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Gothic as Portrayed in Frankenstein

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The term 'gothic' has many different forms. The most important and original form is architecture during the medieval period. It starts out with the great cathedral, Saint-Denis, of Paris. Then the Westminster Abbey of London was built. These are characterized by their pointed arches and flying buttresses. Gothicism also came in the form of art. Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry, by the Limburg brothers, showed elegance through statements in the best known way of gothic art. This popular style of art is called manuscript illuminations. Manuscript illuminations are text followed by decoration, usually gold. During the mid-18th century, literature took a new step having the first gothic novel, "The Castle of Otranto," first published in 1764. This novel was combined with a horror and mystery genre (Martindale).
Gothicism began to be apart of churches by having stained glass windows and pictures of biblical people. The style of nudity from Adam and Eve was also portrayed to be gothic. As Gothicism grew it rose to the 1980's and started a movement called punk, and later related to Fantasy Art. It then, in the 1990s, blossomed to what is called Neo-Gothic Art. It is inspired by Charles Alexander Moffat and is a period when the people wanted to express themselves as more than normal in a number of ways. A person of example would be Marilyn Manson, whose personal style and music is characterized as being "dark" and "mysterious" (Folkenroth).
Characteristics of gothic novels have scenes and settings where the character feels threatened, or has an overabundance of emotions, such as, anger, sorrow, surprise, and terror. We see examples of these in the novel "Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley. The monster feels sorrow and isolated and is angry when he thinks he has no purpose in the world he exclaims, "Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that ... instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery (Shelley)."
Another example of gothic novels would be the creation of supernatural or inexplicable events, such as ghost and giants. But, in this case it is when Victor Frankenstein first created the monster out of dead body parts, and the monster came to life. Visions and omens are closely related to gothic novel because of they symbolize and foreshadowing behind the dreams. In Frankenstein Victor explains to us his dream, "I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the graveworms crawling in the folds of the flannel." This is foreshadowing in Elizabeth’s future. Who is a very close character to Victor Frankenstein. As the book goes along we find that Elizabeth is murdered by the monster on her and Victors wedding night.
Word choice and vocabulary can set the mood of gothic novels. Such words as concern, despair, astonished, anger, rage, and giant are typically wrote in gothic novels. These words describe different types of gothic novels. The different types of gothic novels are mystery, fear, terror and sorrow, surprise, haste, anger, and largeness. Which are all shown in Frankenstein (Harris).
Another common characteristic portrayed in Frankenstein is the metonymy of gloom and horror. This is shown by a metaphor that resembles something else. For instance when it rains in a novel it could relate to a deeper meaning like sorrow. This relates to Frankenstein in multiple ways. For example every time it storms in Frankenstein it has a deeper meaning than just storming. It usually symbolizes a horrible tragedy about to take place. “”. Another example would be when Victor Frankenstein tells us about his childhood days of springtime and how the flowers and atmosphere would take him to a ________ place (Harris).

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