decay are seen in the alleyway that Lucy has to clear to sit in it, for privacy.

Exotic and Oriental, travel. Whilst France and the Low Countries may not, at first, seem obviously exotic, the culture clash, and the foreign language (which Lucy is not educated in prior to moving to Villette) pose many probelms which Lucy must overcome. In additon, the final obstacle to Lucy's happiness is that Paul Emmanuel must go to the West Indies to sort out his dependent's estate.

Terror, but not horror, tends to come in the shape of the ghostly nun, or the extreme opression of the environment.

Isolation and lonelinessis a major theme. The first example is when Paulina is left by her father. Then Lucy is abandoned by her father dying, and must live as an old lady's companion. Then she is isolated by her inability to speak the language of Villette, then by her religious differences. Then she is literally isolated and alone as every teacher and student goes off on holiday and leaves her alone with a quiet servant and a mentally disabled child in the school. Lucy is an outsider.

The conflict between Rationalism (reason) and Romaticism (imagination) is best expressed in chapter 21 (Reaction):
"But if I feel, may I never express?"
"Never!" declared Reason...Reason may be right; yet no wonder we are glad to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to imagination...depsite the terrible revenge that awaits our return...reason is as vindictive as the devil.

Deception and espionage is a key theme in "Vilette" as well. Everyone goes through everyone elses stuff - espionage is used as control, and people have to find ingenious ways (like dressing up as a nun) to defy this.

Paralleling mythology

Romanticism often uses mythological references, using figures directly and inventing new ones to appear in the traditional stories. Parallels to both the Christian and Greek mythological stories of creation place it alongside revisionist Romantic fiction. This is to show alternative sequences of events and new potentials, that opposing the traditional ideology of 'destiny', fate can be altered. In consequence, Frankenstein's emotive statement that 'nothing can alter my destiny' is questioned.

'Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction'(P.43)

In mythology, Prometheus, the intelligent supporter of mankind, has fire taken from Earth as a punishment for being cheeky to Jupiter. He then outwits Jupiter again by stealing it back. As a second punishment Jupiter makes a clay woman, Pandora, with a box of catastrophe to marry Prometheus, but does not succeed as Prometheus' brother marries her and unleashes catastrophe. Prometheus' final punishmemt is being tied to a mountaintop for eternity and having his liver pecked out by vultures.

Frankenstein, subtitled 'The Modern Prometheus', illustrates a huge feeling of necessity to use his intelligence to aid humanity. The first irritation to nature, connoting Jupiter, could be his continuous probing into science and the second, the attempt to steal the vital fire of life. The punishment for Dr. Frankenstein could be Elizabeth, whose catastrophe was causing his mother's death by passing her illness, which spurred on the nightmare about Elizabeth turning into his dead mother. Alternatively, the monster could be the catastrophe because he was the direct consequence of creating artificial life.

The final punishment is, connoting the mountaintop, a life of isolation ending finally at the remote North Pole. The monster burns himself there, which relates to the stolen fire. Frankenstein lives as a solitary being weighed down by the guilt of his actions, which relates to the albatross in Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', to which there are many explicit references.

adjectives used in setting

At Lausanne, Victor 'contemplated the lake: the waters were palcid: all around was calm; and snowy mountains, 'the palaces of nature', were not changed'. firstly Victor does not appear to be truly comfortable as he considers his surroundings, we know that he fears the monster is close yet when he carries on contemplating the surroundings he becomes relaxed seeing it as a more 'heavenly scene', 'the palaces of nature'. in true gothic style darkness came with night and Victor falls back into his state of fear 'the picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil'.
The effects on Victors mind are triggered by light and dark in this scene reflecting back to Bookbird's insight into dualism. like our past experience in To the Ligthhouse teh light-dark atmosphere across the sea and the families life. Victors inability to see the calmness of the mountains makes him feel the 'impenetrable darkness'.
Shelly relies on the stereotypical view that dark is evil - hell and light is good - heaven, this stereotypical view is what gothic literature relies on.

Apart vs together

"The boo from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of Empires."
In 1791 Volney wrote Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires, an essay on history and philosophy, containing a vision which predicts the final union of all religions by the recognition of the common truth underlying them all.

