Intertextuality in Frankenstein

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1. Walton, like the wedding guest, is accosted by a mentally unstable stranger who forces him to listen to his cautionary tale. Polar regions are significant in both tales and both tale tellers live in fear of their actions

2. The Mariner's ship, like Walton's, becomes dangerously entrapped in the ice, and the mariner himself, like Frankenstein, becomes an outcast because he shoots down an albatross which has followed the ship and is said to be an omen of good luck. As punishment for his actions, the Mariner is forced to wear the albatross around his neck

3. Death visits the ship, taking the Mariner's companions one by one, as Victor's family circle is removed by the Creature

4. The Mariner cannot pray - a characteristic he shares with Victor - but at last, unlike Victor, he is able to thank God and is released from his burden

5. The becalmed ship is now able to move again and sails clear, as Walton is able to do once Frankenstein has died, and returns home

6. The Mariner, like Frankenstein, is tormented by his experiences, which he is compelled to tell. This tale has an impact on the wedding guest who returns to the feat "a sadder and wiser man". The influence of Frankenstein's tale on Walton is less clear.

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Paradise Lost by John Milton

Paradise Lost is referred to throughout Frankenstein to show the misery of going against the Creator.

1. When the Creature first looks upon his reflection in a pool of water, this is a direct reference to Paradise Lost when Eve looks into the lake and sees her reflection.

However their reactions are quite different

Eve: Is fascinated by her beauty

The Creature: Is appalled by his hideous appearance

2. By creating life using artificial method Victor is seen as aspiring to the role of God himself - the same proud aspiration that brings about the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost

"I had gazed upon the fortifications... that seemed to keep human beings from entering the atadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I refused"

"It was the secrets of Heaven and Earth that I desired"

"Banish disease from the human frame"

"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds"

3. Like Milton's Satan, Victor remains a captivating figure. The novel should not be read as completely condemnatory of Victor. Victor's aspirations are disastrous but they set him apart from the mass of humanity.

"Learn from me"

The Creature describes Victor as a great man "My creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men to misery"

What is the significance of the frequent references to Milton's Paradise Lost in Frankenstein??

1. The Creature finds a copy of Paradise Lost and when he first speaks to Victor he uses Miller's language "Remember that I am thy creature"

2. Shelley uses a quotation from PL as an epigraphy: "Did I request thee maker from my clay to mould the man? Did I solicite thee from darkness to create me?"

3. Victor as creator of life, resembles God and the Creature is an ugly version of Adam

:"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds which I should first break"

:" It became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived"

:" A new species would bless me as its creator and source"

:" The benefactor of a new species"

:" Hideous guest"

:" Monster"

3. Consider the parody of Eve's first sight of her beauty in PL with the Creature's first sight of his ugliness

4. PL provides a literary background against which we should see Frankenstein - We are invited to compare him to Satan in PL

5. Comparison arises with the role of Satan

:" Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends in his desolation. I am alone"

6. When the Creature kills William he claims to have been transformed from Adam into Satan

7. Victor is guilty of a crime against an innocent. His creation punishes him for his neglect to the extent that he is plunged into agonies which he describes in terms of the suffering of the Devil in Hell

:" I bore a Hell within me"

:" I carried with me an eternal Hell"

:" My face expressive of suffering"

:" Putting me to a slow and cruel death"

:" I wandered like an evil spirit"

:" The end of my labours and the beginning of my misery"

8. Victor's neglect of the Creature places the Creature in a personal Hell

:" I bore a hell within me"

:" Later I considered Satan the fitter emblem of my condition"