4. ANALYSIS OF THE NOVELS- 1
4.1 INTRODUCTION
In order to understand the popularity of popular literature, I have selected some novels written by
famous international authors. I have analyzed them to point out the reasons for their popularity,
which will help me to understand its parameters, leading to its great success.
It will also bring out the reasons for Popular literature not enjoying the same prestige as Classical
literature, though being a craze among the young English readers. By going through the novels,
we will come to know the differences between Classical literature and Popular literature.
Most of the novels, which have been analyzed, and which were popular yesterday, have become
famous classics today. For e.g.- Time Machine, The First Men in the Moon, Journey to the
Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, etc, have become popular
classics. The other novels selected too will be called as classics in future.
Popular literature is popular, particularly among the young English reading public, as it tends to
be entertaining, gives the reader enjoyment and adventure and takes them to different unknown
places. It also offers escapism.
These texts are mainly produced for entertainment, as they provide pleasure. Unlike Classical
literature, Popular literature, very often has no deep meaning that must be concentrated on and
uncovered. It is straight surface level reading. There are definite reasons for the world-wide
popularity of Popular literature. Some popular books today gradually tend to turn Classical
tomorrow, which indicates that they must have in them the seeds of Classical literature.
In this chapter ‘Analysis of the Novels-1, I have selected 5 novels and the remaining 5, in the
next chapter. By analyzing the novels selected, we are going to see, how it is that these novels
are more popular and still readable. The analysis is an attempt to find out the secret of its
success.
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4.2 THE TIME MACHINE - H G WELLS
4.2.1 Summary:
The Time Machine is a thrilling story of a contemporary man stranded thousand of years in the
future. It begins with the scientist’s dinner guests sitting around the table after a regular Thursday
dinner party at his home in England and he was speaking to his guests, telling them about the
adventure he had.
His guests consisted of George Filby, a mathematics professor and the Time Traveler’s closest
friend John Manning, a Psychologist and Oswald Perry, a doctor. He told them about the fourth
dimension besides length, width and depth, i.e. - time. He told them about him working on
experiments for years and his discovery. He had created a machine that was capable of taking
them into the past or into the future. He showed them a model which vanished into thin air, after
a lever was pressed. He also showed them a full- sized version of the mechanism.
At the second dinner party, the next Thursday, there were two more additions, Clark, an Editor
and Brice, a Writer, but the ‘Time Traveler’, their host, was not present. He had left a note telling
them to start off, as he might be detained.
He arrived later, in a terrible state, pale as a ghost, with a cut on his chin half healed and a
haggard and drawn expression on his face. He had also dust on him, and he had no shoes, but
tattered blood stained socks on his feet. He told them that he was Time Traveling and that he had
the most amazing time. He told them about his traveling through the nights and days every
minute. When he hit the stop level he found himself sprawled on a grassy lawn in front of his
craft. He then saw huge buildings with tall columns. That is when he met the Elois; who were
beautiful and graceful, but delicate. They spoke a very strange, but sweet sounding language and
had dull, uninterested eyes. They had the mentality of five year old children. The Time Traveler
realized that these people who were light- limbed, fragile- faced and baby-brained, were the
future men. He also came to know that they were vegetarians, as they were only eating fruits.
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The people were similar in sexes. The men and women were alike, and so were the children, a
smaller version of their parents. [The author comes to a conclusion that as there was no violence,
there was no need for the family unit]. He saw them well dressed and yet they had no work.
There were no transportation vehicles or traffic either.
He then discovered his Time Machine was gone, which panicked him. He started searching for it
everywhere. On questioning the Elois, he understood that it was a complete waste of time
because they either did not understand his gestures or laughed at him as if he was entertaining
them at a comedy show.
He saved one of the Elois, who was drowning. Her name was Weena. Then he came to know that
these people dreaded the night, with its shadows and darkness which made them always gather
into the house after dark and sleep in crowds.
The Time Traveler came across the ape- like figures, with their dull hairy bodies and strange,
large grey- red eyes: the Morlocks. This made him understand that man had not remained one
species, but had branched into two distinct animals. He also realized that these were the creatures
who had stolen his Time Machine and whom the Elois dreaded.
On exploring an open well, he found out that the Morlocks were staying under it in a large
cavern. He was caught by those pale chinless faced and big, lidless pinkish- grey eyed creatures.
He escaped from them. The truth, that the Morlocks raised the Elois like cattle and used them for
their food supply, dawned on him.
He then decided to find out means to fight against them, and find out his Time Machine, as he
was eager to go back home. He found out a box of matches and camphor in one of the buildings.
He started a fire to drive away the Morlocks, who were pursuing him. He got lost in the forest,
which went off in flames, due to his lighting up the fire. That day though he escaped from there
after a fierce fight with the Morlocks, he lost Weena in that struggle, who was never found again.
He found his Time Machine in a sphinx- like building. After fixing the levers, he activated the
system, but mistakenly pulled it in the wrong direction. The Time Machine now was traveling in
the future again. On stopping it after sometime, he found himself on a beach, where there were
clumps of reddish rocks and moss-green plants grown around. The sea was stretched to the
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horizon, but it had no waves and the air was thinner too. He saw a huge butterfly- like creature
and a monstrous crab-like creature coming towards him.
After traveling and stopping every thousand years or more the Time Traveler saw that more than
thirty million years from then, the huge sun had come to take up nearly a tenth of the sky. The
earth was dying, the beach was white and all plant life and creatures had disappeared.
He again pulled the lever and sped homeward to his native time, with sadness of how
unaccomplished his trip was. He then decided to make one more stop, at three hundred years
from home. He found himself in an interrogation room, surrounded by people in white lab-coats.
They told him that his Time Machine was a primitive model, which was outlawed for two
hundred years, as it was the reason for their bravest and brightest two hundred and forty-two
people disappearing. They also mentioned about the Morlocks and so they wanted to destroy his
Time Machine too. They sprayed a capsule like Truth – pellet to make him tell the truth. They
told him about four of their scientists who drew up plans to budget their energy, un-poison the
atmosphere and better the products of the ocean and earth.
The result was that, war outlawed, diseases were cured, life was extended, and harmony and
good fellowship was everywhere. But due to the children of their next generation wanting to take
control, they formed two groups, and war started on between them, which went on till now.
In the confusion of the invader’s attack, he escaped from there in his Time Machine homeward.
Thus the traveler had come back to his own home. The only proof he had with him were the
white withered flowers Weena had put in his pocket, when she was overjoyed at his escape from
the Morlocks, the first time.
All his guests did not believe in his adventure, except for Filby, who came to meet him the next
day. He was just in time to witness the Time Traveler leave to an unknown destination. It was
three years since that day, the Time Traveler had left leaving Filby confused and puzzling.
Thus the novel ends with a nightmare vision of mankind’s end that he had acquired from the
scientists: even if humanity survives other hazards, it must finally be extinguished when the sun
cools and the planets are reduced to dark and lifeless hunks of dead matters.
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4.2.2 Theme
The very idea of traveling by a time machine into the past or future is unusual and therefore
unusually exciting and at that time challenging because though it sounds impossible it appears to
be probable.
The theme of the novel is unusual. What H. G. Wells showed was that there were directions; the
mind could travel into historical past. He could visualize beforehand the heat-death of the solar
system and propose a ‘fourth dimension’ in which his ‘Time Traveler’ could go forward to the
year 802,701, to find a world divided between an aesthetic class and an eternal underclass, the
Elois and the Morlocks respectively. Only these two races of people existed. The latter are
degenerate and prey upon the former that are meek and beautiful. It is a world of horror and
madness.
The idea of ‘time’ as the fourth dimension was not discussed or accepted in the scientific world
until 1905, when Albert Einstein published his paper on the relativity of time, H.G. Wells seeks
for an ideal civilization for the perfect society of the future.
Wells was attracted to areas such as social betterment, healthier environmental living and
formative conditions, evolution and the advancement and progress of mankind. He was also
aware of the existence of cycles in nature. Everything in existence followed a pattern of
development in ‘cycles’. He knew that there is a reversal in the development of something from
one end of the cyclical scale to the other. He realized that the natural processes of reversal and
evolutionary progression will always require that the survival of the ‘fittest’ be those who adapt
to the changing conditions of the environment. Because of this misunderstanding to the world’s
social conditions they oppress and create a devastation of social harmony and peace.
Time is the unseen and forgotten factor- forgotten by men and women in their hurry to
accumulate gold, land and power. The fear of death in them compels them nervously and
criminally sometimes, to desire control of others around them. They feel that there is only one
life to live, but they forget time. It is the law of survival that with long periods of time, changes
will come, and the un-adapted will become extinct and will be replaced by the new ‘order’.
H.G.Wells was so conscious of time that he wrote about it in The Time Machine.
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The author has named the main character ‘The Time Traveler’ as he is talking about the Time
Machine, and he travels through time. The explanation given by him in detail, from the
beginning of the novel arouses curiosity in the minds of the reader. The surrounding atmosphere
described is also enhancing the mystery of what he is saying. The after dinner conversation,
keeps the reader glued and concentrating on what is explained. The topic itself, which is
pertaining to mathematics and the concept of ‘Time’ as a kind of space, astonishes the reader.
The conversation between the characters shows that the topic is interesting, and the guests do not
believe in what is being told.
H.G. Wells has left out actual names from his novel, to get respectable civilized people to
witness his exploitation and explorations in a possible future calamity and also in his own
personal creeds, scientific and social beliefs of theories. These professionally and socially tagged
characters serve as an allegorical cross-section of society in which different social groups and
classes are equally participating in his evolutionary adventure not only in the novel itself but also
in real life. The author has placed the Time Traveler above us in authority and having a peculiar
knowledge, which we do not possess, at the beginning of the narration. It involves everyone in
listening to the Time Traveler’s story and hypothesis. Since the novel is about evolutionary
change and since it deals with the resistant and pervading conditions of our world’s reality, its
validity will never be lost even with the passing of time.
The interesting and significant part is the psychologist in the story; who actually makes contact
with the tiny lever of the model machine which is sent off into Time Trance.
Filby is the only one who has a name, symbolizing the common and unbelieving skeptic people.
He seems to be the ordinary everyday person, who disbelieves because of pointless refusal or
blind in attention to reason and analysis. He is the personification of typical and hindering
skepticism which some humans practice in the face of truth and progress and legitimate
discovery.
The Time Traveler points out that time itself is a dimension, just like height, depth and width. As
we are unaware of any other direction of movement, we would be unaware of an actual
dimension. At present, we can only move backward through time via the fleeting mind and
memory. But just as humans conquered gravity by the means of balloons, we can also come to
control our movement back and forth through time. When he sends the model of Time Machine
into the future, it makes everyone incredulous, even after seeing the model vanish in front of
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their eyes. In reality, Wells is also pointing directly at the skepticism people harbor in their
minds even after concrete display and proof, as man’s greatest weakness.
In the second scene, the next Thursday, his guests include the Editor, a Journalist, the Quiet Man,
the Medical Psychologist and the Narrator. H.G.Wells has used the Psychologist as a mouth
piece, as it gives more truthfulness and less playfulness to the whole matter in the eyes of the
other guests and perhaps unconsciously in ourselves.
The energy and vibrating vitality of the experience echo through the whole of his narration,
making anyone fascinated by Wells being acutely able to perceive all these possibilities and
probable effects in true traveling.
Wells has briefly, but effectively slipped out of his Time Traveler’s narrative and goes back to
his narrator’s position, just to convey to us how in changing into clean clothing that Thursday
night of his return, the Time Traveler had pulled out of his jacket two withered white flowers.
This momentary transition reminds us of the sequence of events and sets us back into the
position and the right perspective of the novel again. Thus we remember that the Time Traveler
is back in the present, trying to convince his guest of the reality of the Time Travel and his
adventure.
The author wants to point out the reality of the behavior of the Time Traveler, after he comes
back after Time Traveling, by showing his famished conditions. His attention to the dinner and
display of appetite of a tramp showed that he missed the food he was used to eating.
The new guests are named as ‘Blank’, ‘Dash’ and ‘Chose’ by the author to emphasis the
characteristic of the people in the society having the nature and habits of being blank,
unconcerned and unselective.
The Time Machine is a fantasy of the future. The very idea of traveling in future is thrilling:
In his first voyage to the future in the Time Machine, the Time Traveler encounters the Elois and
the Morlocks, from where he escapes. The law of survival, i.e. - with long periods of time, the
changes will come and the un-adapted will become extinct and they will be replaced by the new
‘order’, is emphasized in this travel.
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The life in future he describes consists of the beautiful, graceful and delicate Elois, with strange,
sweet sounding language and dull, uninterested eyes, in comparison to the ape like Morlocks,
who had dull- hairy bodies, with strange - large grey-red, lidless eyes and pale chinless face. The
people of the future had the mentality of five-year old children. They were similar in sexes. The
children were a smaller version of their parents. They were vegetarians, eating only fruits, while
the Morlocks used them for their food.
Thus the author has made the futuristic life unusual.
After starting again, the Time Traveler mistakenly pulled the lever in the wrong direction which
made him travel forward into the future. Here he found clumps of reddish rocks and moss, green
plants, sea without waves and air thinner. He also saw a huge butterfly like creature and a
monstrous crab like creature.
After traveling and stopping every thousand years or more – the Time Traveler saw more then
thirteen million years from then, the huge sun taking nearly a tenth of the sky, the earth dying,
beach life and creatures having disappeared.
The idea of the sun coming close to earth is unusual and so it is interesting. The imagination of
the writer taking the reader into this stage is new and though it appears to be impossible, it
sounds real, but it is a fantasy, with a scientific base. We find a rare combination of scientific
facts and fantasy. The author has left everything to the imagination of the readers, making them
contemplate and more creative.
After deciding to make one more stop at 300 years from home, he was captured by people in
white lab-coats who wanted to destroy his Time Machine. The author takes the reader to the
future which is not so far as the earlier one, where he imagines the progress made by that people
to budget energy, un-poison the atmosphere and improve the products of ocean and earth. Here
the author has talked about the future possibilities of war outlawed, diseases cured, life extended
and harmony and good fellowship everywhere. But here also, clashes between two generations
showed the mentality of the new generation wanting to take control which results in war. In the
confusion of the invaders attack, the Time Traveler escaped homewards in his Time Machine.
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At the end of the novel, the author has left everything to the imagination of the readers making
them more contemplative and more creative. Thus the narrator shows, that there is no choice as
one does not know whether the Time Traveler will return or not. He has given options and
again expresses his own opinion, wanting the readers to agree with him. He also gave another
possibility of the Time Traveler being captured and never returning back.
The theme is unusual due to the following reasons:4.2.2.1 Narrative Technique
First person narration – The narration is in the first person. The author has made use of the
narrator to talk about the exciting and imaginative voyages of the Time Traveler. The
narrator has introduced the other characters and the Time Traveler to explain the concept of
traveling in time, from different points of view.
He establishes rapport with the reader i.e. - takes the reader into confidence, while
explaining about the future people:
“He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creative, but indescribably frail”.
“The question had come to my mind abruptly: were the creature’s fools? Then one of
them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one
of our five year old children- asked me, in fact; If I had come from the sun in a
thunderstorm! A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that
I had built the Time Machine in vain”.( The Time Machine-pp 27-28)
“Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt that this close
resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect….. This, I must remind you,
was my speculation at the time”. (The Time Machine-p 33)
The author through the Time Traveler visualizes a more sophisticated world, than the one
we are living in. He describes the present rudimentary stage of sanitation and agriculture.
How the science of our time has attacked a small field of human disease and how we
improve our favorite plants and animals gradually by selective breeding, because of our
ideals being vague and tentative and knowledge being limited.
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He feels that in the space of Time, across which his machine has leaped, had adjusted the
balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs. He points out that it has
made the future people happier as the air here was free from gnats, earth from weeds or
fungus; and there were fruits and flowers everywhere.
He saw that diseases had been stamped out and even the processes of purification and
decay were affected by these changes. Social triumphs too, had been affected, as he saw
mankind living in splendid shelters, well clothed and yet never found them working. All
commerce concerning the body of our present world, i.e. shop, advertisement, traffic etc.
was gone.
The Time Traveler’s description of the two worlds has made it more attractive to readers.
The stance of the narrator is reader-friendly; he easily acknowledges his mistakes and
presumptions. He has sketched out his condition brazenly, when he realized his loss of
the Time Machine.
“This, I must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate how
far it fell short of the reality”. (The Time Machine-p-33) This sentence shows how he
realizes and accepts his assumption about the future people. “Very simple was my
explanation and plausible enough- as most wrong theories are!” (The Time Machine-p38)
Here the Time Traveler has again assumed that the population of the future people had
been diminished as he saw they were living in harmony and seemed happy, not working,
struggling, as energy was purposeless to them. He thought that as there had been no
danger of war, wild beast, diseases, they did not need it. He also points out that his
explanation was based on what he saw and assumed and without any proof, which can be
also wrong.
The condition of the Time Traveler, after realizing that his time machine was missing,
was miserable.
“The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me at the
throat and stop my breathing……. And I am not a young man; I cursed aloud, as I ran, at
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my confident folly in leaving the machine”. “I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I
remember running violently in and out…..”(The Time Machine-pp-40-41)
He has sketched his sense of desertion, despair and misery. The encounter of the Time
Traveler with the Morlocks, and his feelings about them is shared vividly with the reader,
even his direct promise made, that he did not stay to look…..
The narrator’s feelings and attitude clearly shows his total involvement in his travel to future.
His feelings ‘as he sat in the Time Machine’, of being like a person holding a pistol to his skull,
wondering what would come next makes the reader hold their breath, as he embarks on his
journey. The Time Traveler automatically involves the reader in his traveling, by conveying
the peculiar sensation of time traveling which was excessively unpleasant. His feelings of
being possibly blown along with his machine into the unknown create a kind of suspense and
breathlessness in his readers.