By contrast, in Paradise Lost, the other instruction on religious philosophy for Frankenstein, not even two elements of the same religion are able to coexist.

Parallels between Frank and his monster

As well as foreshadowing the reactions to the monster, this observation of Walton's also establishes the first of many parallels between Frankenstein and the monster. The two are inextricably linked as creator and creation and, despite their subsequent relationship as 'enemies', their similarities are clearly identifiable (as set up in this passage).

Evidently, they share a loneliness that seems inescapable - Frankenstein struggles to make friends, having long been absorbed in and obsessed by his work, and the monster (obviously) is universally rejected and outcasted. It is interesting that the two exacerbate one other's feelings of isolation. Frankenstein is the first person to reject the monster, thus building the foundations for his future as a complete outsider, and the monster gradually eradicates the few companions Frankenstein has in the world, killing his dearest family and friends.

They are both culpable for their loneliness and their enemity is caused by their blame of one other for their misfortunes. For this reason, the parallels drawn between them, even at this early stage before we've met the monster, highlight the dualistic nature of their relationship - they are bound together inextricably but they strive to destroy one other.

Dualism and Conflict - Conflict between classicism and romanticism

It seems that all major movements in literature are rejections of what came before and Romanticism is no different. Romanticism is a rejection of "classical values" and Frankenstein shows the conflict between the two.

Classicism came out of the "Enlightenment period" which valued "reason" as the primary basis of authority. The reason it's called "classical" is that the writers tended to emulate the rational philosophers of Ancient Greece.

Romantic elements:
Nature, Wilderness

Classical elements:
Cities, particularly academic ones
(Oxford, London, Ingolstad)
Science

There exists, in Frankenstein, a dualism between science and nature which can be seen as an example of the conflict between rationalism and romanticism in the artistic world at this time. In every circumstance, however, nature wins -

Frankenstein does not manage to defy death - his creation overpowers him, both creator and created end up dead and Walton sees Frankenstein as a sum of body parts which parallels what has come before.

Walton does not manage to overcome the Pole

Even the monster, who is male counterpart to the overwhelmingingly female representation of Nature, has his own little battle versus nature. Logically, he should fit in fine with the De Lacey family, but his appearance outweighs his mind in how the De Laceys see him.

If you want a Wuthering Heights link, Lockwood is "rational" and Heathcliff is "romantic"

Gender Roles in Frankenstein.

Look first at the male roles in the novel. The protagonist and the antagonist (Frankenstein and his monster) are both male. The influence of two male professors and his father, shape Frankenstein's early academic life and the role of Henry Clerval is a dominant one. In every layer there is a dominant male character. The novel begins with Robert Walton's journey, his expedition to the North Pole, (which in itself is a very masculine trait, the idea of conquering unknown lands). This is interesting, as although Mary Shelley is a female author, her life was indeed dominated by male roles. Her successful father and husband, clearly affected her early and later life. She dedicated this novel to William Godwin, her father. Shelley also lost her mother, only 10 days after her birth and so the lack of a maternal figure in her life could be responsible for her focus on masculinity in her novel.

Women in 'Frankenstein' take the subservient, supportive role. Walton's sister Margaret who is established through epistolary communication, serves only to encourage, advise and worry about her adventurous brother. The reader is given no insight in Margaret's own life. Elizabeth is another example of how femininity is portrayed in this novel. She is in my eyes a very feeble character, and has little influence over her brother/fiancee's actions. Even the monster's threat on Victor's wedding night cannot stop him from creating a female equal for the monster. And he destroys his second creation, despite knowing the danger he has put Elizabeth in.

