Frankenstein Inquiry Questions
Individually, or in groups of no more than four people, all students will complete an inquiry assignment into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It is strongly recommended that students collaborate and subdivide the sections of their inquiry in order to streamline their work and to develop studying efficiencies. Students will consult the materials I have specifically edited and organized into learning stations. Answers to the questions ought to be given in complete sentences and paragraph form. Learning station materials include information about the historical society of Shelley’s time, literary movements and genres, source texts and traditions upon which Shelley draws as a writer, biographical information about Mary Shelley, as well as statements about the novel’s popular, cultural, and literary effects.
Questions for Inquiry:
1. Under what particular circumstances did Mary Shelley compose Frankenstein?
2. Provide details concerning the importance of the monster’s namelessness in the novel? How has this changed over time?
3. Speculate, given your research, why Shelley might have chosen the name Frankenstein.
4. Why is Victor’s name an interesting choice for the name of the monster’s creator? How did the change of names in the 1931 movie adaptation affect the originally ironic sense of Victor’s name?
5. What is the Industrial Revolution? Given your research, what connection might the novel have to the Industrial Revolution?
6. Explain Shelley’s own life experiences of childbirth and the loss of her mother, as well as the health of mothers generally during her lifetime, might be relevant to understanding the novel.
7. What role might parenthood and family have in the creation of monsters, and in the creation of Frankenstein’s monster, in particular?
8. Given your research, how might the novel be viewed as a criticism of science and scientific inquiry?
9. In what way does the novel present dangerous knowledge as an important theme?
10. In what way does the novel present sublime nature as an important theme?
11. In what way does the novel present monstrosity as an important theme?
12. In what way does the novel present secrecy as an important theme?
13. In what way does the novel present texts nature as an important theme?
14. Why might Shelley have presented so many passive women in Frankenstein?
15. How does the motif of abortion recur throughout the novel, and why?
16. What might light and fire symbolize in the novel? Provide examples with analysis.
17. What is “gothic fiction”? What are its characteristics? How does Frankenstein fit in the gothic tradition?
18. What is romanticism? How is Frankenstein a product of the romantic tradition?
19. Why would Mary Shelley subtitle her book, The Modern Prometheus? Explain how the myth relates to her tale.
20. What elements of Mary Shelley’s own biographical information might be important for our understanding of Frankenstein, given your research?
21. What is alchemy, and how does its influence figure in the novel?
22. What might Mary Shelley have found significant in the works of Albertus Magnus for her novel?
23. Why might the works of Agrippa have been referenced in Shelley’s novel?
24. What allure does Paracelsus hold for Shelley, and why does she include mention of his work in her novel?
25. How might Frankenstein be a response to the Enlightenment?
26. According to your research, why might Milton’s Paradise Lost be an important source text? What about Milton’s epic poem holds allure for the monster?
27. What about the Sorrows of Young Werther is significant to the monster?
28. Why might Johann Conrad Dippel have had a significant influence upon the writing of Frankenstein?
29. Why might the experiments of Luigi Galvani be
significant to our understanding of Frankenstein?
30. Why is researching a novel and re-reading a novel like Frankenstein important?