The Time Traveler as explained by the narrator was alert and concerned about himself and the
danger of getting lost in the future without the time machine, which made him remove its
levers and keep it in his pocket.
4.2.2.2 Devices of Creating Authenticity
The narrator has used the presentational way of sequencing, to facilitate the readers processing
of information. From the subject of geometry which was taught in school, he has led the
readers to the idea of the real body having an extension in four directions, i.e. - length, breadth,
thickness and duration. To heighten the element of mystery & suspense in the story he
describes the sensory and imaginative aspects of things, leaving the readers to work out what
he exactly wants to convey.
“What is more; I have a big machine nearly finished in there”---p-9
“…and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account” p-9
The author thus creates the air of reality by showing the model.
“There it is now, a little travel-worn; truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass
rail bent…”
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Here the Time Traveler wants to prove that he had returned after time-traveling, which was
obvious by the machines condition. In order to emphasize the authenticity it is necessary to
indicate that the story teller has really traveled by the ‘bent ivory bars, the bent brass rails and
the worn out Time Machine’.
The process of traveling through the dimensions of time, the buildings, trees and the horizons
changing, coming up and then down and growing again in a matter of instants, interests the
readers. This description, along with the energy and vibrating vitality of the experience of the
circling of the sun across the skies and then its blending into a grey and blue, makes one read it
again and again.
‘The night came like the turning out of a lamp and in another moment came tomorrow’ (p-20)
‘I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute
marking a day’ (p-20)
‘As I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into a continuous
grayness’ (p-21)
‘I saw the trees growing and changing like puffs of vapor, now brown, now green, they
grew….’(p-21)
Even the ingenious little detail of taking off the control levers from the machine and putting
them in the pocket, proves convenient and intelligent for the plot.
‘I unscrewed the little levers that would set it in motion, and put these in my pocket’.(p-27)
The author’s description of how future humans would be creates an imagination of the
similarity in their genders and their way of life. The reader is led to believe that there certainly
are going to be human beings of that type.
‘And then, looking more nearly into their features, I saw some further peculiarities in their
Dresden-China type of prettiness’ (p-27)
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‘And now I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of texture and
bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike’.(p33)
The narrator conveys through the withered white flowers which the Time Traveler pulls from
his jacket pocket, the reality of his journey in future. It also serves to associate Weena, (the
Eloi) and the white flowers with her preservation of gratitude and relation to the Time
Traveler.
‘And that reminds me! In changing my jacket I found…..’(p-69)
The Time Traveler paused; put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered
flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table.
The technique of holding information and revealing it afterwards, creates an air of reality. The
author breaks away from the narrative past and adopts the aphoristic present tense, thus the
reader can assume some relevance to the narrative i.e. the narrative illustrates the general truth
in question.
The Time Traveler’s thoughts of how ill-equipped he was for the experience with the
Morlocks, and his assumptions of the future people being ahead of the people at present, shows
his need of being equipped to handle those moments.
I have thought since how ill-equipped I was for such an experience. When I had started with
the Time Machine, I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the future would
certainly be infinitely ahead of us in all their appliances. I had come without arms, without
anything to smoke---if only I had thought of a Kodak!’(p-63)
The mention of certain places in the future, i.e. Combe Woods, Banstead etc, encourages
acceptance of the authenticity of a fictional world. The epilogue at the end of the novel too,
emphasizes the same with the mention of the ‘Age of the Unpolished Stones’, ‘Abysses of the
Cretaceous Sea’, ‘The Saurians of the Jurassic Times’, ‘The Saline Lakes of the Triassic Age’
etc.
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4.2.2.3 Use of Tropes
Repetition:
The repetition of the sentence, “I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the story, I but
can’t argue. I will tell you the story……”reinforces the illusion of reality. Like the dinner guests,
the reader also gets a feeling that the narrator has some story to convey.
‘….dreaded the dark, dreaded the shadows, dreaded black things’.
‘Solstice to solstice, faster and faster, minute by minute’,
‘Scarce thought of stopping; scarce thought of anything’.
There is an eternal fascination for a ‘story’ for a child that resides in every human being. The
author through the narrator makes an appeal to this child like eagerness by saying, ‘I don’t
mind…..’ as if he has some secret and he won’t mind revealing it.
The author’s description of the Time Traveler, as he told his story- ‘White sincere face, which is
focused on, with the lamp light,- other’s being in shadow’, helps produce the authenticity of his
narration and keeps the readers gaze fixed on his face with expectation, because what is going to
be narrated is going to be ‘sincere’.
The sentence, ‘I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at
what will come next, as I felt then’- increases our suspense more as the Time Traveler describes
the apprehensive feelings as he starts on his journey to the future.
Personification:
The use of Personification is done to suggest a process in a concrete way, which is otherwise
imperceptible‘Night came like the turning of the lamp’
‘night followed day like the flapping of a black wing’
‘the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute’
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‘the moon squeezing through her quarters’
‘the palpitation of night and day, merged into one continuous grayness’.
They have been used to describe the amazing journey through time and to emphasize on the
genuine travel of the Traveler. The writer’s description of sensory and imaginative aspect of
things leaves the reader to work out what they are really out there.
The use of simile and metaphor is done to give illusion of the first hand experience to the
readers.
‘Bitterness of death’,
‘trees growing and changing like puffs of vapor’ –
The author has made frequent use of adjectives; i.e.: physical, visual, colored, i.e. - attenuated;
petulance, indescribably frail, to describe the future people and the various situations in his
story.
Inversion:
Use of inversion is also done by the author.
‘Fine hospitality’, said I, to a man who has traveled -- -to see you’.
“And the harvest was that I saw!” ‘Patience, said I to myself’, to let the reader understand the
importance of his accepting the fact that he has reached an alien place, and it also points out his
apprehensiveness about the unknown.
Imaginary speech:
The author has made use of an imaginary speech: “possibly a far reaching explosion would
result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions- into the unknown” to
show his fear of getting lost into an unknown place. ‘Human interest’ is what is important here.
This is a natural feeling any individual would have. The author seems to be narrating everything
in a ‘natural way’
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Climax:
Use of Climax, “inhuman, unsympathetic, and over-whelming powerful”“the smell of burning wood,
the slumberous murmur growing into a gusty roar,
the red glow and the Morlocks flight”, gives a rhetorical effect of the human race. This is to give
the feel of the unknown.
Antithesis:
The use of Antithesis is done to show how we jump to conclusions based on what we see and
feel.
“Very simple was my explanation and plausible enough – as most wrong theories are”.
“The thought of the years, I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age and now my
passion of anxiety to get out of it”.
“Take it as lie- or a prophecy”.
By giving a choice to the readers, the author is making the storytelling more convincing.
The pause in the sentence of the Time Traveller in his narration is to show proof of his being in
future. It also shows that the narrator is engrossed in telling the story and therefore, increases the
plausibility of what he says still further.
……I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller, waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger
story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to
fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago.
And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned………
The end line…..’and I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers-shriveled now,
and brown and flat and brittle-to witness that even when the mind and the strength had gone,
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gratitude and mutual tenderness is still on in the heart of man’, symbolize the future which is
black and blank, a vast ignorance, lit by the memory of the Time Traveler’s story.
The reaction to the story by each guest’s is mentioned by the narrator at the end of the book. But
again the reader is left in suspense at the end of the story, as it is mentioned by the narrator that
when the Time Traveler, went again the next time, he had not returned yet and three years had
passed since that incident. This makes the reader want to explore and probe the story.
The guests are made to react, as they create the air of reality in the whole process of
communication between:
a. the narrator and the narrator
b. the narrator and the guests
c. the writer and the readers.
The reader is left to their imagination and whatever probing they would venture into the probably
lost traveler, is a solid foundation of the story just told. In fact, on the basis of the story ardently
told, the reader is lured to imagine further. This in turn, would confirm the belief of the reader in
what has been said by the narrator. The writer re-affirms this confirmation by making the readers
to make themselves sure of what they have heard.
These are the reasons why the novel, The Time Machine is popular.
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4.3THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON - H G WELLS
4.3.1 Summary
The First Men in the Moon is another popular novel that tells the story of a journey to the
moon undertaken by two main protagonists, the impecunious businessman Mr. Bradford and the
brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr.Cavor.
Mr. Bradfort is a British businessman with many financial problems. He is working on a play to
bring in some money. He rents a small countryside house to get some peace while writing the
play. However, everyday a scientist passes by his house, making odd noises. After two weeks
Bradfort questions the scientist, Dr.Cavor, about his odd behavior. It turns out that Cavor is
developing a new material, cavorite, which is supposed to shield off gravity.
They discover that some cavorite is prematurely produced; it shields off the Earth’s gravity from
air above, making that air weightless, and then shoots off into outer space by the pressure of the
air below. Cavorite is later used to build a small spherical spaceship, which they use to travel to
and land on the Moon.
At the moon, the two men at first discover a desolate landscape, but as the sun rises, the thick
atmosphere of the moon, frozen out overnight, begins to melt and vaporize. Soon strange fastgrowing plants start to grow in the landscape, producing very thorny vegetation called ‘bayonet
scrub’. Bradford and Cavor leave the capsule, but they get lost in the rapidly growing jungle,
where strange creatures can be seen. Growing hungry, the pair sample native flora, described as
fungus. Soon after ingestion a hazy euphoric state overtakes them, and they wander drunkenly,
speaking gibberish.
They are captured by the insect-like Moon men (referred to as “Selenites”), who have formed a
relatively advanced society underground. After some time in captivity, Bradford and Cavor
manage to flee. They are able to kill several of their captors and numerous other Selenites due to
their superior strength that results partly because of previously having lived in the Earth’s
stronger gravity. When Bradford and Cavor reach the surface, they devise a plan to locate their
spaceship, which involves them separating. Bradford finds his way back to the spaceship and
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returns to Earth; Cavor becomes injured, and is unable to escape. He is recaptured by the
Selenites.
Back in Britain, Bradford undertakes to publish the details of the story, including some
additional material from Cavor received through one-way radio transmission from the moon.
Apparently, Cavor had enjoyed a period of relative freedom in the lunar society, during which a
few of their number learned English. He also managed to build or access a radio transmitter,
which he uses to tell a story of his time inside the Moon using Morse code.
Cavor recounts everything that happened to him after being re-captured, but some pieces of his
story are not received due to curious ‘interference’ with the radio signal. Through these
messages, Bradford learns of Cavor’s meeting with the ‘Grand Lunar’, who is the ultimate ruler
of the Selenites and the Moon. At this meeting, Cavor inadvertently portrays humanity as
predatory, delighting in war, and with little redeeming value. In response, the Grand Lunar
decides to cut off all contact with the Earth. Cavor’s transmissions end in mid-sentence as he is
trying to say how to make cavorite, and his fate is never revealed.
4.3.2 Theme:
The title The First Men in the Moon seems a little strange, but the Moon as imagined by Wells
is inhabited by creatures that are discovered by the two men, Bradford and Cavor. The plot is
typical of the author—a seemingly normal man happening upon a man with strange scientific
ideas, and he quickly finds himself as an active participant in the grave designs of his new
acquaintance.
The novel can also be read as a critique of prevailing political opinions of the period, particularly
of imperialism. The theme of a clash between civilizations is reminiscent of Wells earlier and
more famous work, The War of the World. As it is hinted in The War of the World that the
non-human civilization presented might reflect the way human society would develop in the far
future. In the same way, the Selenite society depleted could be considered either a Utopia or a
Dystopia, depending on the features one emphasizes.
The book could also be considered to have launched the science fiction sub-genre depicting
intelligent social insects.
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H.G.Wells believed in the spirit of adventure in his fellows and many of his books and essays
were of it, and its consequences.
The picture in this book, is that of a world peopled ultimate in evolution – people, so specialized,
that the limitations of each individual would have led to their being considered idiots in our
world, so great is their efficiency.
The minds and the souls of men are varied as physical different Selenites, which is of another
kind. Mankind is of all kinds, but there are no barriers between the kind, there is every sort of
good man from the worst to the best, every height and size of man, from the midget to the giant;
race, color, creed, all in perceptibility reaching into each other. Evolution prefers to make pattern
each one separately, narrowly similar within themselves and perfect for their own designs, but all
manifestly different. The motives of Bedford and Cavor, in planning their journey to the moon,
appear simple. Bedford was out for money; all the money that was to be made out of a monopoly
in planetary might’s.
He was a practical person who saw in progress, in invention, research and speculation; the
advancement of the human race. He believed that it was his job to improve the lot of his fellows
and to add as much as he could to the world’s wealth and happiness, provided he was
handsomely paid for it.
Cavor did not know what he expected and wanted to go there to find out. He was a dreamer,
inspired or mad with none of Bradford’s practical and down to earth ability of the world. In the
end he discovered much and felt impelled to publish his findings. He had no idea if anyone
would ever receive his messages, but they had to be sent out; what he had found was the property
not of one man but of all who cared to listen.
The scientist must probe and find; what use is made of the new knowledge is not for him to
decide. In discussing the great discovery of ‘Cavorite’, Bradford said to Cavor: “There is not a
solitary aspect of it, not one of its ten thousand possible uses that will not make us rich beyond
the dreams of avarice”. Bradford looked upon the handling of a great scientific discovery as a
duty and responsibility, as a possible key to great wealth, personal wealth at the least, and even at
the most, the ownership of the whole world.
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The theme is unusual due to the following reasons:4.3.2.1 Narrative TechniqueFirst person narration – The narration is in the first person. The author has made use of the
narrator to talk about the exciting and imaginative trip to the moon.
The story starts with flashback of Mr. Bradford’s youth, where he is the narrator. The book is a
sequel of what happened as he points out that in his youth, he was responsible for all the things
that had happened to him.
Even the description of the place, ‘Lympne in Italy’ where the narrator started onto his
description of his adventuress is shown to be a lonely port. He tells the readers directly about
how he had come to be in that solitary place and what he intended to do. [The port was a big Port
of England in Roman times, ‘Portus Lemanus’.]
Regret of not knowing the unknown hits Cavor, as he remembers the caverns, tunnels, structures
down below, the inky waters under the spare lights, the tributaries who must be ruling over these
things. He was also regretting those people knowing it too late all the thoughts and efforts that
ended here in vain.
He also had repercussions of the world getting to know what is on the moon. He visualized the
Government and powers struggling to get here and fighting against one another and against the
moon people, which will spread warfare and multiply the occasions of war. The moon will be
strewn with human dead.
The speculations done by him tell the readers about man in general, as to why the spirit in him
urges him to go away from happiness and security towards danger, even death. He has realized
how purposeless he was; as there was no purpose he had served any time in his life.
“When suddenly…………I saw the sphere!”(p-172)
The pause and the exclamation shows how desperate and lost was the narrator. The feeling of
happiness and satisfaction engulfed him on finding the sphere after lot of troubles, which were
undertaken by them.
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When the narrator realized that he was saved and when he saw how far he was from the moon,
and traveling through the space in the sphere which luckily he located, he addresses the readers,
to tell them of his fortune, but he also tells them about his sorrow of losing Cavor-“And
Cavor…….!He was already infinite.” (p-182)
The narrator saw himself as a trivial, incidental thing, as a fool- introspecting into himself, his
past- accepting the fact that he was just a mind floating in the still serenity of space, with many
shortcomings.
“Confound it! I cried; and if I am not Bradford, what am I?” (p-187) This interrogation points
out more effectively his mistakes and doubts.
After the sphere was flown away by a meddling boy, the narrator felt that, that was the end of the
story, finally and completely as a dream. He also knew that there was not the remotest chance of
his being believed if he would have told his story, but instead he would have been subjected to
intolerable annoyance.
After coming back to Italy he wrote the story with the idea that, if the world would not have it in
fact, then it may take it as fiction. He concluded that the story has closed up finally.
After that he was astounded to receive communication from a Mr. Julius Wendigee, a Dutch
electrician, who was experimenting with a certain apparatus in the hope of discovering some
method of communicating with Mars. He had received a curiously fragmented message in
English, from Cavor from the moon. From the messages they received, the narrator came to
know that Cavor was not only alive, but free in the midst of the Selenites or ‘ant-men’ as he
called them.
The narrator then narrates the six messages sent by Mr. Cavor; describing the incidents
happening to him, around him after the narrator left him.
The narrator involves the readers, by letting them decide between him and Cavor, as to who was
honest in his narration and who had twisted the story“I am quite willing to let the reader decide between us on what he has before him. I know I am
not a model man….I have made no pretence to be, But Am I that?”( p-210)
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The narrator also tells the reader that through the messages sent by Cavor, it seemed that the
narrator’s stance was wrong according to him, and thus he had met a more lingering fate in the
outer space. Thus there was no mention of Mr. Bradford, the narrator, in the remaining messages.
He has also described in his messages, about the various forms of the Selenites, whom he
compares to ants, because of their intelligence and morality and having social organization in
their structure. They were all having grotesque and disquieting suggestion of an insect; and all
seemed to present an incredible exaggeration of some particular feature.
In his ninth, thirteenth and sixteenth messages, Cavor has described the strange community of
the Selenites. There were mathematicians, teachers, trainers, etc whose brain enlarges and the
other parts of the body shrivels and diminishes. There were three main classes: the
administrators, the experts and the erudite. There were retinues of ushers, bearer’s, valets,
porters, swift messengers and even the lunar police.
Mr. Cavor was haunted by their methods of young Selenites, compressed to become machineminders and found the method quite unreasonable. He thought it in the end to be a far more
humane proceeding than our earthly method of leaving children to grow up into human beings
and then making machines of them.
