Frankenstein Group

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xkimberlyx0x
xkimberlyx0x
Student
High School - 12th Grade

What are the year, country, and specific location at the beginning of Frankenstein, and what characters are introduced at the beginning?

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Posted by xkimberlyx0x on Monday October 26, 2009 at 7:40 PM and tagged with frankenstein, setting and characters.

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  1. scarletpimpernel Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Frankenstein's opening is confusing to many readers because most of the novel is told in flashback, and the beginning starts with a seemingly unrelated character and time.

    Shelley chooses to use letters for the exposition of her novel to introduce the setting and major characters. While readers don't know the exact year, Shelley does list "17--" as the century; this is a common stylistic technique by Romantic Gothic writers (Poe often includes just the century).  In regards to the place setting, Robert Walton's first letter is written from St. Petersburg, Russia, to his sister Margaret Saville.  His following letters represent his journey to the Arctic because they are sent from Archangel (near Siberia) and then the Arctic, where Walton's ship becomes entrapped in ice.

    The main character for the letters is, of course, the writer Robert Walton.  In his last letter from the book's beginning, he writes of a mysteriously ill man whom he and the crew have taken aboard the ship.  Readers discover in the first chapter that that man is Victor Frankenstein.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/frankenstein/style
    http://www.enotes.com/frankenstein/volume-1-letters-1-4-s...

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    Posted by scarletpimpernel on Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM