Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Discuss the role of nature in the novel. What causes alienation from nature, and what is the result? How does one reconnect with nature? How does the grandeur of nature simultaneously comfort and alienate one further?

What is the role of women in the novel? Consider Elizabeth, Justine, Safie, Agatha, and even Robert’s sister Margaret. How does their passivity demonstrate 19th-century ideals for women?

What conclusion does the novel come to about knowledge? Where is the balance between helpful and dangerous knowledge, and who, or what, is offended when humans attempt to acquire knowledge outside the boundaries of what they should know?

What does the novel seem to suggest about human nature? How is this argument reinforced by the creature’s humanlike traits? By people’s rejection of the creature? By the prevalence of suffering in the novel?

Discuss the ambitions of Frankenstein, Clerval, and Walton. Are their ambitions similar or different?

Literary critic Northrop Frye stated that the typical Romantic hero is “placed outside the structure of civilization and therefore represents the force of physical nature, amoral or ruthless, yet with a sense of power, and often leadership, that society has impoverished itself by rejecting.” Who is the hero of Frankenstein: Frankenstein or the creature? Who is the novel really about, and is one more sympathetic than the other?

What is the novel’s conclusion about destiny and free will? Do you believe Frankenstein’s claim that he was destined for destruction?

Where is foreshadowing used in the novel, and what is the effect?