“Narrative is defined as a spoken or written account that connects one event to another within a story. A narrative is a report of related events presented to listeners or readers, in words arranged in a logical sequence. A story is taken as a synonym of narrative. A narrative, or story, is told by a narrator who may be a direct part of that experience, and he or she often shares the experience as a first-person narrator. Sometimes he or she may only observe the events as a third-person narrator and gives his or her summation.” 

In Frankenstein, we come across three main narratives, where Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the monster each tell us as the reader their life story that relate to one another and lead up to the events of their downfall. Each narrative told by these characters, holds the purpose of a different sequence of events where each is affected by a cause relating to one another. The narrative throughout the novel is built up from the monster’s anger towards his creator Victor, ending with Victor trying to persuade Walton to end his voyage and destroy the creation of the monster. 

Throughout the novel, each narrative creates a parallel between the other main characters linking each story together as one. Each narrative also holds the same type of problem relating to the danger of knowledge, and that is portrayed throughout each story told.  

The term Frame Narrative can be applied to Narrative, because it holds the structure of one story that is told inside another story. In Frankenstein we come across three different narratives all combined to create one story. Another related term to Narrative could be Imagery, because each narrative creates and describes their own image told throughout their story within Frankenstein.  

 

 

Works Cited: 

 

https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanfiction/narrative-technique-in-frankenstein.html#.WrmOnsaZMdU. Accessed 26 Mar. 2018 

LiteraryDevices Editors. “Metaphor” LiteraryDevices.net. 2013. Web. 4 Nov. 2014. 

Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.

The example in Frankenstein will be:

Victor Frankenstein says, “No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success,” “Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through…. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me” (Shelley 51).

It shows that Victor Frankenstein is a romantic character. He reflected the romantic writers’ emphasis on a new way of seeing.

The terms related to Romanticism are Sublime and Supernatural

 

References:

1. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Romanticism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Dec. 2017, www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism.
2. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein(1831) Dover Publication, 1994.

Narrative is a report of related events presented to listeners or readers, in words arranged in a logical sequence. A story is taken as a synonym of narrative. A narrative, or story, is told by a narrator who may be a direct part of that experience, and he or she often shares the experience as a first-person narrator. Sometimes he or she may only observe the events as a third-person narrator, and gives his or her summation.

 

The example in Frankenstein is that Mary Shelley used a series of first-person narratives instead of using a single perspective. The first narrator was Robert Walton, then Victor Frankenstein and the monster. This is an efficient way for Shelley to present her story because this narrative strategy permits Shelley to express and efface herself at the same time. For us as readers, we not only can examine Frankenstein’s desire and pain but the monster’s agony.

Narrative also related to Narrator and Epistolary.

 

References

“Narrative – Examples and Definition of Narrative.” Literary Devices, 16 Jan. 2018, literarydevices.net/narrative/.

 

Symbolism

 

Symbolism is defined by “expressing the intangible and invisible means by means of visible and sensuous representations.” In modern literature there are countless examples of symbolism as writers are inspired to express many ideas rather than one. Futhermore, readers are encouraged to practice ambiguity when they discover symbolic interpretations. Basic things such as color can contain symbolic meaning such as Red for death, danger, and panic whilst Green represents wealth, nourishment, and pleasure. Thus narrative’s consist wholly of symbols, motifs, and underlying themes.

 

We see examples of symbolism in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

 

Milton uses “Brightness and Light” in symbolic representations of God in his epic poem.

 

“If thou beest he; But O how fall’n! how chang’d

From him, who in the happy Realms of Light [ 85 ]

Cloth’d with transcendent brightness didst out-shine

Myriads though bright: If he Whom mutual league,

United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the Glorious Enterprize,

Joynd with me once, now misery hath joynd [ 90 ]

In equal ruin: into what Pit thou seest

From what highth fall’n, so much the stronger prov’d

He with his Thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire Arms? yet not for those”

 

References:

https://www.britannica.com/art/Symbolism-literary-and-artistic-movement

Sublime 

Sublime refers to the beautiful, excellence, and awe. When we see the “sublime” we immediately realize that we are engulfed by a emotional and physical sensation caused by the environment or certain experience. To many travelers we experience the sublime often just by interacting with foreigners and immersing ourselves in different cultures. When we experience sublime moments they might spark an allusion to a positive memory or an earlier expedition .Getting off the beaten path is an achievable path so long we truly seek it and are prepared for the consequences. Travel literature written by Wollstonecraft includes several first hand encounters of the sublime.

 

We see an example of the sublime in Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Letters from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.”

 

“Entering amongst the cliffs, we were sheltered from the wind, warm sunbeams began to play, streams to flow, and the groves of pines

diversified the rocks. Sometimes they became suddenly bare and sublime. Once in particular, after mounting the most terrific

precipice, we had to pass through a tremendous defile, where the closing chasm seemed to threaten us with constant destruction,

when, turning quickly, verdant meadows and a beautiful lake relieved and charmed me eyes.”

 

References

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/what-is-the-sublime-r1109449

https://perceptivetravel.com/blog/2011/05/17/some-thoughts-on-the-sublime/?doing_wp_cron=1520807058.3378660678863525390625

 

 

Unreliable Narrator

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, an unreliable narrator is: “a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted so that it departs from the true understanding of events shared between the reader and the implied author.” An unreliable narrator is normally a first-person narrator that for some reason has a compromised viewpoint. This becomes a problem in stories that have a first-person narrator, Ariell Cacciola notes that “untrustworthy narrators twist and turn throughout literature.”  In other words, the narrator is the filter for all events and what the narrator doesn’t know or see cannot be explained to the reader. A narrator is unreliable if he or she is a first person narrator and determines the story’s point of view.

In William Godwin’s Caleb Williams, the book is told from Caleb Williams point of view. Caleb Williams is an unreliable first person narrator. Throughout the first part of the book, Caleb acts as the only narrator and is not concerned with who reported what; “I shall interweave with Mr. Collins’s story various information which I afterwards received from other quarters, that I may give all possible perspicuity to the series of events. To avoid confusion in my narrative, I shall drop the person of Collins, and assume to be myself the historian of our patron.” (Godwin, 9) Williams notes that his intention is to make novel as coherent as possible. In the beginning of chapter 12 in the first volume, Williams says that “I shall endeavor to state the remainder of this narrative in the words of Mr. Collins. The reader has already had occasion to perceive that Mr. Collins was a man of no vulgar order; and his reflections on the subject were uncommonly judicious.” He announces that the rest of volume will be in the words of Mr. Collins. This is an example of Caleb acting as an unreliable narrator because he admits that he did not experience what he is about to say, someone else did.

The term unreliable narrator is related to term narrator. Even though both terms involve someone telling they story they are different because an unreliable narrator has a compromised point of view that distorts the story. Unreliable narrator is also related to the the term Narrative.

References:

1. “6 Types of Narration – Infographic.” Now Novel, 28 Sept. 2017, www.nownovel.com/blog/major-narrator-types/.
2. Godwin, William. Things as they are, or, The adventures of Caleb Williams. Printed for B. Crosby, 1794.
3. Cacciola, Ariell. “What to Read Now: “Untrustworthy Narrators,” by Ariell Cacciola.” World Literature Today, 21 Dec. 2015, www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2016/january/what-read-now-untrustworthy-narrators-ariell-cacciola.
4. “Unreliable narrator.” Unreliable narrator – Oxford Reference, 9 July 2015, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199208272.001.0001/acref-9780199208272-e-1188.