How Does Mary Shelley Create Tension In Frankenstein
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What person does not like a story full of mystery and suspense, supernatural creations, and crazed men trying to accomplish feats never before imagined? Gothic literature fulfills everyone’s desire to take a step into the fanciful and yet intriguingly frightening world of the unknown. Horace Walpole was the “father of Gothic horror novels”. He composed the first Gothic novel, “The Castle of Otranto”, in 1754, thus beginning the Gothic age. In 1818, a young girl named Marry Shelley jumped onto the Gothic train. She composed “Frankenstein” when she as around nineteen to twenty years old. Shelley successfully created a novel that incorporates mystery, suspense, and the supernatural, and high emotion into an unforgettable story. In order for a piece of literature to be referred to as Gothic, it needs to meet certain qualifications. Having a suspenseful or mysterious mood or feeling throughout the book is one of the major requirements for a Gothic work. The reader should feel uncertain about what is happening, because that uncertainty creates tension or suspense. An example of this would be in the fifth chapter when Marry Shelley writes, “It was on a dreary night of…show more content… Victor Frankenstein starts out as a somewhat normal man, but then turns into a crazed, supernatural being creator. “Frankenstein” also has a Gothic vocabulary. The vocabulary used by Mary Shelley in this novel creates a dark and mysterious mood. I believe that Mary Shelley created a novel that was not only Gothic, but it was intriguing. People wanted to know what was going to happen next, especially regarding the monster that Victor created. This desire to know more and uncover the mysteries has made “Frankenstein” a Gothic novel that has stood out form all the rest. There were numerous amounts of Gothic novels written between 1754 and 1847, but none quite like Marry Shelley’s