WEEK 1: FRANKENSTEIN

The gothic elements in Frankenstein are prominent mostly in the setting and atmosphere created by Mary Shelley. She writes a lot about discussing the environment and the feeling of it, bringing us into the scene by describing the moon and how dark or dreary each place is. She even goes as far as telling the audience that the sun had set and the moon rises, being extremely clear what time of day it was, pointing to being spooky and dark, elements of the gothic. For some reason, I related extremely well to the way she described this exact moment, the lonely feeling you get knowing the brightness of the sun you just had seconds ago is now gone and the darkness of night awaits you. The biggest light source being only the moon and the shadows too large, hiding majority of the space you would be in. I think being very clear of this was also smart because it really let the audience feel the unknown that comes along with being in the dark at night, opening the grand gates into the gothic.

Another gothic element that the author used that really drew me in was the bigger theme of death and madness. The madness of Frankenstein even thinking that he could meddle with human anatomy and conjure up life from death in this way, is enough to hook me in. Especially during that time period it was set in, something like that made it all the more primal and evil. The way she writes about how curious the scientist is about resurrecting life from death draws us in even more. Maybe because as an audience we really are curious as well, but would never actually amount the courage to dance with the devil in such a way, that seeing it happen in a story like this, with a curious scientist mad enough to think about it, mad enough to do it, brings us in touch with our dark side for just a moment making it all that much more insane altogether.