parenting he received as "a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment."  Again, this is a highly romanticized way of looking back on his childhood.  His description of Elizabeth as a child is that she was "heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features."  Metaphorically speaking, Elizabeth is an angel, not a foundling abandoned by two sets of parents. Victor Frankenstein seems incapable of relating objective facts, which calls into question early his reliability as a narrator. His tendency toward overstatement is an integral part of hischaracterization. 

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a Romantic-Gothic text. The language of the text is eloquent and beautiful. As part of the vivid images provided by Shelley in the text, she also includes numerous literary/rhetorical devices. 

Although typically found in poetry, alliteration can be found in the text. Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound (again, typically within a line of poetry). For example, Big brown bear batted at biting black beavers. The repetition of the "b" sound is alliteration.  "From a flourishing state, fell," from chapter one (paragraph two) is alliteration.

 He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind.

In the above quote appears a simile. (A simile is a comparison between two typically dissimilar things using "like" or "as.") In this sentence, Victor (actually Walton) is retelling about how Victor's father sheltered Victor's mother--as if she were an exotic flower needing protection. Therefore, the sentence compares Caroline Frankenstein to an exotic flower. 

The sentence also contains a metaphor. (A metaphor is a comparison between two typically dissimilar things, not using "like" or "as.") Victor's father wished to shelter Caroline from "every rougher wind." Rougher wind refers to any challenges she may face in life. Victor's father thought that Caroline had already lived a trouble-filled life and needs to face no more strife. Therefore, the metaphor exists in the comparison between trouble and rough winds. 

1. Consonance: Consonance refers to any kind of sound similarity among a set of words. In the following lines, we can trace a multitude of "s" sounds, some at the beginnings of words, some at ends. The line describes Elizabeth: "Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in my study . . . but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness." Elizabeth is described as gentle, even as a "spirit" and the soft repetition of the sibilant "s" seems to translate, into sound, her almost ethereal being.

2. Simile: Victor compares the "birth of that passion which afterward ruled [his] destiny" to being "like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all [his] hopes and joys." Here, Victor's simile makes it seem as though he is carried along, powerlessly, by some force outside of and greater than himself. In reality, he had the power to stop his pursuit of this passion; it ruled him because he allowed it to. This is one way in which Victor's language shields his own responsibility in the creation of this monster.

3. Allusion: Victor describes the powers of ancient scientists as "chimerical" when compared to the more realistic promises made by modern science. The word chimerical is, itself, an allusion to the Chimera of Greek mythology. This fantastical creature was part lion, part goat, and part snake, and it was slain by the hero, Bellerophon. Such a creature is now understood to be purely fictional, just as Victor came to understand that the promises made by people like Cornelius Agrippa were just as unlikely to be true.

4. Personification: Victor personifies Nature when he says that "her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery." Some readers choose to analyze the text's lack of major female characters as well as the fact that Victor usurps the ability to create life, an ability usually connected with women. Perhaps his personification of nature as a woman plays a role in this usurpation. Even his word choice in the description of "men who had penetrated deeper" into nature than he had seems to lend itself to a feminist analysis.

5. Metaphor: Victor also compares nature to a "citadel." It is as though nature is a fortress whose walls he must breach before he can discover "her" secrets.

Mary Shelley uses many different literary devices in her novel Frankenstein. The following are textual examples of the literary terms are descriptions of their use and effect on the reader.

1. "Harmony was the soul of our companionship." Metaphor usage- Here, Shelley compares the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth to one of harmony. A reader knows what something is when it harmonious. Therefore, one is able to understand the level of love between Victor and Elizabeth based upon the comparison to harmony.

2. "The silence of winter."- Personification usage- Here, winter is personified by being allotted the ability to be silent. Some my look at this as a descriptive trait (how winter is quiet), but one could just as easily look at the silence of winter as describing a trait in regards to make a choice to be silent.Here, a reader can relate to how winter sounds and contemplate the idea of silence.

3. "Satisfied spirit."- Personification usage- A spirit, one which inhabits a person (not one which exists supernaturally), is given the ability to be satisfied. This allows the reader to see how at ease Victor is with Elizabeth. This illustrates the complete ease at which Elizabeth lives.

4. "Satisfied spirit"- Alliteration usage. Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound within a line. Here, the use of the repetitious "s" provides a sense of ease and calm for the reader. Again, Shelley is simply wanting the reader to see the importance of Elizabeth to Victor.

5. "Saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine."- Alliteration usage. Again, the use of alliteration shows the feelings of love Victor has for Elizabeth. It allows the reader to feel the softness of the emotions depicted by usage of the soft "s."

6. "Misfortune had tainted my mind."- Personification usage. Here, misfortune is personified. It allows the reader to see the effect which misfortune has over Victor. It also foreshadows an eminent tainting of Victor's mind.