He observed the workers drugged and made to sleep, as they were of the opinion that it was of no
good to keep them awake, but they were allowed to sleep till they were needed. Cavor felt that
this method was better than expelling them from the factory to wander starving in the streets.
Cavor has described his meeting with the Grand Lunar in a descriptive way. He felt it great and
also pitiful to observe him, because of his appearance and body structure and built.
The Grand Lunar found it extraordinary that humans lived on the surface of the earth, as he
always regarded it as uninhabitable. The use of the iris of the human eyes to contract the pupil
and save it from excess sunlight made the Grand Lunar marvel at the human beings eyes. He
found the use of a house; the art of building and furnishing, the most whimsical thing as they
could live in excavations. The author’s view on humans changing habitats is shown here, with
the mention of human’s taking their railways and establishments beneath the surface.
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He also pitied the humans for their ignorance when he came to know what they did with the
interior of the earth. Knowing that men knew absolutely nothing of the contents of the earth upon
which their ancestors evolved, would have raised a question of why did man come to the moon,
than exploring his own planet first.
In the moon, there were no creatures or evil beasts, except in their waters, for many years. The
Grand Lunar felt that men were strange, superficial and unreasonable creatures, who lived on the
mere surface of the world, and the ones who could not overcome the beasts that preyed on their
kind; but yet dared to invade other planet.
The Grand Lunar found the human beings absurd, with them not having different shapes to fill
their different duties. He thought that their minds must differ a great deal, or else they would all
want to do the same things. He found it amazing that there was no Grand Earthly on earth.
The Grand Lunar was also greatly impressed by the folly of men in clinging to the inconvenience
of diverse tongues. He could not understand why they wanted to communicate and yet not
communicate.
Regarding futility of war, he was perplexed and incredulous that men run about over the surface
of the world, whose riches they had scarcely begun to scrape, killing one another for beasts to
eat. He was curious about ships and poor cities getting destroyed.
Cavor told him the story of earthly war, those ceremonies, warnings, ultimatums, marshalling
and marching of troops, seizes and assaults, starvation and hardships in trenches, sentinels
freezing in the snow, hopes, etc.
He told him of the past invasions and massacres of the Huns and the Tartars, wars of Mahomet
and the Caliphs and of the Crusades, which amazed the Grand Lunar at the futility and cruelty of
men.
He also mentioned about the ironclad, firing a shot of a ton twelve miles and how men could
steer torpedoes under water, about the Maxim gun in action, the Battle of Colenso etc which
made the Grand Lunar feel that the humans were dreadful species.
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This resulted in the deliberate intervention by the Selenites, completely obliterating whatever
Cavor was trying to transmit, and which blocked out certain important words and sentences in
the messages he was sending.
Here opacity is used which requires the readers to be creative and fill in the gaps with an
associative logic of their own, to get to know what might have happened between Cavor and the
Selenites. This style implies that a text cannot be adequately paraphrased and that interpretation
of the text depends greatly on the creative imagination of the readers.
The Narrator, Bradford, feels that Cavors disastrous want of vulgar common sense had betrayed
him. He had made the most fatal admission that upon him alone, hung the possibility of any
further men reaching the moon. He had talked of war, of all the strength and irrational violence
of men, of their insatiable aggressions, their tireless futility of conflict. He had filled the whole
moon world with this impression of the human race, which resulted in the above effect.
In his last message, Cavor agreed that he was mad to let the Grand Lunar know about him alone
knowing how to make the cavorite. The message is incomplete and the narrator is left to
conclude that Cavor was helpless and he ultimately succumbed to the Selenites and met his end,
as there were no messages sent after that.
4.3.2.2 Devices of Creating Authenticity:
The use of names, i.e. Lord Kelvin, Professor Lodge, and Professor Karl Pearson etc. – gives an
idea of an air of reality, along with the mention of the invention of ‘Jules Verne’s’ thing ‘in a trip
to the moon’ etc.
The use of dates, is done to give a feeling of authenticity i.e. – On 14th of Oct’1899, this
incredible substance was made! (p-35)
The narrator has now and then, directly addressed the reader, thus talking them into confidence
and giving a genuine air to what he is saying.
“But you must remember that I had been alone…”
The idea or the concept of traveling to the moon, struck Cavor, after his experiment was
successful. After that they planned their trip to the moon. The description of the planning done,
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gives the reader the insight to their excitement and enthusiasm. The version of the details to be
taken along with them on the trip builds up a rising crescendo of doubts and anxiousness of what
would happen next?
The narrator shows a normal human trait of impulsiveness, childlike excitement and then the fear
or dread of the unknown in adults in various ways, which we try to avoid.
“I’m not coming with you in the sphere.”
“The thing’s too mad,” I said,”and I won’t come. The thing’s too mad.”(p-51)
Then after contemplating on the idea, as a novel one, he decided to plug into the adventure.
Description of feelings in space, too clear and distinct – brings about an air of reality, as if
everything is happening around us. The reader gets involved in their adventure, due to the
narrators description.
“It was the strangest conceivable, floating thus loosely in space, at first indeed horribly strange,
and when the horror passed, not disagreeable at all, exceedingly restful; indeed the nearest thing
in earthly experience to it that I know is lying on a very thick, and feather bed. But the quality of
utter detachment and independence! I had not reckoned on things like this. I had expected a
violent jerk at starting, a giddy sense of speed. Instead I felt- as if I were disembodied. It was not
like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream”. (p-57)
Direct address to the readers… “..the reader may imagine it best if he will lie on the ground
some warm summer’s night and look between his upraised feet at the moon”.”Imagine it if you
can! (p-59)
The narrator also directly involves the readers in his description of the moon- “I take it the
reader has seen pictures or photographs of the moon, so that I need not describe the broader
features of the landscape………”(p-64)
The description of the moons structure, brings the reader a clear concise image of what the two
men might have observed on the moon – “Vast distinctive volcanoes, lava wildernesses, tumbled
wastes of snow, frozen carbonic acid or frozen air, and everywhere landslip seams and cracks
and gulfs”. “The whole area was moon, a stupendous scimitar of white dawn with its edge
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hacked out by tide of darkness, out of which peaks and pinnacles came climbing into the blaze of
the sun”(p-64) The mention of places on earth ‘cloud-climbed coast-lines of France and Spain
and the south of England’ lends an air of reality to the description of the Earth from the moon.
The first glance of what was on the moon described by the narrator transforms the reader to the
moon.
“As we saw it first it was the wildest and the most desolate of scenes. We were in an enormous
amphitheatre, a vast circular plain, the floor of the giant crater. Its cliff-like walls closed us in
on every side, from the westward to the very foot of the cliff, and showed a disordered
escarpment of drab and grayish rock, lined here and there with banks and crevices of snow”.(p69)
The pace and inevitability of the rising sun has been captured by the words ‘steadily’ and
‘inevitably came’ which, takes the readers breath away. The process consists of a series of
happenings, shown in a slow motion film, one after another and one issuing out of another.
“Steadily, inevitably came a brilliant line, came a thin edge of intolerable effulgence that took a
circular shape, became a bow, became a blazing scepter, and hurled a shaft of heat at us though
it was a spear”.(p-71)
He again involves the reader directly creating a bond between them and both in their impression
formed by the breaking of dawn – “And to have the picture of our impression complete, you must
bear in mind that we saw it all through a thick bent glass, distorting it as things are distorted by
a lens, acute only in the centre of the picture, and very bright there, and towards the edges
magnified and real”.(p-79) He takes them into confidence by making them agree to what he
thinks.
Nostalgic recollection of childhood memories came back to the narrator, after they were
captured: his memories of being locked into a cupboard as a child, of a dark and noisy bedroom
in which he slept when sick.
Cavor has described the interior of the moon, the Lunar Sea, the Grand Lunar, who was the
Master of the Moon. He has also described the terrible creatures like Rapha, Tzee, etc who
lurked in the labyrinths of the caverns and passages in the moon.
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He has also mentioned the facts that the craters of moon which are visible on it are in fact
enormous vertical shafts in the interiors through which the Selenites communicate with the
exterior.
By referring to the American electrical celebrity, Mr. Nikola Testa, who had received a message
from Mars, and the reference of Signor Marconi, and the direct way of involving the readers, the
narrator makes everything sound real.
His mention of the past invasions and massacres of the Huns and the Tartars, wars of Mahomet
and the Caliphs and of the Crusades, creates an illusion of reality.
He also mentioned about the ironclad, firing a shot of a ton twelve miles and how men could
steer torpedoes under water, about the Maxim gun in action, the Battle of Colenso etc which
makes the reader feel that the story is real and related to something which has happened.
Description of the Selenite, forces the readers to imagine the moon- being – “A face, as though it
must needs be a mask, a horror, a deformity, that would presently be disavowed or explained.
There was no nose, and the thing had dull bulging eyes at the side- in the silhouette I had
supposed they were ears. There were no ears….I have tried to draw one of these heads, but I
cannot. There was a mouth, downwardly curved, like a human mouth in a face that stares
ferociously……
The neck on which the head was poised was jointed in three places, almost like the short joints in
the leg of a crab. The joints of the limbs I could not see, because of the puttee-like straps in
which they were swathed, and which formed the only clothing the being wore. (p-111)
“…the skin like everything else looked bluish, but that was on account of the light; and it was
hard and shiny, quite in the beetle-wing fashion, not soft, or moist, or hairy, as a vertebrate
animal’s would be. Along the crest of the head was a low ridge of whitish spines running from
back to front, and a much larger ridge curved on either side over the eyes”.(p-121)
The Selenite was flimsy and when the narrator hit him, he smashed like some soft sweet with
liquid in it. It was like hitting a damp toadstool.
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He has also described how on the moon, because of its weaker pull, one shot through the air for
several seconds before coming back to the ground.
Cavor has described two Selenites, who were appointed by the Grand Lunar to guard and study
him. Their names wee Phi-oo and Tsi-Puff. He learnt to communicate with them and it felt as if,
he was casting back to the fable-hearing period of childhood again, when the ant and the
grasshopper talked together and the bee judged them,
This comparison, gives an air of reality to the things Cavor has described.
Description of the moon calf is done to make the readers realize how enormous it is- the girth of
its body was four score feet, length two hundred, gigantic, flabby body, fat-encumbered neck,
slobbering omnivorous mouth, little nostrils and tight shut eyes.
Cavors broken monologue, makes the reader to imagine, what would happen next………. “If
they find it”, he began, “if they find it ……….what will they do with it”? (p-115)He has repeated
the sentence to arouse the imagination and curiosity of the readers.
The avid description of the moon world takes the readers along with the narrator and Cavor.
“Here we are burrowing in this beastly world that isn’t a world with its inky ocean hidden in
some abominable blackness below, and outside that torrid day and that death stillness of
night.”(p-141)
The mention of the place where they had been on the moon brings an illusion of reality- “On the
moon” “Two earthly days, perhaps. More nearly ten. Do you know the sun is past its zenith and
sinking in the west”.(p-163)
4.3.2.3 Use of Tropes:
The language used is picturesque – “the sun had set, the sky was a vivid tranquility of green and
yellow …”, “the hills by Hastings under the setting sun … sometimes they hung close and clear,
sometimes faded and low … the nearer parts of the marsh were laced and lit by the ditches and
canals”.
The author has built up the climax; to arouse curiosity of the reader; by the Scientist Cavor’s
words – “It’s vital, you see, I’m – an investigator – I m engaged in a scientific research – I
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live…”. The pause arouses the curiosity of the reader, building it up, as to who actually is the
man and why is he behaving so strangely.
Incomplete/broken sentences- ‘I forgot to tell you. There are uncertainties___. The voyage may
last___ we may be weeks___’
“But___”
“I wish I’d know___” These types of interruptions are functional in giving an impression in
various ways of the characters reacting to a situation of un-certainty.
There is a pause in the sentence to stress on what was to happen and their amazement at what
they saw, and it leaves the readers to comprehend and complete what the narrator saw.
“I recall a sensation of utter sickness, a feeling as if my brain were upside down within my skull
and then___”.
“Lord! I gasped. But this___!”
Direct address to the readers… “…the reader may imagine it best if he will lie on the ground
some warm summer’s night and look between his upraised feet at the moon”. Imagine it if you
can!
The narrator has addressed the reader directly to convey his helplessness in telling about the
gigantic place- “I can scarcely hope to convey to you the Titanic proportion of all that place; the
Titanic effect of it”.
Pause – “How can I suggest it to you___ the way that growth went on? Again, this is a direct
address to the readers involving them in his feelings.
The narrator also directly involves the readers in his description of the moon- “ I take it the
reader has seen pictures or photographs of the moon, so that I need not describe the broader
features of the landscape………”
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Onomatopoeia:
Use of Onomatopoeia is done in abundance – Boom-Boom, thud-thud, pad-pad of feet, trickletrickle, paddle-paddle, hammering, clanging, throb of machinery and bellowing of beasts – to
make the readers feel what is being told about the strange things the narrator observed on the
moon.
Simile:
- to describe what they saw : dream like jungle,
plants like beads of colored glass, etc. to give the illusion of the first hand experience to the
readers.
Repetition of words is done to stress their feelings of disbelief and fear.
“That was not a man.” “We dare risk nothing!” “We dare do nothing until we find the sphere!”
“We can……….we find the sphere.”
Hyperbole:
Exaggeration of the narrator is seen with his use of a hyperbole “I wish to heaven”, cried I, “I’d
thought even twice! Plunge after plunge.” shows the narrator regretting his decision of listening.
-to show their desperation on being cornered by the Selenites- “I would rather be carried by a fly
across a ceiling”.
Personification:
‘The shining stream gave one meander of hesitation and then rushed over’ describes what they
encountered on their way along with their captors.
“Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use. It is time she held her hand”. The
personification stresses on the follies of men and science; of how they have made a battle ground
of their own planet and a theatre of infinite folly.
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“Lie down! screamed despair; “lie down!”
“Too late!” screamed despair; “lie down!”- It show the readers how frail a human being is, and
how strong was the narrators will to survive, where he fought against despair and reached the
sphere.
The personification used here shows nature portraying the narrator’s emotions-“flicker whirled
the snow and thicker black against the light’.
Observance of life on moon-seeds; made them aware of a world that lived and moved. “One
after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped
apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths that drank in the heat and
light pouring in a cascade from the newly-risen sun”. The use of personification is done to give a
particular effect to describe the life on moon.
“Mother Earth had her grip on me now- no Cavorite intervening”- this tells us about the
narrators feelings on reaching land once again.
Metaphor:“Silence!” “The silence of death”. The narrator’s feelings on not seeing Cavor anywhere
expresses his depressed state. The metaphor used, tells of the forbidden fear felt by him, knowing
he was all alone on the moon with signs of Cavor being dead or captured by the Selenites,
according to the message left.
- silent bayonet leaves darting, silent,
vivid, sun-splashed lichens waving with the vigor of their growth, as a carpet waves when the
wind gets beneath it,
bladder fungi, bulging and distending under the sun,
- steaming glass, blazing red streamers of the sinking sun, dancing and flickering through the
snowstorm, etc all show how nature too portrays the narrator’s emotions.
Climax:
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The narrator has expressed his disappointment with great sorrow, when he realizes that he will
never see the things on earth again. The use of climax is done to show his feelings-“Daybreak,
sunset, clouds, and windy skies! Shall we ever see such things again”.
“I felt astonished, dumbfounded and overwhelmed”.
Alliteration:
“We had met with things like mad mockeries of men, helmet-headed creatures”. tells us about
the Selenites.
“Silence!” “The silence of death”. The narrator’s feelings on not seeing Cavor anywhere
expresses his depressed state. Even the metaphors and personifications used, tell of the forbidden
fear felt by him, knowing he was all alone on the moon with signs of Cavor being dead or
captured by the Selenites, according to the message left.
“Over me, around me, closing in on me, embracing me ever nearer, was the Eternal; that which
was before the beginning, and that which triumphs over the end; that enormous void in which all
light and life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendor of a falling star, the cold, the
stillness, the silence----the infinite and final Night of space.” shows his sense of desolation and
solitude.
Epigram:
“But had I died, I should have died leaping”.
This epigram is used to excite and surprise and also arrest the attention of the reader.
“One moment, a passion of agonizing existence and fear; the next darkness and stillness neither
light nor life nor sun, moon nor stars, the blank infinite”- this shows the contrast in feelings,
emotions and his state of mind, where he feels as if life has being squeezed from him.
Anti-climax:
The anti-climax-“I stumbled, as I dropped and rolled head over heels into a gully”, tells the
reader about the narrator’s desperate attempts to reach the sphere.
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Apostrophe:
Even his anguish and despair to survive at all costs and also his agony of utter loneliness is seen
in the apostrophe-“Shall I reach it? O Heaven! Shall I reach it?” The direct address to the
abstract tells of his pitiable condition.
Pathos:
“Lie down! Screamed my pain and despair”; “lie down!” In this sentence pathos is applied to
evolve the feelings of tenderness, pity, sympathy and sorrow from the readers.
Antithesis:
“The nearer I struggled, the more awfully remote it seemed”- antithesis is used to describe his
desperate actions to reach the sphere, when his body was not responding to him and his eyes had
become dim.
The narrator saw himself as a trivial, incidental thing, as a fool- introspecting into himself, his
past- accepting the fact that he was just a mind floating in the still serenity of space, with many
shortcomings.
Exclamation:
“Confound it! I cried; and if I am not Bradford, what am I?” it points out more effectively his
mistakes and doubts.
Synecdoche:
The use of synecdoche is done, showing the stillness of the Selenites in the Grand Lunars Court,
at his first meeting, where the moon is termed as a whole with all the Selenites who were a part
of it- “For the first time in my experience, the moon was Silent”.