The creation of a female 'monster' is in itself, perhaps a metaphor for Mary Shelley's view on the role of women. I think despite the subservient women in the novel, there is an underlying theme that men, need women to spur them on, to love and care for them. The lonely void in the monster's life can, he feels, be filled by a female companion.

animal points

the monster is described by Frankentein as:

• more hideous than belongs to humanity
• the wretch
• the filthy daemon
• the devil
• the animal
• a creature
• the monster
• the fiend

yet Justine sees herself with similar images

• 'i almost began to think that i was the monster that he said i was'
• a creature capable of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated

Frankentein also sees himself reanacting animalistic actions

• i gnashed my teeth and ground them together, uttering a groan

the monster sees himself with such aspects aswell

• thy creature (adressing Frankentein)
• my wretchedness
• deliver them from an evil (he sees himself as an evil)
• i am rather the fallen angel
• i crept from my kennel
• my nocturnal rambles

all these characters see others with animalistic aspects.

the monster sees Agatha as a 'fair creature', 'young creature'

he sees both Agatha and Felix as 'two excellent creatures', 'lovely creatures'

The significance of desolate landscapes

Shelley's use of barren landscapes such as the Swiss mountains, the Orkney Isles, the open sea and the icy desert of the North Pole could represent nature's rejection of Frankenstein for cruelly violating the miracle of creation.

Early in the novel, Frankenstein often appreciates the beauty of nature, as according to Walton 'no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature'(p.30), implying that taking this beauty from him was a punishment. Shelley's preoccupation with wastelands pre-empts the imagery used in the Modernist movement to symbolise man's destruction of nature by writers such as TS Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Linking to Flodge's blog, Frankenstein is rejected by the 'feminine' mother nature and refuses to create a female companion for the monster in fear that they would reproduce a race that hated him. His lack of typically female characteristics such as care, empathy and foresight prevent him from nurturing a happy being and therefore cause the destruction of his monster, his family and ultimately himself. Through this, Shelley questions the idealism of men's supposedly 'divine' creative powers such as the ideals of the Romantic movement to 'reform the world'(introduction xxiv).

At the beginning of his life, the monster finds himself in an Eden-like garden. However, he is then banished for entering the De Lacey household which is referred to as a 'Pandaemonium'(p.108) with connotations of Pandora's box and the forbidden apple. Like Frankenstein, the monster's obsession with the family became unhealthy and resulted in a murder. To end another person's life prematurely is meddling with mortality in a way as corrupt as Frankenstein's will to unaturally create life. In consequence the monster is banished from the lush, fertile forest to the bare mountains to live a harsh and isolated existence in a place void of life.

contrasts between nurture and isolation

I also think Mary Shelley wished to emphasise on the contrast between the nurture and comfort of the home and the isolation and in fact discomfort of the 'unknown'. Frankenstein spends time talking about the happiness of his childhood- his loving mother and the beauty of Elizabeth: 'no human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself'. (p39) Even Walton, despite being on an unknown journey of discovery, still has a sense of belonging to someone by writing to his sister in his letters anc requesting to be remembered to his 'English friends'. By comparing the loving surroundings Frankenstein finds himself in when he returns home to his father and Elizabeth, to the isolation and emptiness during his making of the monster, Shelley emphasises to the reader the horrific consequences and effects of isolation. This point is given further importance as Walton, in his letters very early on in the novel, emphasises on his own lonliness and need of companionship. Already the reader is aware the the impact of isolation from nuture and love, for any being regardless of age or appearence, will be catastrophic and negative.

I also thought it was interesting how Frankenstein seems to stress the point that his interest in making the monster may have been ultimately his father's fault. When Frankenstein communicates his interest in Cornelius Agrippa (p40) to his father, his father replies: 'my dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash'. Frankenstein then goes on to say:'if, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded.......I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination.' He states(p41) 'It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.' By illustrating this point to the readers, Shelley is making a number of important statements. Firstly she is beginning the pattern of Frankenstein never actually taking full responsibility for his actions. Secondly she is emphasising the idea that it is the smallest of actions, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, that can change your life or those around you forever. At the beginning of the novel, Frankenstein states: 'nothing can alter my destiny'(p31), yet throughout the novel we see the many choices available to him that may have altered his eventual course. In addition to this, the idea of early experience, actions of parents and responsibility of those who have people to take care of is also given attention. If what Frankenstein is saying is true, that his father has partake in his creation of the monster, then Shelley could be suggesting the impact of childhood on a being. (I seem to have gone off the point of travel and location) However I do think the fact that Shelley parallells the idea of home and domesticity of Frankenstein's own childhood with that of the De Lacy family, just as she reflects Walton's misery in having no companion: 'I bitterly feel the want of a friend' (p19) with the monster's isolation and desire for female companionship: 'we shall be monsters......but on that account we shall be more attached to one another'. With these parallels, Shelley is implying that isolation is a universal, as well as being a fundamental, concept.