Victor employs a series of anecdotes to outline his relationship with Elizabeth, the circumstances of his leaving for Ingolstadt, and his impressions of M. Krempe and other mentors in his studies.

He uses a metaphor to describe Elizabeth's efforts to cheer up the family in the wake of their mother's death, recalling "the sunshine of her smiles."

Victor's lengthy descriptions of his studies and attitudes toward philosophy and science are Shelley's method of characterization. By outlining what he accepts and what he rejects, she lays the groundwork for understanding the compulsions that led to his creation of the creature.

In the conversations that Victor has with his professors, Shelley includes allusions to the work of Agrippa and Paracelsus to help readers understand the roots of Victor's curiosity.

The chapter ends with foreshadowing of Victor's scientific career with the words:

Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.

Victor discusses what it felt like to think so intensely on the same subject for an extended period of time.  He says that in "the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon [him] -- a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simply, that [he] became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated [...]."  Light has often been connected to knowledge in the novel, and thus it functions as a symbol.  Victor describes an intellectual breakthrough as though it were a light pouring over him.  Importantly, though, light can be both life-giving as well as dangerous, just as knowledge can be.

The motif of knowledge returns again in the chapter when Victor tells Captain Walton to "Learn from [him] [...] how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world [...]."  A motif is a recurring symbol that is often connected to theme.  Certainly one theme of this novel is that knowledge can be both a positive force as well as a destructive one.  The light motif is furthered by Victor's assertion that, with his knowledge, he will "pour a torrent of light into [their] dark world."  He believes that he will be able to render humans invulnerable to disease with his discoveries. 

Victor also employs a metaphor when he says that his "eyes swim with the remembrance" of what he thought at the time.  His eyes, of course, don't really swim, but he is describing the tears produced by remembering how naive he was, back before he created a monster (literally).  There are so many tears now, that he compares the quantity of water to a deep pool or a flood.  In other words, he feels great remorse in this moment.

As he worked on his experiment, Victor says that his "eyes were insensible to the charms of nature."  This is an example of metonymy; he does not mean that he literally could not see nature's beauty but that he couldn't recognize it or its value.  Metonymy is the use of a detail associated with something for the thing itself.  In this case, his eyes and his physical sight stand in for his mind, his figurative ability to see truth, or to see what's important.

Victor also uses allusions when he refers to the histories of various countries in the world (Greece, America, Peru, etc.) and the ethical failures of people who failed to realize that we should not apply ourselves to pursuits that "[have] a tendency to weaken [our] affections, and to destroy [our] taste for [...] simple pleasures [...]."

Chapter 6 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein uses the stylistic device of epistolary technique. The literary devices that Shelley employs include metaphor, allusion, and personification.

The epistolary technique is the inclusion of letters, which may serve to advance the plot or offer insights into the characters. The first part of the chapter includes a letter from Victor’s cousin Elizabeth Lavenza. She provides information about activities that have been occurring back home in his absence, as well as communicating her own affection for her cousin. Shelley uses this technique throughout the novel. In fact, the entire novel is an epistolary one, as the frame narrative of the entire text is Walton's letters.

Allusion is reference to something not directly involved in the text. It may be a historical event, another literary work, or a person. In her letter, Elizabeth reminds Victor about the effect that Justine Moritz once had on him. If he was in a bad mood,

one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica—she looked so frank-hearted and happy.

Elizabeth is alluding to Ludovico Ariosto’s poem “Orlando Furioso.” The character of Angelica was a pure, dazzlingly beautiful woman.

Personification is the attribution of human characteristics to inanimate things, abstract concepts, or body parts. By stating that young William has “sweet laughing blue eyes,” Elizabeth means that his cheerful disposition is evident in his eyes.

A literary device that is used several times in the chapter is metaphor, the direct comparison of unlike things for effect. Victor writes that the teacher Waldman “inflicted torture when he praised” Victor’s scientific skills. Torture refers to the emotional pain he caused Victor.

A more complicated metaphor appears in Victor’s description of the positive ways the orientalist writers affect him. He compares life to a sun, a flower garden, a person’s expressions, and passion.

When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses—in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart.

A tour de force for Mary Shelley, the fictional masterpiece of Frankenstein demonstrates several literary devices in its narrative:

Chapter 7 

• Epistolary style - At the beginning of the chapter, Victor's father writes to him of the death of his little brother William. In the letter, as in the letters of Walton to his sister, the character of Mr. Frankenstein is revealed.
• The Role of Friendship - During the Romantic period, friendship between two men was perceived as the purest form of love since it was strictly a spiritual love. Later, Shelley describes the friendship between Elizabeth and Justine, one, too, that does not exactly fit traditional female relationships.
• The Romantic sympathy with Nature - For the Romantics, Nature provided solace and beauty. Victor narrates,

I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of mind. I contemplated the lake: the water were placid; all around was calm; and the snowy mountains, "the palaces of nature," were not changed. By degrees the calm and heavenly scene restored me....I wept like a child. "Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer?"