These figures of speech and literary techniques enhance the novel, and evoke feelings in the
readers.
These are the reasons why the novel, The First Men in the Moon is popular.
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\4.4 JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH - JULES VERNE
4.4.1 Summary:
The novel Journey to the Center of the Earth is another popular novel written by Jules Verne.
Written in 1864, this novel is a remarkable look into the future. This novel makes the reader
want to know and understand more. The world during Verne’s lifetime was a ferment of new
ideas and was exploding with new knowledge. On the most basic level, this is an adventurous
story- a tale of the obstacles, encounters, and wonders.
This novel starts with the Professor, finding directions to the center of the earth in an old book.
After decoding that scrap of paper, which he found, Professor Hardwigg decides to undertake the
Journey to the Center of the Earth that the paper says is possible. Brushing aside the concerns of
his nephew Harry about the temperature of the earth’s interior, the Professor insists that Harry
accompany him on the journey. Gathering needed supplies, the pair depart two days later for Mt.
Sneffels in Iceland, the point through which they can gain access to the core of the Earth.
With the Icelander Hans as their guide, the party undertakes the rugged journey up to the
mountain, stopping to the rest along the way at the homes of Icelanders. Through these contacts
they learn much about Icelandic culture. Once they reach the mountain, the three descend into
the crater and after several days determine which of three shafts is the one through which they
can make their descent. Aided by Hans’s knowledge of how to use ropes they travel downward
more than a mile the first day. The Professor explains that they are now at sea level and the real
journey is just beginning.
At the bottom of the shaft, they come upon four crossed paths that they can follow and the
Professor quickly chooses one. After several days trekking and almost out of water they have to
retrace their steps because the path dead-ends. Finally returning to the place of the four crossed
paths, Harry collapses and assumes they will return to the surface. Although the Professor shows
concern for Harry, he asks for one more day to find water before they abandon the journey. They
select a different route and soon discover water.
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Days later they find a well like shaft through which they descend twenty-one miles below the
surface of the earth. Continuing to descend rapidly, Harry goes ahead of the others and soon
finds himself alone. In desperation he retraces his steps but becomes hopelessly lost. It is only
after much suffering, four days later that Harry is reunited with his uncle Hans. As Harry is
recovering, he hears the sound of waves and thinks he sees light.
In fact, the three have arrived at what they name the Central Sea, a vast underground body of
water. At this point in the novel, scientific wonders appear regularly. Exploring the area around
the sea, the travelers find what looks like a forest but are actually forty-foot mushrooms. The
Professor explains to the astounded Harry how it is possible for plants to live beneath the earth.
They continue their exploration of the area, finding bones of mastodons and other evidence of
plant and animal life.
The Professor decides that they must cross the ocean to continue their descent even further into
the earth. Lashing together wood mineralized by the sea to create a raft, clever Hans rigs up a
rudder. Once underway they are surprised by how quickly the raft moves. Harry has been given
the job of keeping a good record of his observations. He drops a hook and soon a fish is caught,
an ancient species long extinct in the world above. Harry daydreams about huge animals and
plants, visualizing the evolution of the earth and its inhabitants.
The Professor becomes impatient because the sea is so much larger than he expected, and they
are no longer descending. Trying to learn the depth of the sea, the Professor attaches a crowbar
to a cord and throws it overboard. The cord runs out at two hundred fathoms, and the retrieved
crowbar bears marks that look like teeth bites. Day’s later two huge monsters surface, battle, and
almost swamp the raft. Continuing on, the three of them spot, what they think is another giant
monster, but discover it is an island with a boiling water geyser. Harry suggests that there must
be an internal heat source, but the Professor refuses to hear anything that refutes his own theory.
The next morning a storm strikes with fury and rages on for several days. The explorers tie
themselves and their gear to the raft to avoid being tossed into the sea. A fireball jumps onto the
raft destroys the mast and sail, and threatens them with its electric power. The raft is eventually
cast up on a rocky shore in the midst of the storm and Hans carries Harry to safety. As the storm
dies down they find to their dismay that they have been carried back to the same shore from
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which they left. The Professor is enraged and insists on repeating the sea part of their journey.
Exploring this area which is farther along the coast than their starting point, the Professor and
Harry find enormous shells as long as fifteen feet and encounter a huge field of bones. Harry
thinks the bones might contain the whole history of animal life. The Professor is delighted when
they find a human skull. Harry shares his understanding of the importance of his uncle’s find by
describing what was happening in the world of paleontology or the science of fossil life. He
discusses the views in Europe at that time, that man’s origins were even more ancient than that
was previously believed. Then the two find more and more skeletons and wonder if these
humans always lived beneath the earth or had ever lived on it.
Continuing their explorations they come across a beautiful forest of ferns and pines lacking
color. They spot gigantic animals such as elephants and in the distance see a twelve-foot tall
human being. Afraid of confrontation, they leave the area with many questions about man’s
origins. As they retrace their steps to the beach and the raft, Harry spots a rusted dagger, which
the Professor believes, is from the sixteenth century. He thinks it was probably used to carve an
inscription on the rocks, and they find the initials A.S. carved beside the entrance to a dark and
gloomy tunnel. With evidence that Arne Saknussemm has traveled this way, they enter the
passage only to discover that it is blocked by solid granite.
The three decide to blast their way into the tunnel. They set the charge and retreat to the raft. The
explosion opens a chasm that appears to be swallowing the Central Sea. They are thrown down
on the raft and swept along with the rushing waters. Harry estimates their speed to be at least one
hundred miles an hour as they are drawn deeper into the blackness of the center of the earth.
Their fall is stopped by what appears to be a waterspout.
As Harry half dreams, he thinks the raft has landed and he is in a small cave. A crocodile-shark
monster and a huge ape come towards him, stop when they see each other, and engage in fierce
battle. As the survivor comes towards Harry he wakes and realizes he is still on the raft but that it
is now ascending as the waters are pushed up a narrow shaft. Harry is consumed by hunger but
the rising temperature in the shaft becomes his main concern, and the party soon discovers that
the liquid beneath the raft is boiling hot. The Professor explains that an eruption is about to take
place, and they are on top of the lava flow hurtling towards the earth’s surface.
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Harry awakes to find Hans supporting him on a mountainside. While making their way down,
they learn from a young shepherd that they are on the island of Stromboli in Italy.
Once back in Germany, the three are treated like heroes and the Professor’s achievements are
recognized.
4.4.2 Theme
The eccentric scientist Professor Hardwiggs finds directions to the Center of the Earth in an old
book and sets along with his nephew Harry and the guide Hans, to Iceland where they find the
mountain and the shaft that allows them access to the depths of the earth. On a deeper level the
story can be seen as man’s journey into himself, always probing for what lies at his center.
This novel written in 1864 is a remarkable look into the future. The scientific predictions, based
on inaccurate assumptions, language which is bit antiquated and the beginning which proceeds at
a leisurely pace, shows the writer’s ability to weave into the story, information and questions
about science, that keeps the readers in a state of curiosity and wonderment.
This novel makes the reader to want to know and understand more, which was Verne’s purpose,
as he viewed the novel as equal parts entertainment and instruction. The world during Verne’s
lifetime was a ferment of new ideas and was exploding with new knowledge. Verne captured this
point in this novel.
Verne extrapolated his adventures and inventions from scientific fact and what was known in the
world at the time. His emphasis on then current scientific knowledge makes his work unique.
The book leaves an ambiguous ending as to whether or not the protagonists did indeed duplicate
the work of Arne Saknussemm and make it to the Center of the Earth, and it appears the
Professor has some regret that their journey was cut short
The theme is unusual due to the following reasons:4.4.2.1 Narrative Technique:“The author has used the discoursal point of view in telling the story, which is done through
words and thoughts of the narrator, i.e. Harry, the nephew of Professor Van Hardwigg.
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The whole novel is a recollection of events and adventure. A flashback technique is used here,
where the narrator recalls all that had occurred, which has still left him bewildered.
The author begins the novel with the description of Professor Von Hardwigg, a German who had
married the narrator’s mother’s sister, who was an English woman. Thus the narrator Harry is his
nephew in relation to him. His enthusiasm of finding a Runic manuscript describing a secret not
known earlier to mankind, of a journey made by a very learned man, named, Arne Saknussemm,
leads to the beginning of a journey, which is full of adventures, mysteries, suspense and
unpredictability.
The reader, even as he starts on the journey along with the narrator, his uncle and their guide,
Hans, gets the thrill of joining along with this group by the descriptions given in the book. It
carries away the reader to great heights of fear, curiosity and insecurity.
The reader is left with no choice, but to accept the authenticity of a fictitional world in which his
credibility is stretched to the utmost.
The narrator did not believe in what was taught about the earth. He was only concerned with
gaining the real knowledge of the earth..
The house in which his uncle lived has been described as very nice house, where he too was
staying along with his uncle’s God-child Gretchen and an old cook.
The narrator’s description of dinner served also shows how well they were placed. “It was the
acme of German luxury – parsley soup, a ham omelet with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of veal
stewed with prunes, delicious fruit and sparkling Moselle.”(p-8-9)
After finding the manuscript and decoding it, they start of to Iceland in order to travel to the
Center of the Earth
Facts about the heat and all other matters on earth are mentioned by the narrator which gives the
reader an impression that, all what is being told is authentic and can be compared to facts…
The narrator speaks about the fact that heat increases one degree every seventy feet; we descend
into the earth, giving an idea of the central heat. Accordingly all matters composing the globe are
in the state of incandescence, even gold, platinum and the hardest rock are in a state of fusion.
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The explanation to this by his uncle, that if such heat exists, the upper crust of the earth would be
shattered to items and the world would be at an end, tells the readers about the real state of the
earth’s interior to some extent.
The mention of the various instruments and equipments like ropes, rope ladders, torches, gourds,
iron clamps, crowbars, alpenstocks and pickaxes pictures a feel of reality of embarking on some
adventurous journey.
The journey commencing by a train, then by the steamer, then a schooner, to Iceland makes the
reader feel involved and a feeling of being along with them, because of the detailed description
given by the narrator.
The men and women of Iceland makes the readers feel a bit of sad or unhappy about their way of
life. The narrator has described the men as robust, heavy, fair-haired but pensive as it seemed
that they were compelled to live within the limit of the polar circle, as they never smiled. Their
costume consisted of a coarse capote of black wool, known as Vadmel, a broad brimmed hat,
trousers of red serge and a piece of leather tied with strings for a shoe, which was like a coarse
kind of moccasin.
The women, according to the narrator also looked sad and mournful, having agreeable features,
without much expression. They wore a bodice and petticoat of somber Vadmel. Unmarried girls
wore a little brown knitted cap over a crown of plaited hair and after marriage; they covered their
heads with a colored handkerchief, over which they tied a white scarf.
Both the descriptions show the gloomy, depressing atmosphere, at the poles, as there were no
trees, no vegetation, as the town Reykjavik lay on a flat and marshy, plain between two hills,
with a vast field of lava skirting it on one side and the large bay on the other side.
The narrator has mentioned about the proper use of books in Iceland, as told by M.Fridriksson a
Professor of Natural Science to his uncle. He told Professor Hardwigg that all the eight thousand
volumes of rare and valuable books are scattered over the country. Every farmer, laborer,
fisherman could both read and write and they thought instead of locking up the books in the
cupboard, far from the sight of the students, they should be distributed far and wide as possible.
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Thus he said that their library books are therefore passed from hand to hand without returning to
the library shelves, perhaps for years.
When questioned, what will the foreigners read or see when they visit them; he said that, as
foreigners have their own library, their first consideration is that their humble classes should be
highly educated.
Hans Bjelke, their guide was a hunter of the eider duck, a down who was the greatest source of
Icelanders wealth. He spoke in Danish and was tall and Herculean built, having prominent eyes,
large head, and long hair falling over his shoulders, active and supple in appearance, a tranquil
and solemn person.
The narrator’s description of the ducks, their life, and their commercial value, gives the readers
an insight of the profession of a different type practiced in Iceland.
The female of the eider ducks, in the early summer, builds its nest amid the rocks of the ‘fjords’
or narrow gulfs. Then she lines the inside of it with the softest down from her breast. This down
is taken away by the hunter and trader to sell, and the poor sad female eider begins her task over
again and this continues as long as any eider down is to be found. The down of the male is not
taken, as it is not soft. Thus this harvest goes on.
The narrators’ detailed description of the instruments, arms and tools taken, makes the readers
get the feel that the journey mentioned is real and the three men have surely ventured on this
journey.
The mention of the various instruments and equipments like ropes, rope ladders, torches, gourds,
iron clamps, crowbars, alpenstocks and pickaxes also pictures a feel of reality of embarking on
some adventurous journey.
The instruments like a centigrade thermometer of Eizel, counting up to one hundred and fifty
degrees a manometer worked by compressed air, used to ascertain the upper atmospheric
pressure on the level of the ocean, a first-class chronometer, two compasses, one for horizontal
guidance and the other to ascertain the dip, a night glass, two Ruhnkorf’s coils, which by means
of a current of electricity, would ensure light, a voltaic battery etc. all these prove to the readers
the professional preparation of an adventurous journey.
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The arms, which consisted of two rifles, with two revolving six-shooters, gun-cotton etc. shows
that the narrator’s uncle was well prepared for any kind of attack.
The tools like, two pickaxes, two crowbars, a silken ladder three hundred feet long, three iron
shod Alpine poles, a hatchet, a hammer, a dozen wedges, some pointed pieces of iron and a
quantity of strong rope tells the readers of the thoughtful and purposeful journey to be under
taken.
Among the provisions was, concentrated essence of meat and biscuit, enough to last six months,
Scheidam, the only liquid provided by his uncle, no water, ample supply of gourds etc.
They also carried a medicine and surgical chest with apparatus necessary for wounds, fractures,
blows; lint, scissors, lancets, number of phials containing ammonia, alcohol, ether, goulard
water, aromatic vinegar, drugs and all the materials for working the Ruhmkorf coil.
A good supply of tobacco, several flasks of fine gunpowder, boxes of tinder, a large belt full of
notes and gold, watertight good boots, which shows that they hoped to travel far.
The mention of the direction and distance gives an air of reality to the narration, by which the
narrator calculates that they were no longer under Iceland, but beyond Cape Portland, under the
open Atlantic Ocean.
He has mentioned their progress day by day under the earth, their descending a spiral well and
then their reaching the huge and vast grotto.
The description of the laws on the increase of heat and having a temperature of fifteen hundred
degrees centigrade shows the relevance to what is being narrated. The mention of Humphrey
Davy’s theory which said that the proportional increase in temperature was an exploded error led
to the conclusion that science was wrong by fourteen hundred and seventy four degrees and four
tenths; as the thermometer was showing twenty seven and six-tenths heat, which would normally
make the granite not exist, but in a state of fusion.
The description of intensity of weight on earth and in the center of earth by the narrator’s uncle
points out the comparison of both making their journey a real incident, according to a law, the
intensity of weights will diminish just in proportion to the depth to which we go. It is only on the
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surface of the earth that its action is more powerfully felt, which on the contrary, in the very
center of the earth; bodies cease to have any weight at all.
He has also mentioned that as they proceed downwards towards the center, the atmosphere will
finally assume the density of water and increase further, when they are still lower down. The
narrator has very nicely shown the repercussion of silence on human minds. On their journey
ahead, the silence of their guide Hans increased a lot, which made the narrator think that the
inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain. He felt that a
man who shut himself up between four walls must lose the faculty of associating ideas and
words. According to him, there might have been many people who have been condemned to the
horrors of solitary confinement, gone mad, just because the thinking faculties have lain dormant.
Even his uneasiness and fear on finding himself lost, makes the reader sympathize and fear for
him -“The most extraordinary silence reigned in this immense gallery. Only the echoes of my
own footsteps could be heard”. (p-192)
“No word in any human language can depict my utter despair. I was literally buried alive, with
no other expectation before me but to die in all the slow, horrible torture of hunger and
thirst.”(p-194)
After trying to find the way out and realizing his fate the narrator’s desperation and anguish can
be felt by the readers –“All that remained for me was to lie down and die. To lie down and die
the most cruel and horrible of deaths”.(p-198)
Pathos is applied over here to invoke feelings of tenderness, pity, sympathy and sorrow from
readers. This feeling of losing ones hopes can be realized and felt by the readers. Every human
being some time or the other loses his courage which has sustained him.
The falling down of his lamp and getting out of order symbolifies the narrator’s pitiable
condition, as the light of the lamp started becoming paler and paler and he has mentioned it, that
it would soon expire, indirectly pointing towards his fate.
He has emphasized the power of light to bring out his final concentration upon the last flame of
light, feeling he would never see it again. “On earth during the most profound and
comparatively complete darkness, light never allows a complete destruction and extinction of its
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power. Light is so diffuse, so subtle, that it permeates every where, and whatever little may
remain, the retina of the eye will succeed in finding it.”(p-199)
The narrator has again stressed on the properties of sound. He has used scientific, logical
explanation, making his narration feel authentic – “Sound does not possess the property of
traveling with such extreme rapidity.”(p-205)
The description of the Central Sea, under the surface of the earth, invokes a feeling of
astonishment and wild imagination. The soft golden sand, mixed with the small shells, waves
breaking incessantly with a sonorous murmur, the spray blown into his face and the huge cliffs
etc. created a sense of confusion to the narrator.
In contrast to it, was the harsh dry whiteness, the heavy and dense clouds rolling along the
mighty vault, the heavy granite roof, which gives a sad and melancholy effect.
The mention of the great caverns on the earth i.e. the great grotto of Guacharo in Colombia, the
mammoth caves in Kentucky, gives an idea of the splendor and vastness of the cave.
