Thor’s Day, November 29: Happy Birthday!
EQ: How did the realities of Mary Shelley’s life create this novel?
 Welcome! Gather
pen/pencil, paper, wits!
 Opening: Happy Birthday!
 Group Reading:
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
o Students answer Reading
Guide questions by reading
packet or original novel.
 Discussion: Birthday Party
 Ending Activity: Frankensteins
ELACC12RL-RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual
evidence to support analysis
ELACC12RL3: Analyze the impact of the author’s
choices regarding elements of a story
ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals,
ideas, or events interact and develop
ELACC12RL5: Analyze an author’s choices
concerning how to structure specific parts of a text
ELACC12RI5: Analyze and evaluate effectiveness of
the structure an author uses
ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant
ELACC12RL7: Analyze multiple interpretations of a text
ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently.
ELACC12W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts
ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience
ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames
ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
ELACC12SL4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence
ELACC12SL6: Adapt speech to a variety of tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English
ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing.
ELACC12L2: Use standard English capitalization, punctuation, spelling in writing.
ELACC12L3: Demonstrate understanding of how language functions in different contexts
ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases
ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases
Opening: Happy Birthday!
Think about “Frankenstein” – i.e., the version of
the story and its “monster” that you know best –
and address the following:

20 words or detailed drawing:
How is the “monster” CREATED?

20 words or detailed drawing:
How does the “monster” LOOK?

20 words or brief performance:
How does the “monster” MOVE?

20 words or brief performance:
How does the “monster” SOUND?
Narrative
Epistolary Frame
Metanarrative
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
Italicized passages are from Shelley’s text;
plot summary (adapted from www.sparknotes.com) is in italics.
[Frankenstein is an epistolary novel, told as a series of letters. Robert Walton, captain of a ship
bound for the North Pole, writes them to his sister back in London. Walton’s ship gets stuck in
Arctic ice, and Walton sees a man chasing a giant across the ice. The man, Victor Frankenstein,
collapses and is rescued, and he tells Walton his strange story.
Victor says that he had an ideal childhood in Switzerland with his friend Clerval and adopted
sister Elizabeth; his father was loving but intellectually distant. As a young man Victor entered the
University of Ingolstadt to study “natural philosophy” – what we today call “science.” He was
obsessed with finding the secret of life, and spent months building a man out of human body parts
he’d stolen from graveyards. Then, one night, it happened:]
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an
anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might
infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the
morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when,
by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it
breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with
such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had
selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the
work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a
pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his
shrivelled complexion and straight black lips….
Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room …. I threw myself
on my bed in my clothes….I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the
bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but
as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features
appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud
enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.
I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and
every limb became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its
way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had
created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on
me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his
cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to
detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs.
Reading Guide: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
1. Frankenstein is an ____________________ novel – i.e., we read it as a series of ________.
2. Where is Robert Walton trying to go, how is he trying to get there, and why isn’t he moving?
3. Walton is writing letters to his __________________, who lives in ________________.
4. Walton sees a man chasing a ______________________, and rescues the man, whose
name turns out to be Victor _______________________.
5. Victor says he grew up in _________________________ with his friend named
__________________ and his adopted sister named _____________________________.
6. Victor’s father was loving but ___________________________.

Whom did Mary Shelley know that fit that description?
7. Victor went to the University of ______________________ to study __________________,
and spent months building a man out of ________________ stolen from _________________.
8. Victor finished his work in what month, and in what weather?
9. Describe in detail the equipment and process with which the creature was brought to life.

Okay, this is a trick question. Why do you think the narrator and the author tell us
NOTHING about the equipment and process for bringing the dead alive?
10. Victor says of his creature, “His limbs were in ____________________, and I had selected his
features as _______________________. _______________________! Great God!”
11. What specifically are we told about the creature at the moment it comes to life:

Skin color:

Teeth:

Eyes:

Complexion:

Lips:

NOW: Circle any of the above which describe what human babies
sometimes look like at the moment they are born.
12. Right after bringing the creature to life, Victor ran to _____________ and went to ____________.
13. What did Victor dream?
14. What was standing there when Victor woke up, and what did it do?
15. What did Victor do next?
You are about to see several depictions of Frankenstein’s
“monster”. Freewrite a short response (20 words) to each.
Frontispiece
from 1831
edition of
Mary
Shelley’s
novel,
Frankenstein
This is the
earliest
visual
rendering of
The
“Monster”
Thomas Edison’s
1910 silent film
Frankenstein
is the earliest film
rendering of The
“Monster”
Promotional Still
from movie poster
“Birth” Scene
from the film
The “Monster” We Know And Love:
Boris Karloff in the 1931 film Frankenstein
Pretty much every “Frankenstein” looked like this for the next 40 years.
“Frankenstein” in the 1970s
Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein (1970)
Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.
Michael Sarrazin, in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973).
In this made-for-television movie
the “monster” began “life” looking normal,
and only became “monstrous” with age.
Fantasy artist Boris Vallejo’s 1993 painting
Robert de Niro in the 1994 film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Luke Goss in a
2004 Hallmark
Movie Channel
production of
Frankenstein.
Turn in Freewrites, Drawings
You may keep OR turn in Reading Guide