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‘as with Many Gothic Texts, Frankenstein Challenges Set Oppositions.’ Discuss This Statement in Light of the Novel.

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‘As with many Gothic Texts, Frankenstein challenges set oppositions.’ Discuss this statement in light of the novel. In Gothic texts, a common theme is for the authors to write about oppositions. It is often the case that oppositions are challenged in books from this particular genre, such as the opposition of rational and irrational and civilised and primitive. This is shown, for example, in the book ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ by Robert Louis Stevenson, where the characters of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde can be seen as parts of the same person. This is further shown in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ where oppositions are explored such as good and evil, human and monster and life and death. In particular, the novel Frankenstein is concentrated on exploring the opposition between the monstrous and human.

Shelley challenges the opposition between the monstrous and human through her main protagonists: Victor Frankenstein and the Monster. Victor defines the creature as monstrous from the start, purely on the basis of his physical appearance. ‘His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.’ In this quote, Victor describes the monsters appearance and portrays just how horrid his creation looks to him. The monster having ‘yellow skin’, ‘watery eyes’, ‘dun-white sockets’, ‘ ‘a shrivelled complexion’ and ‘black lips’, does make the Monsters appearance seem terrifying and hideous, but the real horror seems to be the contrast between his features: ‘flowing black hair and white teeth’ juxtaposed with his ‘shrivelled face’ and ‘straight black lips.’

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