The description of the forest of mushrooms of forty feet height, with tops of equal dimensions
growing in countless thousands, under which gloomy and mystic darkness prevailed, which
surprised the narrator, takes the readers to a new height of astonishment. The mention of the
lycopodes, hundred feet high, the flowering ferns as tall as pines and the gigantic grasses also
made the narrator realize the presence of animals of that size around.
The finding of the lower jawbone of a mastodon, molars of the dinotherium, and the leg bone of
a megatherium proves their assumptions.
The logic of presence of such beasts in vast granite caverns is well explained by his uncle.
According to what was known, animal life only existed on earth during the secondary period,
which was clarified by his uncle, that at a certain period, the earth only consisted of an elastic
crust liable to move up and down according to the law of attraction. It was probable that many
landslides took place in those days and a large portion of the sedimentary soil was cast into huge
and mighty chasms.
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The comparison of the Central Sea is done to the Mediterranean and the great Atlantic Ocean to
give a sense of authenticity to his narration.
The danger turn out to be colossal monsters, a huge sea lizard, a crocodile, a whale, a turtle, a
serpent all who were of super natural dimensions and hideous to look at. They were later referred
to as the Ichthyosaurus or the great fish lizard, the plesiosaurus or sea crocodile, the mighty
plesiosaurus- a serpent etc.
According to the calculations made, they had covered a distance of two hundred and seventy
leagues- more than eight hundred miles, and were exactly under England.
By making these continuous calculations the author has given the description of his adventure an
air of reality. Even the mentioning of dates and days has given it an authentic feeling.
He has shared his feelings with the readers by telling them of him being influenced, like all the
creatures on land, when a deluge is about to take place.
They also came across a vast forest of various kinds of vegetation of the tertiary period. Due to
the absent of warmth of the Sun, they were vapid and colorless. There, they came across
enormous elephants and a giant, who was above twelve feet tall, having a head as big as a
buffalo.
The narrator has compared this vision to a nightmare and their fleeing from it, as if in a dream.
They also found a rusty dagger in the sand, which belonged to the sixteenth century, having an
indented blade. The discovery of the person to whom it belonged brings about authenticity to the
description of the journey. They found the initials on granite, which indicated the name of Arne
Saknussemm, who was a learned and enterprising alchemist.
The narrator has described all the ancient creatures they encountered on their way in the raft. The
great mammifers, Leptotherium, Mesicotherium, Lophrodon, a giant tapir, an anoplotherium,
having nature of the rhinoceros, the horse, the hippopotamus and a camel, a giant mastodon, a
megatherium monkeys, immense birds, which had made the whole panorama of world’s life
before historic period seem to be born over again.
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The vegetation like brushwood and ferns are also described to give the readers a feel of the
environment he encountered.
The point of magnetic attraction is described, which lies between the surface of the earth and the
spot they had reached, resulting in the needle having an upward tendency, instead of dipping
towards the pole, as it does on the earth. It was thus discovered that the great center of attraction
was not situated at a very great depth.
The saving of provisions and some instruments by their guide Hans proved to be useful. They
calculated that they were at the moment exactly under the Mediterranean itself.
The narrator has involved the readers, by asking their opinion on what he could have done, as he
could not resist the will of the other two men.
The group also found human skulls, actually belonging to the quaternary period. The head had
stretched parchment skin, with whole teeth and abundant hair.
The author during his self-interrogation of whether there were any of these men wandering about
the deserted shores of the sea of the earth’s center, makes the reader ponder over the truth of it.
They continued further upward through a gallery, and through the accessory conduit of a
volcano. It threw them out on the mountain slopes. They had entered the earth by one volcano
and come out by another, which was situated more than twelve hundred leagues from Sneffels.
They had arrived at a point of Stromboli in Sicily.
In the final conclusion of his narration the author through the narrator had told about their
reception by the fishermen there, who gave them food and cloths and after forty-eight hours; they
sailed to Messina.
4.4.2.2 Devices of Creating Authenticity:
The naming of the various places traveled upon and mention of dates: - “Friday evening, the 12th
of July, 13th and 14thof July -- following the extraordinary spiral staircase and on 20th of July
they had reached a kind of vast grotto, gives a feeling of authenticity.
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The narrator has also given the name of a place i.e. Gallery of St. Paul’s in Sicily, with its
caverns, the most marvelous being the Ear of Dionyrius, to give an air of reality to his
explanation of acoustic mystery.
The mention of its Caucasian race and belonging of the skull to the Japhetic family, gives an air
of reality to their discovery.
The mentioning of the details in a notebook, by the narrator’s uncle gives the journey an air of
reality - “Monday, July 1st. Chronometer 8 h. 17 m. Morning. Direction, E.S.E……….”
Mention of names of places is done to give an authentic feel-“We are now beneath the Scottish
Highlands, and have over our heads the lofty Grampian hills”(p-234)
Facts about the heat and all other matters on earth are mentioned by the narrator which gives the
reader an impression that, all what is being told is authentic and can be compared to facts…
The narrator speaks about the fact that heat increases one degree of every seventy feet; we
descend into the earth, giving an idea of the central heat. Accordingly all matters composing the
globe are in the state of incandescence, even gold, platinum and the hardest rock are in a state of
fusion.
The explanation to this by his uncle, that if such heat exists, the upper crust of the earth would be
shattered to items and the world would be at an end, tells the readers about the real state of the
earth’s interior to some extent.
He has also shown the use of the chronometer to know how far they were from each other, by
calculating the time between his uncle’s question and his answer; he would get the distance from
each other. The exact mention of forty seconds between the two words and calculating the
twenty seconds to ascend, they calculated the time occupied by his uncle’s voice in reaching
him.
The comparison of the Central Sea is done to the Mediterranean and the great Atlantic Ocean to
give a sense of authenticity to his narration.
According to the calculations made, they had covered a distance of two hundred and seventy
leagues- more than eight hundred miles, and were exactly under England. By making these
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continuous calculations the author has given the description of his adventure an air of reality.
Even the mentioning of dates and days give it an authentic feeling.
Mention of names of certain authors of the twelfth century is done to give the narration an
authentic feel. –“It is the Heims – Kringla of Snorve Tarleson”, he said, “the celebrated Icelandic
author…” Even, the description of language –“the Runic Manuscript, invented by Odin, gives
the same feel.
The mention of the name of alchemists – Aviscena, Bacon, and Lully Paracelsus etc. – makes the
journey seem real.
The description of Iceland is done to give an air of reality of the place they were visiting. The
fact about daylight in Iceland is also mentioned.
4.4.2.3 Use of Tropes:
Hyperbole:
In his description of his uncle, the use of a hyperbole is done –“while his nose was irreverently
compared to a thin file, so much did it resemble it, that a compass was said in his presence to
have made considerable N deviation”. This adds humor to the description.
“I solemnly declare that when the flowers in the drawing room pots began to grow, he rose every
morning at four to make them grow quicker by pulling the leaves”. Here it is used to show the
narrator’s uncles impatience.
– “that you were not killed a thousand times over” to emphasize on the miracle of the narrator
being saved from his fall.
– to describe his thirst – “I would have bartered a diamond mine for a glass of pure spring
water”.
“Our thirst was so intense that to quench it we would have dug below the bed of Old Ocean
itself”.
–“No – ten thousand times no” to show their desperation on not finding a place through the
rocks.
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–“It is quite impossible that I can put on paper, the thousand strange, wild thoughts which
followed”--to exaggerate his feelings on seeing the flora and fauna :- “Whole ages passed, hundreds upon
hundreds of years were concentrated into a single day.”
to prove the magnificent spread of fossils – “A thousand such naturalists as Cruiser would not
have sufficed to recompose the skeletons of the organic beings which lay in this bony collection.”
to stress on the magnitude of the sound of the lightening- “If all the powder magazines in the
world were to explode together, it would be impossible for us to hear worse noise.”
Climax:
Use of climax is done generously, to take the readers to the pitch of ecstasy and heights of
pleasure.
“The bath was cool, fresh and invigorating.”
“So harsh, cold and savage.”
“Astonishing, magnificent, splendid.”
“A cry, a sigh, a question.”
“Awful, hideous, fantastic dream.”
“When full of flame and thunder and lightning.”
“Science – great, mighty and in the end, unerring”.
“The cold was keen searching and intense.”
-to express the enthusiasm of his uncle– “Excellent! Capital! Glorious!”
Anti-Climax:
Use of anticlimax too is done – “I never felt such misery, fatigue and exhaustion in my life”. The
influence of the Sun and Moon resulting in high tide was felt under the earth too.
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The interrogation by the narrator makes the readers aware of the mysteries of the natures “Who,
in his wildest dreams could have imagined that beneath the crust of our earth there could exist a
real ocean, with ebbing and flowing tides, with its changes of winds and even its storms?”
The narrator has made use of exclamation, repetition and interrogation, to arouse feelings of
curiosity, interest and to stress his emotions..
Interrogation:
It is done to emphasize the importance and belief in God “What natural force could possibly have produced such abnormal and extraordinary plants?
Here it is used to convey the forthcoming horrors, which would befall the narrator and his
companions:- “Is then, my dream about to come true - a dread and terrible reality?” This is
said, as the narrator saw the crowbar, which was of iron.
The author’s question of, whether they were advancing towards some mighty waterfall, leading
to being cast into an abyss, shows the readers his fears of descending into an unknowing danger.
Hearing the mighty roar, he has again put forth another question – “Is it in the water, or in the
air?”
Leading the readers into another suspense of some extraordinary phenomenon
The narrator has asked some questions, after the fight of the great monsters to involve the readers
in guessing the answer. “As for the Ichthyosaurus, has he gone down to his mighty cavern under
the sea to rest, or will he re-appear to destroy us? This question arouses the curiosity of the
readers, making him want to read further to get the answer. It also makes the reader contemplate,
more creative by leaving everything to their imagination.
To emphasize on their plight, the narrator has asked some questions to himself – “Where have
we to go to? In what region are we wandering?” making the readers confused as to where
exactly have the group reached. The author has made use of opacity, the style, which requires
creativity from the readers to fill in the gaps of sense with an associative logic of his own.
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Again he repeats the same type of questions to make the readers aware of them being stranded
and lost – “Whither are we going? I ask and echo answers, whither? This also points out the
ironical situation in which they are.
The narrator has made use of interrogation to arouse the reader’s curiosity – “Where was my
uncle? Would he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in better humor”? Etc.
“He has asked questions, not for getting an answer, but to put a point more effectively – “Was I
the victim of a madman, or was he a discoverer of rare courage and grandeur of conception?”.
He has also spoken of sailors mistaken by sleeping whales for land, and again asked a question –
“Is it illusion, or is it fear ?” to make the readers aware of the monster, who was spouting out
water to a height of five hundred feet breaking it in spray, with a huge roar. It ultimately turned
out to be a geyser.
Personification:
Use of personification to describe the beach is given: -“To our left were abrupt rocks piled one
upon the other – a stupendous titanic pile. Down their sides leapt innumerable cascades, which
at last, becoming limping and murmuring streams were lost in the waters of the lake. Light
vapors, which rose here and there, and floated in fleecy clouds from rock to rock, indicated hot
springs which also poured their superfluity into the vast reservoir at our feet.”
The author’s use of picturesque language and personification has made the journey, with a
wonderful back ground, enchanting to the readers “the clouds assuming a dark olive texture, the
electric rays can scarcely pierce through the opaque curtain, which has fallen like a drop scene
before this wondrous theatre, on the stage of which another terrible drama is soon to be enacted.
This time it is no fight of animals; it is the fearful battle of the element”.
His use of personification – “the storm became more thorough and decisive; the wind appeared
to soften down, as if to take breath for a renewed attack”.
to remarks on the eruption of a volcano is done – “When science has sent forth her fiat, it is only
to hear and obey”.
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to describe the crystals in the tunnel –“One would have fancied that the genies of romance were
illuminating their underground palaces to receive the sons of men”.
to show the wrath of the nature- “The awful and hideous storm still continues, the lightening has
increased in vividness, and pours out its fiery wrath”
Simile:– “These thirty leagues of the crust of the earth weighed upon my shoulders, like the globe on the
shoulders of Atlas” – to emphasize on the narrators condition, after getting lost in another tunnel.
The author had made use of scientific logical explanations, making his narration feel authentic –
“The density of air at that depth from light and motion was very far”. {He has also explained the
properties of sound, to emphasize how excited he was on hearing his uncles’ voice.}
“the vast funeral pall above us looked like a huge bag” makes the readers imagine the weather
conditions, faced by the group.
“A great silence prevailed. The wind wholly ceased, the nature assumed a dead calm and ceased
to breathe”. “The raft is motionless in the midst of a dark heavy sea- without undulation, with
motion. It is as still as glass.” It further takes the readers’ imagination to heights.
“It roared, it yelled, it shrieked with glee as if demons let loose.” “The sail spreads out and fills
like a soap bubble about to burst”.
Like a brood of serpents let loose in the atmosphere.”
The description of the storm, makes the journey seem exciting – “the mighty veil of cloud was
torn in twain, the sea began to foam wildly, the thunder came pealing like an echo, the mass of
vapor becomes incandescent, hailstones striking our boots and weapons are luminous, the waves
as they rise, appear to be fire eating monsters, beneath which seethes an intense fire, their crests
surmounted by combs of flame”.
The narrator talks of some unknown danger, as the water on the surface started up-lifting itself
indicating that some thing was moving under the sea: - “The danger approaches. It comes nearer
and nearer. It behooves us to be on the watch”. In spite of dangers man wants to probe into
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future. It represents what every human being would think of ones present life and his future
world.
The narrator while narrating further has not mentioned the figures of the thermometer, which
indicated heat, to keep the readers guessing “I look at the thermometers to my surprise it
indicates – the exact figure is rubbed out in my manuscript.” in order to indicate his fear, on the
flooring of the raft?” Here the author has used the interplay of things known and things guessed,
anticipated and inferred to let the story progress and hold its interest for the readers.
Metaphor:
There is a long pause in his narration, to let the reader’s curiosity arouse, about what had
happened to all of them, after that fiery event – “Nature asserted her supremacy and I
slumbered”. The use of metaphor is done to show how exhausted the narrator was after all the
storm and rains.
It is done to show how deep the well was-“As I did so I made out a brilliant dot, at the extremity
of this long, gigantic telescope.”
Repetition:
The use of repetition “we shall descend, descend and everlastingly descend,” points out the
enthusiasm of the group to continue their adventurous journey.
– “falling, falling, falling”, emphasizes on their journey downwards, through tunnels into a
cavern and further on.
It is done to show his uncles enthusiasm - “Wonderful,” He cried, tapping his forehead,
“Wonderful, Wonderful “
Proverbs:
The use of proverbs is repeated – “While there is life, there is hope” to emphasize on the
narrators’ uncle’s positive altitude.
Unusual words:
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The author uses many unusual words like – heavy tomes, quartos and folios as they stand out in
some way, in the text.
The description of the narration is done in between in present perfect tense: - “The Sea still
retain its uniform monotony” to make the readers feel the continuity of the voyage.
Exclamation:
Use of exclamation is done to show his uncles enthusiasm - “Wonderful,”
to exalt over the finding of water - “Oh! What exalted delight, what rich and
incomparable
luxury!”
Euphemism:
The narrators use of Euphemism is done to describe the bitter cold in an agreeable way – “The
king of cold had taken up his residence there, and made us feel his presence all night”.
– to show his fear of dying – “We were approaching the regions of eternal nights”.
Direct Address to the Readers:
The direct address to the readers, involves them in the narration of the volcano “My readers must
excuse this brief and somewhat pedantic geological lecture. But it is necessary to the complete
understanding of what follows “.
“Those who understand Alpine climbing will comprehend our difficulties.”
Again there is a direct address to the readers, involving them continuously in his journey –
“Remember that I am writing this after the journey” describing the minerals and other treasures
buried under ground”.
, to exaggerate his feelings on seeing the flora and fauna: - “Whole ages passed, hundreds upon
hundreds of years were concentrated into a single day.”
Tried to involve the readers- “…..Having described my uncle, I will now give an account of our
interview”.
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The narrator in between his narration, gets in touch with the readers, thus involving them directly
in his adventurous voyage - “From our log, therefore, I tell the story of our voyage on the
Central Sea”.
Anti-Thesis:
– “Now unbeliever, do you begin to have faith.”
Onomatopoeia:
– “The torrent………Roaring, rushing, spluttering and still falling”- describing the flow of
water.
-to compare the condition of the narrator, to a mad person – “I began to run, to fly, screaming,
roaring, howling ………”
Transferred Epithet:
It is used to show his tiredness – “Sleep came over my weary eyes”.
The author, through the narrator has made use of flashback to talk about hunger –“And yet, three
months before I could tell my terrible story of starvation, as I thought it”. He has spoken about
his boyhood day’s incident. The narrator has also made use of personification, “Hunger,
prolonged, is temporary madness.” He compared it to something; they were going to endure
now, during this journey.
These are the reasons why the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth is popular.
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4.5 TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA –JULES VERNE
4.5.1 Summary:
This is a classic fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, published in 1870. It is about the
fictional Captain Nemo and his submarine, Nautilus, as seen by one of his passengers, Professor
Pierre Arronax.
The title refers to the distance traveled under the sea, not to the depth, as 20, 000 leagues is over
12 times the radius of the earth. (In common English usage 1 league equals 3 nautical miles)
The story begins in 1866, in which ships of several nations sight a mysterious sea monster,
theorized by some to be a giant narwhal; where the creature also damages an ocean liner.
The United States government finally assembles an expedition in New York City to track down
and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax is a noted French marine biologists and a
narrator of the story, as he happens to be in New York at the time and is a recognized expert in
his field, he is issued a last-minute invitation to join the expedition and he accepts. Canadian
master harpoonist Ned Land and Aronnax’s faithful assistant Conseil are also brought on board.
