Essay What Do You Make Of The Unusual Way Victor's Parents Got Together

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Frankenstein Task on Chapters 1 + 2 Chapter 1 1. What do you make of the unusual way Victor’s parents got together? At first reading of how Victor’s parents got together, the circumstances surrounding their union struck me as very peculiar. However with closer analysis of the text it doesn’t appear to be as outlandish as it seems from the onset. Victor’s father goes in search of his old friend Beaufort who ‘lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion’. His daughter Caroline was taking care of him and when he died she turned to Frankenstein for comfort, which marked the beginning of their relationship and the pair married a few years later. This whole situation seems rather odd for a number of reasons. Firstly it seems quite unusual that a man would have any kind of sexual relationship with his dead friend’s daughter, as in a way it could be perceived as disrespectful of the deceased. Also there is a notable age difference between the two. However I perceive the way they got together in a different light. To me it seems as though Victor’s father felt a sense of duty towards Caroline, he felt obliged to look after her just as she had looked after her father. When Caroline’s father passed away and she was left penniless and orphaned, in comes her knight in shining armour, Alphonse, and rescues her from her…show more content…
How far are you convinced by Victor’s description of an idyllic childhood – what might be suggested by the image of the ‘silken cord’? At the beginning of the chapter Victor portray 3. How are Caroline (with her ‘soft and benevolent mind’) and Elizabeth presented in this chapter? 4. Why might Mary Shelley have given such an emphasis to describing Victor’s family? (Note that this is a novel concerned very much with parental responsibility.) Chapter 2 1. Focus on the passage from the description of the lightning strike on the tree to the end of the chapter. What might the lightning symbolise? Could it represent more than one
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