In addition, the fact that the monster does not mind being 'cut off from all the world' just so long as he has an 'attached' companian suggests that human beings are almost more important than location and nature. The monster is happy to go to the 'vast wilds of south America' as long as he is accompanied by a similar monster. Even the De Lacy family, when they have to leave their home, are still content as they have love and each other.

Each of the locations clearly represent something different to Frankenstein. His home is full of sentimentality and safety. Whereas Ireland, represents the consequences of being an outsider. The less familiar the territory. The role of Boo Radley in Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is an example of the treatment that an 'outsider' can be expected to recieve. This is a theme that arises in The Rover by Aphra Behn (as we have found out girlies). We discover in Frankenstein that a foreigner is often regarded with suspicion and as Victor finds out can become the victim of uncalled for blame. The reader discovers that there truly is 'no place like home'.

Parallels and doubles in Frankenstein

Shelley's use of the motif of the double is a classic feature of Gothic texts. The idea of dualism is a recurrent theme in literature, echoing the perceived division between good and evil. In Judeo-Christian religion, Satan was the fallen angel; once at God's right hand, he was expelled from the kingdom of heaven. Appearance and reality; good and evil; life and death; male and female ... these are some of the dualisms that mark the Gothic text, and Shelley's Frankenstein, in particular.

Walton, like Frankenstein, is ambitious for glory; he embarks on a journey of scientific discovery, and in the process he puts others at risk for the sake of his work; he is isolated from the rest of mankind by his ambition, and he is desperately lonely. The use of Walton's letters as an epistolary outer frame to the embedded narratives of firstly, Frankenstein and then of the monster, enables Walton to observe and reflect on the nature of his guest, and in doing so, he foreshadows the reader's response to the monster later in the novel:

'How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle, yet so wise, his mind is so cultivated; and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.' (p28-9)

• Explore these ideas in more detail.
• Identify extracts that illustrate the points you make about Shelley's use of parallels, doubles and dualism in the novel.
• Consider the ways in which Shelley draws on myths and other literary texts in her use of these features.

Uncomfortable reading

On the subject of "Unknown" and the fear often associated with it, I think the constant changes in location unsettle the reader in a way that enhances the darkness of the novel in general. Gothic literature is characteristically eerie and often quite scary and the lack of a firm foundation for any of the characters ensures that the reader doesn't become too comfortable.

Furthermore, this absence of "home" for the characters mirrors the central issue of loneliness that unites them despite their clear differences and conflicts. While the monster most explicitly experiences the pain of not belonging, the ever-changing setting implies that, in fact, none of the characters have a secure place of sanctuary - Frankenstein and Walton are essentially 'homeless' too.

Obviously, the nature of the different settings help this too. The North Pole, the mountains etc. are hardly the most hospitable of environments! The novel never instils the reader with feelings of cosiness, comfort and peace, which I think is important because not only does it generally enhance the Gothic atmosphere of the story, it also helps us to empathise with the characters.

The Unknown...a slightly psychoanalytical idea about location?

Just a short blog to explain an idea I had...

Maybe a reason why so many Gothic texts use far away places is that they are exploiting the unknown.

"Fear of the unknown" is a often cited cause of most otherwise irrational phobias.

Mass travel was not around in the time of Shelley. Therefore, even Switzerland may have seen exotic to the average reader.

Walton and Frankenstein are pioneers of the unknown - as Ms Hennessy said, they live up to the creed of star trek to "go where no other has gone before". The reader, too, is on new territory. Hence the amount of description in the book. Maybe we found the obsession with mountains funny because we know full well what mountains look like. But Shelley was writing this book in a different land, knowing full well that many of her readers would not. The reader is exploring a new worlds.