The expedition sets sail from Long Island aboard a naval ship, the ‘Abraham Lincoln’, which
travels down around the tip of South America and into the Pacific Ocean. After much fruitless
searching, the monster is found, and the ship charges into battle. During the fight, the ship’s
steering is damaged, and the three protagonists are thrown overboard. They find themselves
stranded on the ‘hide’ of the creature, only to discover to their surprise that it is a large metal
construct. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic
creator and commander, Captain Nemo. {Nemo means ‘no man’ or ‘nobody’ in Latin}
The story follows the adventures of the protagonists abroad the submarine, the ‘Nautilus’, which
was built in secrecy and now roams the seas free of any land-based government. {As further
discussed, the story was written decades before submarines of such size and utility became a
reality}.
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Captain Nemo’s motivation is implied to be both a scientific thirst for knowledge and a desire for
revenge on {and self imposed exile from} civilization. Captain Nemo explains that the
submarine is electrically powered, and equipped to carry out cutting edge marine biology
research, he also tells his new passengers that while he appreciates having an expert such as
Aronnax with whom to converse, they can never leave because he is afraid they will betray his
existence to the world. Aronnax is enthralled by the vistas he is seeing, but Land constantly plots
to escape.
Their travel take them to numerous points in the world’s oceans, some of them, which were
known to the author from real travelers’ descriptions and guesses, while others, are completely
fictional. Thus the travelers witness the real corals of the Red Sea, the wrecks of the battle of
Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice shelves, and the fictional submerged Atlantis. The travelers also don
diving suits to go on undersea expeditions away from the ship, where they hunt sharks and other
marine life with specially designed guns and have a funeral for a crewmember who died when an
accident occurred inside the Nautilus.
When the Nautilus arrives back in the Atlantic Ocean, ‘poulps’ {usually translated as giant
squids, although the French ‘poulpe’ means octopus} attacks the vessel and devours a
crewmember.
Shortly afterward, they are tracked and attacked by mysterious ship. Nemo
ignores Arronax’s pleas for amnesty for the boat and attacks. Nemo attacks the ship under the
waterline, sending it to the bottom of the ocean with all crew aboard as Arronax watches from
the saloon. Nemo bows before the pictures of his wife and children and is plunged into deep
depression after this encounter, and, ‘voluntarily or involuntarily’ allows the submarine to
wander into an encounter with the Moskstraumen whirlpool of the cost of Norway.
This gives the three prisoners an opportunity to escape, they make it back to land alive, but the
fate of Captain Nemo and his crew is not revealed.
4.5.2 Theme:
The basic Theme of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is man’s universal impulse to
understand and explore every environment. Aronnax takes on the task of identifying and
classifying every animal on the planet.
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Nemo takes his strange submarine into places no man has ever been before, a coral cemetery, a
grotto filled with pearls and seas of milk and so forth. He travels tens of thousands leagues
under and on the surface of the sea because he has a curiosity of adventure and knowledge. This
quest for knowledge and understanding and the need to expose every inch of the earth seems to
be a function inherent to the human brain.
In this novel, the author has made allusions and references to actual history, geography and
current science.
Captain Nemo’s name is a subtle allusion to Homer’s Odyssey, a Greek epic poem, in which
Odysseus meets the monstrous Cyclops. Polyfemos during his course of wanderings asks
Odysseus his name to which he gets an answer ‘OVTIC’, which translates as ‘No-Man’ or ‘Nobody’. In Latin translation, this pseudonym is rendered as ‘Nemo’, which has the same meaning
‘No-Man’
Similar to Nemo, Odysseus is forced to wander the seas in exile and is tormented by his crew’s
death.
Commander Mathew Fontaine Maury, ‘Captain Maury’ in Verne’s book, is a real life
oceanographer who explored the winds, seas, currents, and collected samples of the sea’s
treasures and charted them all, which is mentioned a few times by Verne.
References are made to three other Frenchmen - Jean- Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse,
a famous explorer, who was lost while circumnavigating the Globe, Dumont D’Urville, an
explorer, who found the remains of the ill-fated ship of the Count, and Ferdinand Lesseps,
builder of the Suez Canal and nephew of the man who was the sole survivor of De Galaup’s
expedition. Verne was an investor in Lesseps to build the French Sea level crossing in Panama.
The nautilus seems to follow the footsteps of these men, visits waters where De Galaup was lost,
sails to Antarctic Waters and becomes stranded there, just like D’ Urville’s ship, the Astrolabe,
and passes through an under water tunnel from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean.
The famous part of the novel is the battle against the school of giant Squid, where a crewman
who opens the hatch of the boat, gets caught by one of the monster. He shouts, ‘Help’ in French,
while being pulled away by the tentacle that grabbed him.
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In the beginning of a chapter concerning a battle, Aronnax states “To convey such sights, one
would take the pen of our most famous poet, Victor Hugo, author of The Toiler’s of the Sea”.
This book contains an episode, where a worker fights a giant Octopus, and here the Octopus
symbolizes the Industrial Revolution. Though Verne has borrowed the symbol, he has used it
to allude to the Revolution of 1848 as well, as the first man to stand against the ‘Monster’ and be
defeated by it as a Frenchman.
Some of Verne’s ideas about the not yet existing submarines in this book, turned out to be
prophetic, such as the high speed and secret conduct of to-day’s nuclear attack Submarines, and
the need to surface frequently for fresh air.
Verne took the name ‘Nautilus’ from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800, by
Robert Fulton, who later invented the first commercially successful steamboat. Fulton’s
submarine was named after the paper ‘Nautilus’, because it had a sail.
The world’s first operational nuclear powered Submarine, the United States Navy’s USS
Nautilus {SSN-571} was named for Verne’s fictional vessel.
Verne also can be credited with glimpsing the military possibilities of submarines, and
specifically the danger, which they possessed for the naval superiority of the British Navy,
composed of surface warships. Another significant bold political vision, represented by the
character of Captain Nemo is seen in this book.
The author has begun the novel on a note of suspense and mystery, some thing is spoken about a
mysterious thing –‘an enormous thing, a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally
phosphorescent larger and more rapid than a whale, of which nobody is aware what it is’.
Various hypothesis are formed about it, various tales circulated which has heightened the
suspense to a great extent, leaving the reader’s curious to know, what exactly it is. Various
stories circulated about the creature, in newspapers, journals etc.
As long as no harm was done by it, it was a scientific problem to be solved, but when it started
destroying ships, it became a real danger.
The author has brought in the narrator, Professor Arronax in the second chapter. Before that in
the first chapter, building up of suspense and imagination is done by the author to high light the
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monster, and arouse various speculations. Various reasoning and explanations are done and
made, to make the reader think and feel eager to read on.
The story begins in 1866 and ends in 1869, while the journey of the Nautilus begins during the
summer of 1867.
The protagonist of a story is the main character, who traditionally, under goes some sort of
change, and usually overcomes some opposing force. In this novel, the protagonist is Dr Pierre
Aronnax. He is the narrator and central character of the tale. He is repeatedly described as a
naturalist throughout the story.
The story is primarily mysterious and dark. The mystery result from the author’s pre-occupation
with Captain Nemo’s identity.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is work of science fiction written in 1870, when at
that time, people traveled by horse and carriage, ships and increasingly railroads. Therefore, the
idea of a submarine that could reach the bottom of the sea was astounding.
It might be
comparable with an individual traveling through space today.
Verne’s idea of a submarine was not entirely original, neither was his name for the vessel,
Nautilus. In the later part of the 19th Century, many people were experimenting with diving bells,
called commonly as Nautile and Nautilus.
Science is meant for the progression of man, but using science for evil can also lead to the
downfall of men. In this novel, by Verne, the conflict between men versus nature is explained.
There are conflicts in the story, which affects the surrounding characters, but in the end it is
resolved.
This novel is generally about a ship called the Nautilus, which is led by Captain Nemo, which
reeks chaos and terror upon the sea. The characters, Dr Pierre Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land
are imprisoned on the ship, which is the main conflict in the story. The main character, Dr
Aronnax, and the antagonist, Captain Nemo, have a conflict on concept of freedom between
them.
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Captain Nemo is mysterious and paranoid; his hatred of mankind is not only because of their
corruption, but also for the injustices done to him.
The quote – “So it was a sad day I spent, between my wish to regain freedom and my regret at
saying goodbye to the marvelous Nautilus.” represents Aronnax’s main conflict, on not being
able to stay with Nautilus, as he has to help his friends, though he is fascinated by the knowledge
he can obtain by Nautilus. He has to choose between science and freedom of his fellowmen.
It also affects Ned Land, because Aronnax is too busy using the opportunities he receives to
study science, while Ned Land prefers to plan to escape from the ship, as he dislikes being on sea
and the way Captain Nemo kills whales.
Conseil being loyal to his master Dr Aronnax never complains, but does what his master wants,
even stay on the ship till the end.
All conflicts end, when the ship is caught in a raging whirlpool and Dr Aronnax, Ned Land and
Conseil manage to escape from it and are rescued by fishermen. While what happens to Captain
Nemo and his crewmembers is not known.
Dr Aronnax has not left the ship empty-handed but has learnt so much from his journey, such as
marine life and submarine construction etc. He writes his memories and experiences of his
journey under the sea, after returning to France.
Not all science benefits men, but sometimes corrupts them to terror the innocent.
The character of Nemo is described in the novel very well. Nothing concerning his past is
revealed in it, except his having reasons to hate the countries of the world and his apparent loss
of his family.
He claims to have no interest in the affairs of the world, but occasionally intervenes to aid the
oppressed, giving salvaged treasure to Cretans, saving a pearl hunter who was the unfortunate
victim of an accident, saving castaways from drowning or sinking warships.
Nemo had a European or English education as he states that he had spent his youth studying and
touring Europe. In his first meeting with Prof Aronnax and his companions, the latter speak to
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him French, English, Latin and German, all of which Nemo later reveals he is fluent in. The
library and Art collection in Nautilus reveal him to be familiar with European culture and arts.
As described by Professor Aronnax, Nemo is a reticent man, tall and swarthy in appearance,
having a high nose and eyes set on the far sides of his face, an attribute that gave him an
exceptional range of vision.
He inhabits only uninhabited lands, that is, Antarctica, desert islands etc. and is enamored by the
sea, which holds true freedom for him. He also uses only marine products for food, clothing, and
furnishing or even, tobacco, shows his hatred for the nations on the land.
When insinuated by Professor Aronnax for violating maritime and international law, by sinking
warships, he states that he was merely defending himself from his attackers and that the laws of
the world on land did not apply to him any longer.
As in one scene he exclaims, “On the surface, they can still exercise their iniquitous laws, fight,
devour each other, and indulge in all their earthly horrors. But thirty feet below the [seas]
surface, their power ceases, their influence fades, and their dominion vanishes. Ah, Monsieur, to
live in the bosom of the sea! …. There I recognize no master! There I am free”.(p-60)
Captain Nemo is also devoted to his crew, and can barely contain his grief when one of them is
killed in the attack of the giant squid in the Bahamas and a mysterious midnight encounter with a
surface ship.
He also retains loving memories of his family and was seen weeping over the portrait of his wife
and two children.
Though short tempered, he maintains very great control over himself, giving vent to his anger
but rarely. He is also man of courage, as he released the Nautilus from the Antarctic ice, in which
she gets trapped and in fighting off the squids at the Bahamas. His working for consecutive
eight-hour shifts without a break, with little oxygen, to free the Nautilus from the ice, shows his
super-human stamina. He is also an intrepid explorer, having discovered ‘Atlantis’.
An extraordinary engineer, he designed and built the Nautilus, built her outstanding features such
as her electric propulsion and navigator systems. He also has exceptional mastery of under-sea
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navigation, taking upon himself the most difficult passages of the voyage, such as those under
the Isthmus of Suez and that under the Antarctic ice sheet.
He had immense knowledge of marine biology and had read and annotated all the books in his
vast library. He also possessed several masterpieces of both painting and sculpture from ancient
and modern European masters, which shows his fine taste in arts. He had also collected pearls,
corals and other marine products, with his own hands.
He is seen to be a man of Spartan habit, retaining for his own use the barest minimum, as his
cabin resembled a monk’s cellar with just a small bed and minimum furniture.
He appeared to have some sort of fear, hatred or remorse, never revealed to the reader for the last
words heard from him by Professor Aronnax before abandoning the Nautilus were “Almighty
God, enough! Enough! “.(p-293)
The exposition of the novel occurs in the first chapter, where the reader meets an apparition, a
monster, and an imaginary creature.
The story is told in the first person –limited point of view. It is told through the experience of
Professor Aronnax.
The author has constantly given clues to the readers about the mysterious monster, which did not
sound true. Various hypotheses were abandoned due to the reasoning, which was weak. There
were hints given about the possibility of it being a monster of colossal strength or a submarine
vessel of enormous motive power, the later, which seemed impossible for various reasons, so the
earlier hint was considered true. It was then said to be a “narwhal”, or “Unicorn of the Sea”.
There is a direct address to the readers to involve them in his adventure- “I leave you to judge
how eyes were used on board the Abraham Lincoln”.(p-23)
The first glimpse of the monster is described very vividly. Ned Land saw it– throwing out very
intense but inexplicable light, darting forward, backwards and towards them, with a great
velocity. It was a long blackish body, with its tail moving and beating the waves with great
agitation. It ejected two jets of steam and water to a height of 120 feet.
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In the pursuit of the monster, the narrator, Professor Aronnax was thrown into the sea, which
took him twenty feet below. His servant Conseil, who had seen him fall, followed him. They also
realized that the harpooner Ned Land was thrown into the sea. They found themselves on a
submarine boat.
The realized the fact that time, that the supposed monster was made of iron. They were taken
away by some masked man in its interior, where they realized that they were the captors of
Captain Nemo, the person who commanded the ships,
The author has made use of {mentioned} some facts about pressure and oxygen consumption, in
his narration of the adventure, which brings about authenticity to it.
The description of the interior of the ship, “Nautilus” has been done very carefully, every minute
detail has been described, which brings before the readers, a picture of what is there – the dining
room, decorated and furnished high oaken side boards inlaid with ebony, on which were
glittering china, porcelain and glasses of inestimable values and the light softened by exquisite
paintings etc.
Even the food served under the sea, was cooked from marine produce only – dolphins livers,
fillet of turtle, milk from cetacean, sugar from focus and presence of anemones, which were
equal to delicious fruits, sea weed liquor etc.
The description of sea by Captain Nemo shows his poetic qualities, when he says that he loves
the sea, as it is every thing, with its pure and healthy breath. He says – “It is an immense desert,
where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment
of a super natural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion, the ‘Living
Infinite’.”(p-60)
The library has also been described as rich and luxurious with treasures of science and literature.
High pieces of furniture, of black violet ebony inlaid with brass, supported on their wide shelves
about twelve thousand volumes of books, and uniformly bound. There were huge divans,
covered with brown leather, with light moveable desks, an immense table covered with
pamphlets and old outdated newspapers, with electric light flooding the library from half sunken
globes.
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The museum too, was full of, all treasures of nature and art. Thirty first- rate pictures, uniformly
framed, separated by bright drapery ornamented the walls, which were hung with tapestry of
several designs. The collection consisted of – Madonna of Raphael, a Virgin of Leonardo da
Vinci, nymph of Correggio. Modern painter like Delacroix, Decamp …… which all showed that
the Captain was an artist. Even some great musician’s works were scattered over a large model
piano-organ.
cases.
Various precious productions of the sea were displayed in fixed elegant glass
Polypi and echinoderms of various kinds were also kept, along with specimens of
mollusks of in estimated value. In another compartments, various types of pearls were spread
out, which were again specimens of inestimable value.
The nautical instruments required for the navigation of the Nautilus showed Captain Nemos’
knowledge of them and also his expertise about their use. The extraction of electricity from
sodium chloride from sea, the kitchen, engine room for which it was used is described in details,
which takes the reader on the real tour through the Nautilus and also imparts knowledge about
many things. It also proved that he was the Captain, builder and engineer of the Nautilus with
his vast knowledge of the boat.
Various kinds of life under sea have been described; the names, which sound strange, but whose
detailed description, give a clear picture of what it is, e.g. Green labre, round tailed goby of a
white color with violet spots on the back, a beautiful mackerel of these seas with a blue body and
silvery head etc.
The scenery described colorfully makes the readers imagine it – “the sun’s rays, the radiant orb
rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like a train of gunpowder.
The clouds scattered in the heights were colored with lovely tints of beautiful shades and
numerous mare’s tails which betokened wind for that day”.(p-82)
Exciting event such as forest hunting under the sea, keep the readers eager to understand this
novel concept, unheard before. They go on this expedition with Captain Nemo with the help of
Rouquayrol apparatus, consisting of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which air is stored under a
pressure of fifty atmospheres and which is fixed on the back by means of braces. Its upper part
formed a box in which air is kept by means of bellows, which cannot escape.
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They used the Ruhmkorff apparatus to light the road at the bottom of the sun. They took with
them guns having glass balls.
The description of rocks, flowers, plants, shells and polypi, various kinds of Isis, clusters of pure
–tuft-coral, prickly fungi and anemones, specimens of mollusks, medusae, etc are enchanting.
The forest itself was composed of large tree plants with singular position of their branches. The
fuci and Ilianas grew in rigid perpendicular lines due to the density of the element, which had
produced them.
The plants were self-propagated, having several of colored leaves, hedges of zoophytes, with
fish-flies flying from branch to branch. There Professor Aronnax saw a monstrous sea spider
about thirty-eight inches high, ready to spring on him, but was killed by Captain Nemo on time.
