Frankenstein, Vol. 1 Discussion Questions

Things to Consider:

• Nature
• Science & Ambition
• Religion
• Language:  Speech, Reading, & Writing
• Roles of Men and Women
• Relationship b/w Parents & Children
• Sexuality
• Birth & Death
• Doppelgangers for Victor: Walton and the Creature
  

** Homework Questions **
Be sure to make use of any footnotes to the readings to help answer these questions.

49-50:

• Why is Walton going to the North Pole? How do his motivations compare with Victor's (see pp. 69 and 81-82)
  

68-70:

• Why isn't his father successful at first in persuading Victor to stop reading Agrippa? How does his father get him to stop?

82:

• Why does Victor refer to his laboratory as a "workshop of filthy creation" (82)?

85:

• Explain the significance of the dream Victor has on the night of his "success."

113:

• Has Justine killed William? Why does she confess?

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Other Homework Questions:
53:

• What lack does Walton feel most strongly? (see also 60).
  

62:

• Why has Victor agreed to tell his story to Walton?
  

72:

• Explain Caroline's dying wish for Victor and Elizabeth.
  

81-82:

• Explain Victor's motivation for creating the Creature.
  

104:

• Why does Victor call the creature "my own vampire, my own spirit released from the grave"(104)?   What does that mean?

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Other Discussion Questions:
53:

• Describe Walton's education.
  

55:

• Explain Walton's reference to an albatross.

67:

• What is Natural Philosophy?

67-68:

• Why does Victor get into Agrippa?

75:

• Explain Victor's statement: "I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth" (75).

79:

• Explain Victor's statement: "To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death" (79).

89-94:

• What is the nature of Victor's illness? Why does it fatigue him, even after several months recovery time, to write a letter?

96:

• What is an orientalist?

101:

• Why is Victor so anxious about returning home?

102:

• Describe the mood Shelley develops in her description of the setting of Geneva.

103:

• When Victor says, "The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact"(103), to what is he referring? What does he mean?

113:

• Why do so many people confess to the murder of William?
• 99:  Elizabeth
• 108, 115:  Victor
• 113:  Justine