Frankenstein Group

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q09
q09
Student
High School - 12th Grade

What does Victor use to make his creature? How graphic is Mary Shelley when describing it?

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Posted by q09 on Sunday February 15, 2009 at 4:18 PM and tagged with frankenstein, mary shelley.

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  1. pippin1313
    pippin1313 Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Victor uses body parts from the dead to make his creation. Shelley is not graphic in modern terms when describing the collection of these parts:

    "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?"

    "The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation..."

    The connotations of the places Victor vists to create his "daemon" are rather horrific and would have shocked Shelley's contemporary audience. The idea of disturbing the dead is still frowned upon but for the time, the thought of it would have been utterly abhorrent.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/frankenstein

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    Posted by pippin1313 on Sunday February 15, 2009 at 4:32 PM