The hunting of huge animals and birds like the otter, the albatross, made it more exciting. They
also encountered two formidable sharks on their way. Thus it was an adventurous excursion for
the narrator.
Nets by Captain Nemo’s crew drew various treasures of sea. They included fishing frogs called
buffoons, black commersons, furnished with antennae, trigger-fish encircled with red bands,
orthragorisci, with very subtle venom, some olive colored lampreys, macrorhynci, covered with
silvery scales, trichiuri, the cramp-fish, scaly notopteri, with transverse brown bands, greenish
cod, verities of gobies, a caranx, several fine bonitos and three splendid tunnies etc. These
strange names described, evoke a kaleidoscope of colors.
They also saw a wrecked ship, which was suspended in the midst of waters; its stumps of masts
broken off. There were some corpses bound with ropes, about five of them, four men and a
young woman, holding an infant in her arms. It was a sympathetic scene, photographed in its
last moments.
During their adventurous journey in the Nautilus, they also had some few days to spend on an
island, where they encountered some savages, who attacked them with stones and arrows. They
got away from them, as the Nautilus sailed away from that place.
The narrator has described another event, the burial of one of the crew of the Nautilus- under the
sea, where a hole was dug in the glade, and the body enveloped in a tissue of white byssus, was
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lowered into the damp grave. Captain Nemo and his crew knelt in prayer and then filled up the
grave. The place was the coral cemetery, which was out of every ones reach.
During the second part of their journey, under the sea, they saw a great number of aquatic birds
whose description leaves the readers spell-bound. They saw the magnificent albatrosses, family
of the totipalmates, the phaeton with red lines, some ostracions, and sea-pigs. They also saw
some fish of the genus petrodon, some ovoides, diodons, real sea-porcupines, some pegasi,
pigeon spatulae, pale- colored calliomores, chaetodons etc. There were other so many strange
species seen, which are described vividly. Different types of sharks were also seen on their
journey.
While crossing the Bay of Bengal, they saw the sea to be milky white in color, which according
to the Professor, was due to the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm,
gelatinous and without color, of the thickness of a hair and not more than seven-thousandth of an
inch in length.
Captain Nemo also arranged for a visit to the island of Ceylon, noted for its pearl fisheries. The
description of pearl along with its definition and types gives the readers a wide knowledge about
it.
According to the Professor, a pearl to the poet is a tear of the sea, to the Orientals, it is a drop of
dew solidified, to the ladies, it is a jewel of an oblong shape, which they wear on their fingers,
ears or in necks, for the chemist, it is mixture of phosphate and carbonate of lime, with a little
gelatine, and lastly, for naturalists, it is simply a morbid secretion of the organ that produces the
mother-of-pearl amongst certain bivalves. In reality it is a branch of mollusca, order of testacea
i.e. the earshell the tridacnae, the turbots {all which secrete mother-of-pearl} including mussels
too produce pearls. The particular mollusc which secrets the pearl is the pearl oyster, the
‘meleagrina margaritifem’, which is a precious ‘pintadine’.
The pearl is nothing but a nacreous formation deposited in a globular form, either adhering to the
oyster-shell, or buried in the folds of the creature. On the shell it is fast, in the flesh it is loose,
but always has for a kernel a small hard substance, may be a barren egg, a grain of sand around
which the pearly matter deposits itself year after year successively and by thin concentric layers.
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While floating in the Red Sea, Captain Nemo explained its meaning. He said that ‘Edom” in
Hebrew, means ‘red’, which is because of the red color of the water. He said that this color was
due to a mucilaginous purple matter produced by little plants named trichodesmia, which
required about 40,000 to occupy a space of a square .04 of an inch.
The Captain has also made reference to Biblical incidents, about the ‘Red Sea’ given to it after
the passage of the Israelites, when Pharaoh perished in the waves, which closed at the voice of
Moses. He also mentions about the same spot, being blocked by the sand, which did not allow
the camels to even bathe their legs there, and where excavations if made, would unearth large
number of arms and instruments of Egyptian origin. There is mention of another Biblical
incident, when the Nautilus penetrated into the straits of Jubal, which lead to the Gulf of Suez,
where there was a high mountain, between the two gulfs of Ras-Mohammed, i.e. Mount Horeb,
that Sinai at the top of which Moses saw God face to face. These references give an authentic
feel to their adventures.
The mention of construction of the Suez Canal, shortening the roads between two seas from
Cadiz to India, also gives the same feel.
His intelligence can be gauged by his reasoning of knowing the passage between Suez and Gulf
of Pelusium.
The narrator has described the Mediterranean sea very beautifully – “The Mediterranean, the
blue sea, par excellence, “the great sea” of the Hebrews, the sea of the Greeks, the “mare
nostrum of the Romans, bordering by orange tree, aloes, cacti and sea-pines, embalmed with the
perfume of the myrtle, surrounded by rude mountains, saturated with pure and transparent
air,”(p-187)
The life in it is described very colorfully – “in the midst of the waters brightly lit by the electric
light, glided some of those lampreys, some oxyrhynchi, a kind of ray five feet broad, with white
belly and grey spotted back, a few milander sharks, sea-foxes, a fish consecrated to Venus,
magnificent sturgeons, dolphins, seals, etc.(p-188)
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All these adventures came to an end, when their ship got caught in a Maelstrom, where they were
thrown out, and found themselves on the Loffoden Isles. It was not known, what became of the
Nautilus or Captain Nemo and his crew.
The theme is unusual due to the following reasons:
4.5.2.1 Narrative Technique:
The story is told in the first person, limited point of view. It is told through the experience of
Professor Aronnax. To give an air of reality, the name of the museum of the faculty of
Medicine of Paris, is given to show the narwhals sword being kept there.
He has also directly addressed the readers to involve them – “I leave you to judge how eyes
were used on the board of the Abraham Lincoln”.(p-23)
The description of the library and the museum is given in the detail to make the readers
imagine it in the ship. Even the collection of the treasures of the sea, like the pearls,
zoophytes, and fish leaves the readers’ awestruck at the various names of species and types
mentioned. The nautical instrument described shows the brilliant mind of Captain Nemo. The
modern improvised kitchen, run on electricity, which was produced by the sodium extracted
from seawater, leaves the readers spellbound after knowing that it gave heat, light, motion
and life to the Nautilus. The Nautilus that was constructed by Captain Nemo is described in
detail, right from its dimensions, weight, structure and material. Even the working of the
ship makes the reader eager to read on.
The narrator has also told about where each part of the Nautilus was brought, through the
conversation of Captain Nemo, where he has mentioned the names of places to give it an
authentic feel – “the keel was forged at Creosote, the shaft at Perm & Co. London, The iron
plates of the hull at Lairds of Liverpool, the screw itself at Scott’s’ at Glasgow, the reservoirs
were made by Gail & Co at Paris, the engine by Krupp in Prussia, it’s beak in Motalas’
workshop in Sweden, its mathematical instruments by Hart Brothers of New York, etc.(p-74)
The mention of Guns – being perfected in England by Phillip Coles and Barley, in France and
in Italy by Landi…… give the reader a feeling of reality of the guns.(p-86)
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The forests and plants under the sea, are vividly described in all their grandeur, making the
journey enchanting and amazing with the living flower, hedges of zoophytes, fish- flies flying
from branch to branch, yellow lepisacomthi with bristling jaws ------ making the forests colorful
and lively. Descriptions of the sea spider, the otter, and sharks make the reader embark on a tour
of imagination along with the narrator and his companions.
The mention of the names of islands on their way, make the journey seem real – “ on the 11th of
December we sighted the Pomotou Islands at E.S.E. to W.N.W. from the Island Ducie to that of
Lazareff, island of Clermont-Tonnere, that was discovered in1822 by Captain Bell of the
Minerva, the graceful Tahiti, queen of the Pacific, New Hebrides, discovered by Quiros in 1606,
Islands of Aurou, Island of Vanikoro, where La Perouse had been lost.(pp-103-105)
The description of the Mediterranean Sea and the life in it brings in front of the reader’s eyes all
the magnificent details. The Atlantic Ocean is also described vividly. The event where the
cable was invented on the 13th of July 1866 is mentioned giving an air of reality.
4.5.2.2 Devices of Creating Authenticity:
The narrator has mentioned the names of News papers and Journals ie.Geographical Institution
of Brazil, Cosmos of Abbe Moigno etc. the dates – 13th of Aril 1867, the sea being
beautiful……… The 30th of July – that is to say, three weeks after the departure… The
timing is also mentioned, along with the date, - “The 6th of July, about three O’clock in the
afternoon…” to make it appear real. “ This promise was made on the 2nd of November,” The
mention of direction is done to show where they were at sea – “The frigate was then in 31
degrees 15 North Latitude and 136 degrees 42 East Longitude”. Right from the beginning
the narrator has explained every day of his journey, by mentioning the dates; the timings, the
directions and the places making the journey seem real and progressive.
The use of climax is done to explain the seeing of the narwhal –“one has ever conjectured,
seen, perceived or experienced……..(p-15) “They desired nothing better than to meet the
unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it in board, and dispatch it”(p-23), -“What quiet, what silence,
what peace!”(p-278)
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The scenery also colors the journey – “The fog disappeared under the action of the Sun’s rays,
the radiant orb rose from behind the eastern horizon. The sea flamed under its glance like a
train of gunpowder. The clouds scattered in the heights were colored with lively tints of
beautiful shades…”(p-82)
The mention of historical facts, makes the narration authentic – La Perouse, and his second
Captain de Langle, were sent by Louis XVI, in 1785, on a voyage of circumnavigation”.“In
1791, the French Government, justly uneasy as to the fate of these two sloops, manned two
large merchantmen, the Peycharche and the Esperance, which left Brest the 28th September
under the command of Bruni d’ Entrecasteaux.(p-106) Even the mention of ships lost or
wrecked at sea is done.
The encounter with the savages on one of the Islands makes the journey thrilling and
adventurous. The rare names of species and birds seen on their way, gives an insight of the
knowledge of the author,t hrough the notes of Conseil the servant, and the narrator’s
description. The vivid description of pearls and its formation, also erudite the reader on
pearls.
The mention of some places and seas – Sea of Oman, we sighted Muscat for an inland, we
passed along the Arabian coast of Mahrah and Hadreamant, entered the gulf of Aden, Nautilus
then approached the African shore… it floated in the broadest part of the Red Sea…We shall be
in the Mediterranean, It takes us beneath Suez, and open into the Gulf of Pelusium, I saw
Djeddah, the most
important counting house of Egypt, Syria, Turkey and India, etc makes the
journey real and happening.(pp-164-165,171)
The effect of lava on water and the history of the Atlantis Continent are mentioned, bringing
forth all the historical facts in front of the reader, thus involving him in the travel. The
description of the flora and fauna of the South Pole brings in a plethora of mixed species,
amazing the already enriched reader.
The cuttle fish is also described, on their journey, along with an encounter with them, resulting in
the death of one of the crew of Captain Nemo. The hurricane which was one of the last
incidents during the end of their journey portrays a picture of nature’s fury and mans
helplessness before it.
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4.5.2.3 Use of Tropes:
Inversion:
The use of Inversion is done :-“Besides, thought, I, “all roads lead back to Europe”, The
quote is also modified, giving importance to what the narrator wants to say about his
decision of undertaking the journey to search the monster.
Anthithesis:
The use of Antithesis is done to show two contradictory statements, but true regarding the
mission they were on - “A glorious mission, but a dangerous one”.
Metaphor:
It is also used more to point out the importance of certain events and their symbolism:“He was a kind of knight of Rhode’s, a second Dieudonne de Gozon…”
“But night came on, and overshadowed the rough ocean “.
“ And the reeds, scarcely raised by the breeze, lay peacefully under the sides of
Nautilus “
Hyperbole:
It has been used to show exaggerated feelings and emotions:“Ah, brave Ned! I ask no more than to live a hundred years longer”.
“My heart beat as if it would break” to show the eagerness of observing the reputed
monster,
“I will pursue that beast, till my frigate bursts up “.
“Immensely rich, Sir, and I could, without missing it, pay the nationals debt of France.”
– This was said to show how much wealthy Captain Nemo was.
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Interrogation:
The use of Interrogation is done not to ask questions but to enlighten the readers on
certain things. To emphasize on the cause of destruction to “Scotia” to make readers
curious and eager to read on to know the real reason“But, if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain the accident to the Scotia?”
“Was it the voice of another unfortunate creature, abandoned in the middle of the ocean?
Some other victim of the shock sustained by the vessel? Or rather was it a boat from the
frigate that was hailing us in the darkness?” – to show the narrator’s desperateness and hope
for survival, after his fall in the sea.
“Whom had we to deal with?” - When they were abducted from the surface of the Nautilus,
showing their ignorance and fear of the abductors.
“What a spectacle? What pen can describe it?” - to emphasize on the effects of light on the
transparent water as viewed through the openings in the Nautilus.
“Was he dreaming of those generations long since disappeared? “Was he asking them the secret
of human destiny?
Was it here this strange man came to step himself in historical
recollections, and live again this ancient life, - he who wanted no modern one? - tells us
about the mystery surrounding Captain Nemo and the narrator’s curiosity about it.
“Was it a confession of remorse which thus escaped from this mans conscience?”– These tell
the readers about the doubts expressed by the narrator over Captain Nemos explanation,
showing his eagerness to understand him.
Biblical References:
Use of Biblical references is done, to make the incident more important:
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“The time is past for Jonah to take refuge in whale’s bellies” and also to humorously
point out their plight.
“The passage of the Israelites and of the catastrophe to the Egyptians refers to the Red Sea.
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….. the spot where Moses and his people passed is now blocked up with sand …… the
Israelites, nevertheless, crossed there to reach the Promised Land and Pharaohs army
perished on that spot”
“It was Mount Horeb, that Sinai at the top of which Moses saw God face to face”.
The author ends the novel with a hope that the Nautilus survives, and Captain Nemo is appeased
of his hatred and his vengeance extinguished forever. He has also ended it on a note of
philosophy-‘that which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?’ The author through
the narrator, has left the questions unanswered, making the reader remain in a state of curiosity
and thought, though he lastly says that only two men alone of all now living have the right to the
above answer-Captain Nemo and Myself.
These are the reasons which have made this novel popular.
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4.6 FRANKENSTEIN -MARY SHELLEY
4.6.1 Summary:
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a novel
written by Mary Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18 and the novel was
published when she was 20. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818.
Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France. The title of the novel refers to
a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness
of man, but larger than average and more powerful. In popular culture, people have tended
incorrectly to refer to the monster as Frankenstein. Frankenstein is infused with some elements
of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement. It was also a warning against the expansion of
modern man in the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern
Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a
complete genre of horror stories and films.
Walton's Introductory Frame Narrative:
Frankenstein begins in epistolary form, documenting the correspondence between Captain
Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton sets out to explore the North Pole
and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame and friendship. The ship
becomes trapped in ice, and, one day, the crew sees a dogsled in the distance, on which there is
the figure of a giant man. Hours later, the crew finds Frankenstein, weak and in need of
sustenance. Frankenstein had been in pursuit of his monster when all but one of his dogs died.
He had broken apart his dogsled to make oars and rowed an ice-raft toward the vessel.
Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion and recounts his story to Walton. Before
beginning his story, Frankenstein warns Walton of the wretched effects of allowing one's
ambition to push one to aim beyond what one is capable of achieving.
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Frankenstein's Narrative:
Victor Frankenstein begins by telling Walton of his childhood. Raised by a wealthy family,
Frankenstein is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him (in science).
He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends.
As a young boy, Frankenstein becomes obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that
focus on achieving natural wonders. He plans to attend university at Ingolstadt Germany. But, a
week before his planned departure, Frankenstein's mother dies ironically after curing his sister,
Elizabeth, who became ill with scarlet fever. The whole family is aggrieved, and Frankenstein
sees death as his life's first misfortune. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences
and—in part through studying how life decays—discovers the secret to imbuing the inanimate
with life. He also becomes interested in galvanism, a technique discovered in the 1790s.
While the exact details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, Frankenstein explains
that he collected bones from charnel-houses, and "disturbed, with profane fingers, the
tremendous secrets of the human frame."(p-43) He also says that the dissecting room and
slaughter-house furnished many of his materials. Frankenstein explains that he had been forced
to make the monster much larger than a normal man—he estimates it to be about eight feet tall—
in part because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. After giving
the monster life, Frankenstein is disgusted by and fearful of the monster's appearance. When the
monster first comes to life, Victor says, "I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded
moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror
and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley, Volume One, VII). Frankenstein flees hoping to forget
what he has created and attempts to live a normal life. Victor is negligent in every way towards
the care of the monster. This creates a life experience for the monster that is painful and lonely
However the monster is learning valuable life lessons about family and love.
After his exhausting and secretive efforts to create a human life, Frankenstein becomes ill. He is
nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. It takes Frankenstein four months
to recover from his illness. He has determined that he should return home when his five-year-old
brother, William, is found murdered. Elizabeth blames herself for William's death because she
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had allowed him to have access to his mother's locket. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the
murder based on the discovery of Frankenstein's mother's locket in her pocket. It is revealed that
the creature murdered William and then placed the locket into Justine's coat, and the back story
for the creature's murder of William is given.
Frankenstein's monster travels to Geneva and meets a little boy in the woods. Hoping that,
because the boy is still young and potentially unaffected by older humans' perception of his
hideousness, the boy will be a companion for him, Frankenstein's monster plans to abduct the
child. But the boy reveals himself as a relation of Frankenstein. Upon seeing the monster, the
boy shouts insults, angering the monster. In an attempt to reason with the boy, the monster
covers the boy's mouth to silence him. The monster ends up killing the boy by asphyxiation.
