Rhetorical Analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay Sample

“ Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay(Chp 4)?” Well the book Frankenstein explores the young Scientist creating a creature that is massive in height wise and weight.  This creature gets horrid reactions from people since he is yellow scary and utterly way bigger than any human.  Victor creates the creature and runs away from him hoping he leaves and when he does Victor never tries to find his creature.  The creature has to live on his own with nobody and is for a while like a child and yet has no parent-like figures.  Over time he builds resentment for Victor for creating him and abandoning him.  Frankenstein intends to hurt Victor after being rejected  and starts the journey to Geneva.  The creature ends up killing Victor's little brother William when he ends up finding out he's a Frankestein.  The creature then frames Justine and she ends up getting killed for Williams murder.  Victor believes it was the monster yet doesn’t come forth saying the people of the town wouldn’t believe his confession. At this point he is the only person that knows about his creation of the creature.  Finally the creature approaches Victor and talks to him about his story and wants him to make him a female companion.  Victor agrees to this on the account the creature goes off and never bothers humans again.  He takes Henry Clerval to Inglodstadt intending to create the female monster and this is while the creature has told him if he doesn’t bad things will happen and will be checking in on him.  Victor ends up never making the female creature so the creature kills his best friend Henry Clerval.  Later Victor is getting married to Elizabeth and the creature ends up killing her.  At this point Victor is broken and ends up dying later ultimately ending the Frankestein family with his own creation.  In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein the rhetorical devices affect the mood, show the theme and develop the characters.  The setting, irony and foreshadowing add to the story and expand on it.

   The settings help establish Victor as alone and show his feelings at the time and create conflicting feelings.   “In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion(Chapter 4).”  This quote shows Victors has disconnected from the world.  As well as it shows he doesn't like his own creation and sees it as a curse.  This setting helps develop Victor's arc as a character and start some of his key repeating ideas.  At this time Frankestein is only focused on finishing his creation and isolated from everyone and everything.  The setting also helps the reader develop empathy for the creature even with knowing what he has done.   “I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the village(Chapter 11).”  Here it shows what the creature had to go through because his creator never helped him and creates conflicting thoughts.  It creates a story where the reader doesn’t have one clear thought and helps create a place where readers disagree on the true “bad guy.”

The irony in the story makes it seem Victor to be a somewhat pathetic character.   “So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation(Chapter 3).”  Here Victor is talking about how he's gonna change the world with his creation.  Victor is confident he is gonna make a big impact on the world.  Yet as soon as he succeeds in creating his creature he runs away and doesn’t tell anyone.  The irony of him saying he's gonna change the world with his creation and then abandoning it and never making any other advances shows him being pathetic.  In the next part Victor is talking to Walton about the monster.    “Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome(Chapter 4.”  At least before Victor had been taking responsibility for the monster but now he is blaming his will to create the monster on something supernatural.  This paints him as pathetic for trying to not take responsibility for his own literal actions.

Throughout the story a lot of the events that have happened have been foreshadowed in previous events.  Eventually in the story Elizabeth and Victor get engaged and then Victor's creation kills the love of his life.  “I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. 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(Chapter 5).”  We see here that way before it happened Victor had a dream that Elizabeth would end up dead.  Throughout the book it becomes more apparent that a lot of events have come into fruition and that paying attention to all of Victors and others' thoughts is important.  It adds an unknown to the future trying to decide if the thought means anything or if it means nothing.  In this next part William has been killed and Justine innocently executed for the murder.    “Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts(Chapter 8).”  Here Victor is saying these are the only the first victims implying the creature will kill more people.  No matter when anything good is happening, foreshadowing is always there and affects the mood of the whole story.  The book never really maintains a happy mood or happy theme because the foreshadowing that a lot of time comes true is always there.  Even though towards the end of the story it seems Victor and the monster have come to an agreement Victor's words of only the first victims are still looming over the story.

Throughout Frankenstein the rhetorical devices maintain an unhappy mood and theme as well as develop characters.  Is it right to make a life some would consider not worth living and then abandoning that living life.  Throughout the story the irony created a very victim complex for Victor and showed him to be very pathetic.  While the settings created conflicting feelings for the reader and even knowing that the creature has done horrible things made the creature seem vulnerable and like a child.  Just like how Victor had found it hard to stay happy, the foreshadowing that came true a lot did the same to the reader.  The rhetorical device throughout the story creates a story that’s hard to predict for the most part and really paints no easy good guy for the reader to choose.  By the end many readers don't agree who the true monster is.