Victor Frankensteins Point Of View example essay topic

In What Ways Do Stephenson, Shelley And Banks Engage The Reader In The Incredible And Fantastic Narr All three of these novels are either all or partly written in the first-person. They seem to be about the evils of humans, and they are meant to make you think. They do this by using a Gothic sort of scene for the novels to be set in. All of the stories attitudes to human nature are about how even the most respectable and good and honest people (Dr. Jekyll & Victor Frankenstein) can have a totally evil side. The Wasp Factory shows how an otherwise normal person can be lured into evil practices.

This is also somewhat true in Frankenstein when Frankensteins creation starts to kill people after his father Victor Frankenstein does not love him. All of the chapters up until Dr Lanyons narrative are in the third person, from the authors point of view. The last 2 chapters are Henry Jekylls full statement of the case, and Dr. Lanyons narrative. This is quite an effective way of setting out the novel, as the reader is told the story in third person narrative first so that you know the whole story. Then in the last two chapters to add that bit of realism, are written in the first person form. This makes the reader believe that the person who is writing is actually the character, writing the truth according to him.

To make it seem even more realistic, Dr. Lanyons is supposed to have received a letter from Dr. Jekyll. To make sure that the reader knows that it is a novel, but seems real, the date on the letter is 18 something. This means that no one can relate to the exact year. This method of not putting the date in is also used at the start of Dr. Jekylls narrative: I was born in the year 18 to a large fortune.

In comparison Frankenstein is written totally in a series of first perso narratives. It is not just written from Victor Frankensteins point of view though. The central chapter is written from the monsters point of view, but the rest of the novel is written as a series of letters from a person called Robert Walton. Robert Walton is an explorer trying to find the Northwest Passage. He keeps writing home to his sister, telling her of how he is doing. This is where Victor Frankenstein first comes to light (Mr. Walton chasing a large figure, each on Husky powered sleds, spots him in the distance).

He climbs aboard the ship, which is stuck in ice, and tells his story. We hear it in Mr. Waltons letters back to his sister. The central narrative told from the monsters point of view helps to contrast the very bias and hateful view of Victor Frankenstein. These are two novels written and set in the nineteenth centuries. The third novel, The Wasp Factory is set in modern day rural Scotland. It is about a child called Frank and his abnormal, sadistic rituals.

It is written entirely from his bizarre point of view. The writer seems to have related it to Frankenstein, by calling the main character Frank. This is because Franks problems are perhaps because of his fathers lack of input during his upbringing. This is the same reason that the monster in Frankenstein kills people. The whole setting in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is very gothic, it is all set in London, when the London smogs where happening. This causes a very grey, depressing scene.

Most of the sub-stories are set at night time, so it is even harder to see in front of you, making it easy for people to appear to vanish into the night. Whenever Mr. H strikes, there seems to be nobody about on the streets, making it scarier to go out on your own because there is no one to witness any trouble that you may fall into or to help you. As well as the fact that although you maybe only meters away from a house in the middle of the biggest city in England, you are made to feel isolated because of the lack of visibility. This novel was brought out at a time when Jack the ripper was still in peoples minds, giving the readers more sense of it being true. Dr. J is known for not being too extrovert, and is a bit of a recluse. This loneliness adds to the gothic and chilling of the novel.

The loneliness and isolation create a sense of no one to turn to. If they he was a socialite and everyone knew him then it would seem less personal and maybe more comforting. Mr. H stays in a bedsit, which is filled with people who are a bit shifty and maybe slightly gothic. Frankenstein is also a gothic novel. When V.F. is creating his monster he locks himself in his workshop, which Mary Shelly calls a filthy workshop of creation. He also goes around a lot of graveyards and mortuaries on his own, at night, which creates quite a gothic feeling.

The whole workshop is very gothic when he first creates his monster, as he is created totally on his own when this baby-like monster is created. The whole way that the monster is talked of, as a giant brutish evil, is quite gothic, especially when he shows himself in public, and he is chased away into the country. The monsters story is set in a dark forest, where he is on his own apart from the family living next door. When he meets V.F., they are isolated on the glacier there is no one about to be comforting.

This sense of isolation of characters is the same as Dr. J and Mr. H. The Wasp Factory also has a gothic setting, but it is a funny gothic, as there are certain parts that are light hearted at the same time. Frank is on his own for most of the time frame of the novel and very rarely leaves the island. This is because, as he says, he feels ill because he is leaving the factory. The whole lonely isolated setting of the house also increases the gothic setting.

Franks strange habit of killing many animals to put at his sacrificial poles is quite gothic, as it gives a strong sense of death. As his brothers calls seem to get closer and closer, the general feeling around the island gets more gothic. On the day that Eric does arrive, Iain Banks goes into great detail about how the day was overcast and humid, a daytime gothic setting. All the descriptions of the weather seem to describe it getting darker and darker.

Then when his brother strikes at night he sends lots of burning sheep, all screaming, which makes it more gothic. This is because when you are alone in the dark you have no way of telling what is around you, because your main sense, sight cannot be used, so you are prone to surprise and shock. Because of the nature of the novel you, know that something like this is going to happen, which builds suspense. Stephenson tries to tell us that everyone has an evil side in them and it cannot be got rid of, it just must be controlled.

His example, Dr. Jekyll, is a respected doctor, who is reasonably well off and well associated. But when he starts to experiment with a potion it reveals all of his repressed evils that lurk in his subconscious. Throughout the novel he seems to be suggesting that although evil is a bad thing it cannot by eliminated from anybody and by simply repressing it, it may erupt violently. In the case of Mr. Hyde who is the channel for Dr. Jekylls evil, there is quite an old fashioned representation of evil that is not really as relevant today as it was when it was written. Although not that relevant today, the underlying moral of accepting evil and not experimenting or playing with it, it is timeless and will always have meaning.

Mr. Hyde was thought of as evil when the novel was written because he was physically ugly and had no apparent compassion. This is still considered nasty, but not as evil as it was intended when the novel was written. Mary Shelley is using V.F. and his creation as examples of evil. The main character of evil is Frankenstein because he creates and then rejects his creation.

The novel was also written at a time when physical appearance was of paramount importance and freaks like Frankensteins creation, were obviously thought of badly by God and therefore given ugly features. Mary Shelley tries to use this and reflect it back to the society of the time, by saying that it was too preoccupied by the physical features of people and that it tended to ignore inner features. The creation says that he was born benevolent, which is probably true but because of Frankensteins lack of attention and disgust for its physical ugliness, he has twisted and warped into a bitter person, who hates the society that rejects him. The fact is though that Frankensteins creation remains evil despite the fact that it is not his fault. He does kill Frankensteins wife who is not connected in any way to his rejection, and she is only killed for revenge. The fact that Frankenstein presses on and does create his creation is a warning to us not to let our ambition cloud our moral judgement or not to realise the true consequences of our actions when dealing with lives.

Frank from The Wasp Factory seems to be modelled on Frankensteins monster in that he is not necessarily born evil but is made evil by his guardian, his dad. His name Frank is similar to Frankenstein. His dad has not brought him up properly and mainly only taught him about facts of science, and only philosophies that he believes to be true. Because Frank has never been around any other children he is never able to learn about life from more than one persons view and therefore has a very biased view.

Franks father has never taught him that animals should be treated in the same way as humans. His father has caused his problems because he has never treated Frank like a human being but only as a subject to be experimented on and used to test out thoughts. For example there is the whole test of how long Frank would live without realising that he is in fact a woman who is being fed male hormones. Once again her creator, her father, is the evil one for not respecting and treating his daughter as another human being.