• Foreshadowing - At the same time that Victor feels the restorative powers of Nature, night closes around him and he feel gloomier. "The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil." This remark foreshadows what, in retrospect, Victor terms, "the anguish I was destined to endure."
• Figurative language - Throughout Shelley employs beautiful imagery in the passages about nature or when describing someone: 

While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific....This noble war in the sky [metaphor for the storm] elevated my spirits....

[Victor's creature] ...the living monument of presumption and rash [metaphor] ignorance which I had let loose upon the world"

• Doppelganger - Victor and his creature are merely two sides of the same man as both engage in the Lockean theory that education determines a person's value in society. In Chapter 7, both are searching for their fathers.

Chapter 15

• Epistolary style - While the creature does not write to Victor, he, nevertheless, tells of his life in a style in which he addresses Victor.
• Biblical allusions - The narrative of what has become of the creature parallels Adam and sometimes Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost. For instance, he tells Victor,

Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence....no Eve soothed my sorrows, nor shared [alliteration with /s/] my thoughts; I was alone.  I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine?

Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors the bitter gall of envy [metaphor] rose within me.

• Imagery (visual) -  [and alliteration] One day when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground,...

Mary Shelley uses many literary devices in Frankenstein. In chapters 18 and 19, literary devices include alliteration, allusion, anaphora, apostrophe, hyperbole, and rhetorical question.

Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonants. When Victor’s friend Henry Clerval is describing impressive scenery, he uses alliteration with the W sound: “when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water.”

Allusion is an indirect or vague reference to historical events, real people, or fictional characters. Within his descriptions of his visit to England, Victor both directly refers to historical events, such as the Spanish armada, and alludes to events with which readers would probably be familiar, such as the overthrow and murder of King Charles I.

The whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of parliament and liberty.

Similarly, as they wander through Oxford, Victor alludes to another incident from that era, featuring an opponent of the king.

We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden, and the field on which that patriot fell.

Anaphora is the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases. This device creates unity and may stir emotion. Clerval uses anaphora in his long speech about the scenery. He begins with “I have seen” and repeats this twice, varying it with “I have visited.” The length of the speech and the repetition lead to the point he is making, which is to accentuate his strong preference for where they are now, in Switzerland.

“I have seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri ... I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest ... I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud: but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders.”

Apostrophe is direct second-person address to another person, often one who is absent, an object, or an abstract idea. As Victor reflects on his journey through Switzerland with Clerval, he addresses his absent friend.

Clerval! beloved friend! even now it delights me to record your words.

Victor uses apostrophe again in speaking to Clerval.

Your form so divinely wrought ... but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend.

Hyperbole is extreme exaggeration for effect. Victor uses hyperbole when he thinks about the disadvantages of using his family home while making the creature’s mate. He exaggerates the number of possible disasters.

I knew that a thousand fearful accidents might occur.

Another example of Victor using a “thousand” in this way occurs regarding the numerous emotions that Elizabeth feels when he departs for England.

A thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful silent farewell.

After he reaches England, he waits for letters from home, using the same hyperbolic quantity.

I was miserable, and overcome by a thousand fears.

A rhetorical question is one to which the answer is already known or predetermined. When Victor wonders what happened to Clerval’s essence, he asks:

And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost forever?

Like many Romantic writers, Mary Shelley employs dramatic settings to convey the emotion of her narrative.  When Victor Frankenstein leaves his friend Henry Clerval to go to "a miserable hut" on a Scottish island, Shelley places her character is a remote, exotic setting, one which conveys the mood of his psychological isolation from humanity.  The island, with its scraggy vegetation and rocky ground, "beaten upon by waves" parallels the emotional pain and misery that Victor feels.  This barren island can well be symbolic of Victor who has deserted his friend Henry and abandoned William and Justine to fate without defending their names with the truth.

In addition, Shelley uses metaphors to convey the emotional state of Victor. For instance, he describes himself symbolically as "a blasted tree;" and continues metaphorically, "... the bolt has entered by soul."  This figurative language reminds the reader of the creation of the creature when the electricity of the storm gave him life.  Now, in contrast, Victor is emotionally dying as a "blight had come over [his] existence" (metaphor) and he feels isolated from the warmth of humanity.

an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow-men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine....

The use of symbolism and metaphor, as well as dramatic settings, serves Shelley well to demonstrate the terrible isolation and emotional disturbances of Victor Frankenstein.  She also employs the doppelganger effect with the creature becoming as isolated as Victor when Victor destroys the female creature, just as his friend Henry, too, has been destroyed by death.