The intention could be that the reader is as gripped by the exploration in Frankenstein as Walton and Frankenstein are gripped by their own quests.

The significance of travel, place and setting in Frankenstein.

In the introductory, framing letters of Robert Walton and the first chapter of Frankenstein, the reader is taken on a journey from London to St Petersburg; to Archangel on the White Sea and the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean, then south to Geneva and Lucerne in Switzerland, Milan and the Italian Lakes, as well as to Germany and France.

Travel, discovery, place and setting are pivotal to our understanding of the novel and its impact, both at the time it was published and subsequently. The idea of the alien environment and of man battling the elements and other forces of nature in order to bring the benefits of discovery to his fellow human beings, is one that has been central to western culture and civilisation. In his letter to his sister, Mrs Saville, the first narrator, Robert Walton, writes:

'What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; ... I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and I may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death, ... But, supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite ...'
(Frankenstein p15-16)

To be the first - to discover 'a passage', rather like the Star Trek motto, 'to go where no man has ever gone before' - is a phrase that is open to multiple interpretations and has a wide range of connotations. Underlying the superficial statement, assumptions are being made about the nature of both the place and the act, suggesting, on one hand, bravery, enlightenment and benefit, while on the other, implying self-aggrandisement, violation, bigotry and possibly plunder.

The locations in Frankenstein provide the reader with a panoramic view of early-nineteenth-century Europe and beyond, while also linking closely to the novel's more profound concerns, such as:

• questions of ethics and responsibility
• permissible boundaries of scientific research
• the disturbed, tormented psychology of Victor Frankenstein
• the tortured existence of the creature he creates
• the idea of the suffering of the innocent
• education and its role in civilising
• the significance and role of love

Context:

The novel was written while living in Switzerland with her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Excursions in the mountainous area around Geneva and the lake, prompted Percy B. Shelley to record a visit to the glacier of Montanvert, or the Sea of Ice, as it is and was more commonly known:

'On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of unrelenting frost, surround this vale: their sides are banked up with ice and snow, broken, heaped high, and exhibiting terrific chasms. The summits are sharp and naked pinnacles, whose overhanging steepness will not even permit snow to rest on them. Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their perpendicular rifts, and shine through the driving vapours with inexpressible brilliance: they pierce the clouds like things not belonging to this earth. The vale itself is filled with a mass of undulating ice, and has an ascent sufficiently gradual even to the remotest abysses of these horrible desarts.'

(The Sea of Ice from 'History of a Six Weeks' Tour P.B. Shelley, 1817)

Mary Shelley, writing in her preface to the 1831 edition of the novel, describes the circumstances of the novel's conception in 1816; the summer was wet and 'ungenial', with 'incessant rain' which often confined them to the house for days. In June, she wrote to a friend:

'The thunder storms that visit us are grander and more terrific than I have ever seen before. We watch them as they approach from the opposite side of the lake, observing the lightning play among the clouds in various parts of the heavens, and dart in jagged figures upon the piny heights of Jura, dark with the shadow of the overhanging cloud ... One night we enjoyed a finer storm than I had ever before beheld. The lake was lit up - the pines on Jura made visible, and all the scene illuminated for an instant, when a pitchy blackness succeeded, and the thunder thunder came in frightful bursts over our heads amid the darkness. '
(Letter to [?Fanny Imlay] 1 June 1816)

In 1815, the eruption of Mt. Tambora, Indonesia, resulted in an extremely cold spring and summer in 1816, which became known as the year without a summer. The Tambora eruption is believed to be the largest of the last ten thousand years. New England and Europe were hit exceptionally hard. Snowfalls and frost occurred in June, July and August and all but the hardiest grains were destroyed. Destruction of the corn crop forced farmers to slaughter their animals. Soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry. Sea ice migrated across Atlantic shipping lanes, and alpine glaciers advanced down mountain slopes to exceptionally low elevations.

• Suggest extracts of the novel which you feel are particularly relevant to an analysis of the significance of travel, place and setting in Frankenstein.
• Add your comments, supported by page and other references.
• Identify specific websites that you have found helpful and check out the sites listed to the right of this blog.