The Gothic Novel: “How dare you sport thus with life?” Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Honors English4/Peters
Unit learning goals:
1. To define the purpose and stylistic elements of a gothic novel.
2. To identify how Shelley’s novel serves as a response to the concerns of the Enlightenment.
3. To contrast how Shelley’s novel depicts nature as both the “sublime” and the “destructor” in order to create tone.
4. To analyze the role of the Byronic hero in the novel’s characterization.
5. To identify the role of the novel’s literary allusions to Prometheus, Paradise Lost, The Sorrows of Werter and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Unit-based vocabulary:
1. Gothic novel
2. Frame story
3. Byronic hero
4. Paradise Lost
5. The Sorrows of Werter
6. Prometheus
7. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
8. The “Sublime”
9. Editorial
Text-based vocabulary:
1. Salubrious
2. Dirge
3. Ignominious
4. Exculpated
5. Approbation
6. Guile
7. Obdurate
8. Perdition
9. Efface
10. Ephemeral
11. Impetuous
12. Impervious
13. Exhortations
14. Cadence
15. Squalid
16. Expostulate
17. Sagacity
18. Dilatory
19. Machinations
20. Acquiesced
21. Sedulous
22. Indolence
23. Languid
24. Tumult
25. Provocation
26. Consternation
27. Succor
28. Recompense
29. Sanguinary
30. Precarious
31. Torpor
32. Imperious
33. Vivacity
34. Fraught
35. Opprobrium
36. Conflagration
Supplemental vocabulary:
Rhetorical devices (ethos/pathos/logos)
· Tricolon
· Hypophora
· Anaphora
· Antistrophe
· Epizeuxis
· Asyndeton
· Polysyndeton
· Anadiplosis
· Chiasmus
· Distinctio
· Zeugma
Fictional reading selections:
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Non-fictional reading selections:
Bruni, Frank. “The Vaccine Lunacy: Disneyland, Measles and Madness.” The NY Times, 31 January 2015.
Baum, Gary. “Hollywood’s Vaccine Wars: L.A.’s ‘Entitled’ West Siders Behind City’s Epidemic.”
The Hollywood Reporter, 10 September 2014.
Film selections:
Frankenstein, (short clip, 1931 Boris Korloff version)
The Bride of Frankenstein, (short clip, 1935 Boris Korloff version)
Art/music selections:
Illustrations: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gustav Dore
Wanderer Above The Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich
1. How are Victor and Elizabeth different?
2. How are Victor and Henry Clerval different?
3. What singular goal does Victor want to accomplish in life?
4. Who is Agrippa, and why does Victor’s father call him, “sad trash”?
1. At Ingolstadt, what task does Victor secretly begin? Describe his feelings as he goes about his task.
1. After William’s death, why does Victor decide to remain silent about his monster?
2. Why does Victor not try to clear Justine’s name?
3. Do you think Victor is as guilty as he feels he is? Why or why not?
4. After Justine is put to death, what keeps Victor from killing himself? Why does he retreat to the Alps?
5. When the Creature finally locates Victor, what does he mean when he states, “How dare you sport thus with life?”?
6. With what does the Creature threaten Victor?
Chapters 11 - 16
Vocabulary:
Questions for analysis:
1. How does the Creature respond to fire?
2. Why does Victor not try to clear Justine’s name?
3. Do you think Victor is as guilty as he feels he is? Why or why not?
4. Overall, what is the Creature’s reaction to the cottagers?
5. What is the Creature’s reaction to the poem, Paradise Lost? Accordingly, how is the Creature both like and dissimilar to Adam?
6. What happens to the Creature after he saves the drowning girl?
7. Why does the Creature kill William?
8. What does the Creature say Frankenstein must do?
Questions for analysis:
1. Why does the Creature think he will be happy with a female like himself? Do you agree? Why or why not?
2. Why does Victor not want to marry Elizabeth right away?
3. Why does Victor decide to go to England? How does he feel about Henry going with him?
4. Contrast Henry and Victor as they travel through the British Isles.
5. How is Henry a Romantic?
6. What are the four reasons why Victor changes his mind about creating a companion for the Creature?
7. What is the meaning of the foreshadowing statement, “I shall be with you on your wedding night”?
Chapters 21 - end
Vocabulary:
Questions for analysis:
1. Who has been murdered, and why is Victor accused?
2. Why does Victor want to return home after being institutionalized? How has his mental condition deteriorated?
3. Why does Victor feel he can’t be with people?
4. Why does Victor decide to marry Elizabeth immediately?
5. On his honeymoon, what precautions has Victor taken?
6. When Victor confesses to the magistrate, he says in anger, “How ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!” What is the irony in this statement?
7. Where does Victor meet the Creature again, and why does the Creature say he is satisfied?
8. How does the Creature further torture Victor?
9. What does Victor ask of Walton?
10. In his great despair, what is the only consolation that Victor gets?
11. Explain Victor’s statement, “When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors…All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.”
12. What advice does Victor give Walton?
13. Is the justification the Creature offers for his actions adequate? What is his final plan?