Storytelling: Fictional Narratives, Imaginary People, and the Reader's Real Life

Structure in Frankenstein

As mentioned above, students will have had exposure to epistolary narration in order to become familiar with Mary Shelley's format of Frankenstein. Once my students have familiarized themselves with the various narrators (from Walton to Victor to the Creature), the question arises: "So, who do we believe— the first person who speaks? Victor because he is an educated scientist? Walton because he begins and ends the story? Victor, even though he's a monster?" To get my students to understand the reliability of a narrator, I ask them to think of times in their lives when two individuals may have experienced the same event but have two very different perspectives. Sometimes they have a favorite childhood memory, but their recall is much different from that of their sibling. I briefly model for them the telephone game where I tell person X a fact, person X whispers to person Y what they heard, person Y whispers their fact to person Z, and so on. Inevitably, the original detail is distorted as the words pass through various ears and various mouths. This is the very process the students experience in Mary Shelley's novel. Through the first-person retrospective narrative, and using the epistolary form of narration via letters, Mary Shelley presents the reader with a balanced view of what could easily be a biased story.

To begin to frame the story for the students, they will need to understand what the epistolary format is and why authors use it. The epistolary format in a frame narrative allows for a narrator, typically an outsider independent of the initial action, to become a reliable representative of the author's views. The story unfolds as a series of letters in which this outside narrator relates the story he has been told by another character to a third person, in this case Walton's sister. The story actually begins at the conclusion of Victor's quest, as he is chasing the creature in this cat and mouse game. This story within a story allows the reader the luxury of seeing a moving timeline of emotional and moral development, as the Creature is allowed to take over the narration midway. Readers can judge the Creature in terms of his internal thoughts and merits rather than the external appearance. Shelley's epistolary format also allows Walton to set up, for his sister and the readers, the idea of Victor as a mad scientist whose obsession for creating life ultimately is destroyed by the very thing he created, the creature, and the very thing he maintained, his obsession. ⁴

Since the various shifts in narration allow for the reader to get differing perspectives, students are brought to the realization that there is a contrast with how Victor perceives the chain of events versus how the Creature perceives those same events. To analyze the kind of narration Victor gives is to begin with the straightforward details he offers us, seemingly leaving out any kind of emotional backdrop. For example, as a student of chemistry, Victor includes specific ideas and descriptions of what he has studied and read and done, but he leaves out the very thing as a narrator that he leaves out as a character—any emotional description. He admits to Walton that his "studies interfered with the tranquility of his domestic affections", admitting that his priorities in family emotional connection was not a priority in comparison with is pursuit of knowledge. ⁵

Through the Creature's narration, the perception of Victor's actions takes quite a different turn. His supposed marvelous deeds are now revealed as crimes as well as his unreliable judgment of the creature. Students will be asked to reread specific passages where Victor's observations can be deemed as doubtful. For example, before Victor destroys the female mate he promised the Creature, he describes looking out at the window to see the Creature looking in at him with a "ghastly grin wrinkled his lips". ⁶ It is important to ask students at this point where they feel the most connected, alongside Victor in the laboratory or alongside the Creature from the outside looking in.

Because they will have reread quite a few passages that raise doubts about Victor's credibility, students may begin to see themselves alongside the Creature. This kind of shift from the protagonist (Victor) to the antagonist (Creature) can begin to be explained through the literary term, aporia as an "ideal state of mind...as the perfect suspension of judgment that presents either complete faith or doubt." Once the Creature's narration unfolds, the reader begins to realize the contradiction that Victor has so far established. The sympathy that some students might have felt for Victor is now replaced by suspicion. ⁷ Regardless of Victor's determined rants against the Creature as "monster", "fiend", "devil", "vile insect", and even after the various crimes committed by the Creature, students may rein in their extreme hatred for the Creature, and allow some kind of understanding to color their view of the Creature. After all, the Creature's narration is dominated by his feelings and emotional journey, whereas Victor's narration is usually observational and lacking in emotion.