Although not his original intent, the monster takes it as his first act of vengeance against his
creator. The monster removes a necklace from the dead boy's body and plants it on a sleeping
girl, Justine. Justine is found with the necklace, put on trial and found guilty. The judges at the
trial are noted for their dislike of executing people when there is any doubt; but, under threats of
excommunication, Justine confesses to the murder and is executed.
When Frankenstein learns of his brother's death, he returns to Geneva to be with his family.
Frankenstein sees the monster in the woods where his young brother was murdered, and becomes
certain that the monster is William's murderer. Ravaged by his grief and guilt for creating the
monster who wreaked so much destruction, Frankenstein retreats into the mountains to find
peace. After some time in solitude, the monster approaches Frankenstein. Initially furious and
intent on killing the monster, Frankenstein attempts to spring on him. The monster, far larger and
more agile than his creator, eludes Frankenstein and allows the man to compose himself.
Frankenstein encounters his creation while pursuing him to revenge William's death. The
monster begins to tell Frankenstein of his encounters with humans, and how he had become
afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage, observing the family living there. The
family had been wealthy, but was forced into exile when Felix De Lacey rescued a Turkish
merchant wrongfully accused of a crime and sentenced to death. The man rescued by Felix was
the father of his beloved, a girl named Safie. Once rescued, the father agreed to allow Felix to
marry Safie. Ultimately, though, he could not stand the idea of his beloved daughter marrying a
Christian and fled with his daughter. Safie returned, eager for the freedom of European women.
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Through observing the De Lacey family, the monster becomes educated and self-aware, realizing
that he is very different in physical appearance from the humans he watches. In loneliness, the
monster seeks to befriend the De Laceys. When the monster tries to befriend the family, he is
prevented by their fear of him. This rejection makes the monster seek vengeance against his
creator. It begins with his creation, which fashions an impression of him as an initially harmless
innocent whom humans have abused into wretchedness. He concludes his story with a demand
that Frankenstein create for him a female companion, on the basis that he is lonely and therefore
no human will accept his existence and character. The monster argues that as a living thing, he
has a right to happiness and that Frankenstein, as his creator, has a duty to oblige him. He
promises never to reappear if Frankenstein creates a companion for him.
Fearing for his family, Frankenstein reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work.
Clerval accompanies Frankenstein, but they separate in Scotland. In the process of creating a
second being on the Orkney Islands, Frankenstein is plagued by premonitions of the carnage
another monster would wreak. Frankenstein destroys the unfinished project. The monster
witnesses this event and vows revenge on Frankenstein's upcoming wedding night. Before
Frankenstein returns to Ireland, the monster murders Clerval. Arriving in Ireland, Frankenstein is
imprisoned for the murder, and falls violently ill. After being acquitted and with his health
renewed, Frankenstein returns home with his father.
Once home, Frankenstein marries his cousin Elizabeth and, possessing full knowledge of and
belief in the monster's threat, prepares for a fight to the death with the monster. Not wanting
Elizabeth to be frightened at the sight of the monster, Frankenstein asks her to stay in her room
for the night. The monster bypasses Frankenstein and instead kills the secluded Elizabeth. Griefstricken by the deaths of his wife, William, Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth, Frankenstein's father
dies. Frankenstein vows to pursue the monster until one of them destroys the other. After months
of pursuit, the two end up in the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole.
Walton's Concluding Frame Narrative:
At the end of Frankenstein's narrative, Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story. A few
days after Frankenstein finishes his story, Walton and the crew decide that they will not be able
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to break through the ice and should return home. As Frankenstein dies, the monster appears in
his room. Walton hears the monster's adamant justification for his vengeance as well as
expressions of remorse before he leaves the ship and travels toward the Pole to destroy himself
on his own funeral pyre so that no one will ever know of his existence.
4.6.2 Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The following
themes are seen in this novel:
Dangerous Knowledge
The pursuit of knowledge is at the heart of Frankenstein, as Victor attempts to surge beyond
accepted human limits and accesses the secret of life. Likewise, Robert Walton attempts to
surpass previous human explorations by endeavoring to reach the North Pole. This ruthless
pursuit of knowledge, of the light (see ‘Light and Fire’), proves dangerous, as Victor’s act of
creation eventually results in the destruction of everyone dear to him, and Walton finds himself
perilously trapped between sheets of ice. Whereas Victor’s obsessive hatred of the monster
drives him to his death, Walton ultimately pulls back from his treacherous mission, having
learned from Victor’s example how destructive the thirst for knowledge can be.
Sublime Nature
The sublime natural world, embraced by Romanticism (late eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth
century) as a source of unrestrained emotional experience for the individual, initially offers
characters the possibility of spiritual renewal. Mired in depression and remorse after the deaths
of William and Justine, for which he feels responsible, Victor heads to the mountains to lift his
spirits. Likewise, after a hellish winter of cold and abandonment, the monster feels his heart
lighten as spring arrives. The influence of nature on mood is evident throughout the novel, but
for Victor, the natural world’s power to console him wanes when he realizes that the monster
will haunt him no matter where he goes. By the end, as Victor chases the monster obsessively,
nature, in the form of the Arctic desert, functions simply as the symbolic backdrop for his primal
struggle against the monster.
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Monstrosity
Obviously, this theme pervades the entire novel, as the monster lies at the center of the action.
Eight feet tall and hideously ugly, the monster is rejected by society. However, his monstrosity
results not only from his grotesque appearance but also from the unnatural manner of his
creation, which involves the secretive animation of a mix of stolen body parts and strange
chemicals. He is a product not of collaborative scientific effort but of dark, supernatural
workings.
The monster is only the most literal of a number of monstrous entities in the novel, including the
knowledge that Victor used to create the monster. One can argue that Victor himself is a kind of
monster, as his ambition, secrecy, and selfishness alienate him from human society. Ordinary on
the outside, he may be the true ‘monster’ inside, as he is eventually consumed by an obsessive
hatred of his creation. Finally, many critics have described the novel itself as monstrous; a
stitched-together combination of different voices, texts, and tenses.
Secrecy
Victor conceives of science as a mystery to be probed; its secrets, once discovered, must be
jealously guarded. He considers M. Krempe, the natural philosopher he meets at Ingolstadt, a
model scientist: ‘an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.’ Victor’s
entire obsession with creating life is shrouded in secrecy, and his obsession with destroying the
monster remains equally secret until Walton hears his tale.
Whereas Victor continues in his secrecy out of shame and guilt, the monster is forced into
seclusion by his grotesque appearance. Walton serves as the final confessor for both, and their
tragic relationship becomes immortalized in Walton’s letters. In confessing all just before he
dies, Victor escapes the stifling secrecy that has ruined his life; likewise, the monster takes
advantage of Walton’s presence to forge a human connection, hoping desperately that at last
someone will understand, and empathize with, his miserable existence.
Texts
Frankenstein is overflowing with texts: letters, notes, journals, inscriptions, and books fill the
novel, sometimes nestled inside each other, other times simply alluded to or quoted. Walton’s
letters envelop the entire tale; Victor’s story fits inside Walton’s letters; the monster’s story fits
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inside Victor’s; and the love story of Felix and Safie and references to Paradise Lost fit inside
the monster’s story. This profusion of texts is an important aspect of the narrative structure, as
the various writings serve as concrete manifestations of characters’ attitudes and emotions.
Language plays an enormous role in the monster’s development. By hearing and watching the
peasants, the monster learns to speak and read, which enables him to understand the manner of
his creation, as described in Victor’s journal. He later leaves notes for Victor along the chase into
the northern ice, inscribing words in trees and on rocks, turning nature itself into a writing
surface.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes. The various motifs in this novel are:
Passive Women
For a novel written by the daughter of an important feminist, Frankenstein is strikingly devoid
of strong female characters. The novel is littered with passive women who suffer calmly and then
expire: Caroline Beaufort is a self-sacrificing mother who dies taking care of her adopted
daughter; Justine is executed for murder, despite her innocence; the creation of the female
monster is aborted by Victor because he fears being unable to control her actions once she is
animated; Elizabeth waits, impatient but helpless, for Victor to return to her, and she is
eventually murdered by the monster. One can argue that Shelley renders her female characters so
passive and subjects them to such ill treatment in order to call attention to the obsessive and
destructive behavior that Victor and the monster exhibit.
Abortion
The motif of abortion recurs as both Victor and the monster express their sense of the monster’s
hideousness. About first seeing his creation, Victor says: ‘When I thought of him, I gnashed my
teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so
thoughtlessly made’. The monster feels a similar disgust for himself: ‘I, the miserable and the
abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on’. Both lament the
monster’s existence and wish that Victor had never engaged in his act of creation.
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The motif appears also in regard to Victor’s other pursuits. When Victor destroys his work on a
female monster, he literally aborts his act of creation, preventing the female monster from
coming alive. Figurative abortion materializes in Victor’s description of natural philosophy: ‘I at
once gave up my former occupations; set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed
and abortive creation; and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science, which could
never even step within the threshold of real knowledge’. As with the monster, Victor becomes
dissatisfied with natural philosophy and shuns it not only as unhelpful but also as intellectually
grotesque.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The symbols in this novel are:
Light and Fire
‘What could not be expected in the country of eternal light?’ asks Walton, displaying a faith in,
and optimism about, science. In Frankenstein, light symbolizes knowledge, discovery, and
enlightenment. The natural world is a place of dark secrets, hidden passages, and unknown
mechanisms; the goal of the scientist is then to reach light. The dangerous and more powerful
cousin of light is fire. The monster’s first experience with a still-smoldering flame reveals the
dual nature of fire: he discovers excitedly that it creates light in the darkness of the night, but
also that it harms him when he touches it.
The presence of fire in the text also brings to mind the full title of Shelley’s novel,
Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. The Greek god Prometheus gave the knowledge
of fire to humanity and was then severely punished for it. Victor, attempting to become a modern
Prometheus, is certainly punished, but unlike fire, his “gift” to humanity—knowledge of the
secret of life—remains a secret.
The Theme is unusual for the following reasons:
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4.6.2.1 Narrative Technique:
This novel by Mary Shelley is epistolary and multilayered, enclosing narratives. The structure is
symmetrical. The story begins with Walton, moves to Frankenstein, then to the Creature, then
back to Frankenstein and finally to Walton again.
This narrative pattern can also be described as triangular: each of the three main characters has
important conversations with the two others, and this pattern also marks the exclusion of all other
characters from the story. The choice of narrative form, occasions a variety of effects. The
different narratives are offered as testimonies. There is no omniscient narrator to comment or to
guide understanding. The reader has to absorb the narratives and draw their own conclusions. It
also conceals the author from the readers.
The narrative form also brilliantly enfolds the concern of the story. The creatures’ narrative,
which is the heart and the centre of the text, lies literally at its heart, expressing the key themes
of abandonment, responsibility and the effect of environment.
Walton’s role as the primary narrator has several dimensions. He mediates the stories of Victor
and the Creature, and, at the beginning of the novel, Shelley also uses him to introduce some of
the key themes.
The framing narratives of Walton’s letters allow Mary Shelley to find a reason for the story to be
told and to characterize him in a way that prepares us for the appearance of Frankenstein. His
function is it suggests themes that become more concrete after the introduction of the main
protagonists, and to convey their narratives. His personality is important only in so far as it
reveals aspects of Victor or the Creature. Frankenstein is not a simple battle between good and
evil; it is not a ghost story, nor really a gothic novel. It defies a single interpretation, engaging
instead with some of the crucial social and public questions of the period.
Much emphasis has been placed upon the importance of Mary Shelley’s family history in
shaping the story of Frankenstein. She was born to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin,
who were famous radical thinkers. Her upbringing was marred by loss. She was just ten days old,
when she lost her mother. Her father re-married, which alienated her from her family. She eloped
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with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Romantic poet, at the age of sixteen. He was a married man, who
later eloped with her half-sister, Claire Claremont, who was his mistress. Mary gave birth to a
daughter, who died within two weeks of her birth. She was devastated and has mentioned her
feelings and a dream she had of her child being revived, in her journals“Dreamt that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it
before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in
good spirits.” (Journals, p.70)
There is no doubt that this experience significantly influenced Frankenstein. The novel is
connected to a range of scientific, philosophical and political ideas of its time. Main amongst
these was scientific exploration, in which Erasmus Darwin, Humphrey Davy and Luigi Galvani
were some of the important names. Darwin was mainly interested in Botany and the process of
evolution. He explored through his works, the creative and regenerative process of nature,
without trying to intervene in or change this process. One trying experiment, where he animated
a piece of vermicelli, seemed particularly important as a source for ‘Frankenstein’. It is referred
to by Mary Shelley in the introduction to the 1831 edition.
Galvani’s revivifying of dead tissue had the most obvious impact on Frankenstein: in 1791, he
experimented on ‘animal electricity’ which was substantially produced from the brain and
conducted to muscles and other organs through the nerves. Marry Shelley’s knowledge of these
ideas derived from several sources. Her husband, who was interested in radical science,
encouraged her to study the subject and also accompanied her to lectures in London.
Her father, who was a friend of Davy, a chemist and who argued for the power of chemistry as
the underlying principal of all life, was deeply interested in new scientific theory. She
investigated her fathers and husbands libraries to extend her awareness of contemporary
scientific and philosophic debate.
Amongst other subjects, the conversation turned to galvanism and the feasibility of returning a
corpse or assembled body parts to life, and to the experiments of the 18th-century natural
philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter. Sitting
around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company also amused themselves by reading German ghost
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stories, prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own During the rainy summer of 1816,
the ‘Year Without a Summer,’ the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the
eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, aged 18, and her lover (and
later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in
Switzerland.
The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday
activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn. Among other subjects, the
conversation turned to galvanism and the feasibility of returning a corpse or assembled body
parts to life, and to the experiments of the 18th century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus
Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter. Sitting around a log fire at Byron’s villa,
the company also amused themselves by reading German ghost stories, prompting Byron to
suggest that they each write their own supernatural tale. Shortly afterwards, in a waking dream,
Mary Godwin conceived the idea for Frankenstein:
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw
the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine,
show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for
SUPREMELY frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous
mechanism of the Creator of the world.”
She began writing what she assumed would be a short story. With Percy Shelley's
encouragement, she expanded this tale into a full-fledged novel. She later described that summer
in Switzerland as the moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life’.
Mary Shelley made an anonymous but powerful debut into the world of literature when
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus was published in March, 1818. She and her
husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was visiting poet Lord Byron at Lake Geneva in
Switzerland when Byron challenged each of his guests to write a ghost story. Settled around
Byron's fireplace in June 1816, the intimate group of intellectuals had their imaginations and the
stormy weather as the stimulus and inspiration for ghoulish visions. A few nights later Mary
Shelley imagined the ‘hideous phantasm of man’ who became the confused yet deeply sensitive
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creature in Frankenstein. She once said, "My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable
than my writings."(p-1) While many stage, television, and film adaptations of Frankenstein
have simplified the complexity of the intellectual and emotional responses of Victor
Frankenstein and his creature to their world, the novel still endures. Its lasting power can be seen
in the range of reactions explored by various literary critics and over ninety dramatizations.
Although early critics greeted the novel with a combination of praise and disdain, readers were
fascinated with and a bit horrified by the macabre aspects of the novel. Interestingly, the macabre
has transformed into the possible as the world approaches the twenty-first century: the ethical
implications of genetic engineering, and, more recently, the cloning of livestock, find echoes in
Shelley's work. In addition to scientific interest, literary commentators have noted the influence
of both Percy Shelley and William Godwin (Mary's father) in the novel. Many contemporary
critics have focused their attention on the novel's biographical elements, tracing Shelley's
maternal and authorial insecurities to her very unique creation myth. Ultimately, the novel
resonates with philosophical and moral ramifications: themes of nurture versus nature, good
versus evil, and ambition versus social responsibility dominate readers' attention and provoke
thoughtful consideration of the most sensitive issues of our time.
The preface to Frankenstein sets up the novel as entertainment, but with a serious twist—a
science fiction that nonetheless captures ‘the truth of the elementary principles of human nature’.
The works of Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton are held up as shining examples of the kind of
work Frankenstein aspires to be. Incidentally, the reference to ‘Dr. Darwin’ in the first sentence
is not to the famous evolutionist Charles Darwin, who was seven years old at the time the novel
was written, but to his grandfather, the biologist Erasmus Darwin.
In addition to setting the scene for the telling of the stranger’s narrative, Walton’s letters
introduce an important character—Walton himself—whose story parallels Frankenstein’s. The
second letter introduces the idea of loss and loneliness, as Walton complains that he has no
friends with whom to share his triumphs and failures, no sensitive ear to listen to his dreams and
ambitions. Walton turns to the stranger as the friend he has always wanted; his search for
companionship, and his attempt to find it in the stranger, parallels the monster’s desire for a
friend and mate later in the novel. This parallel between man and monster, still hidden in these
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early letters but increasingly clear as the novel progresses, suggests that the two may not be as
different as they seem.
Another theme that Walton’s letters introduce is the danger of knowledge. The stranger tells
Walton, “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the
gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”(p-24) The
theme of destructive knowledge is developed throughout the novel as the tragic consequences of
the stranger’s obsessive search for understanding are revealed. Walton, like the stranger, is
entranced by the opportunity to know what no one else knows, to delve into nature’s secrets:
“What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?” he asks.
Walton’s is only the first of many voices in Frankenstein. His letters set up a frame narrative
that encloses the main narrative—the stranger’s—and provides the context in which it is told,
nested within the stranger’s narrative, are even more voices. The use of multiple frame narratives
calls attention to the telling of the story, adding new layers of complexity to the already intricate
relationship between author and reader: as the reader listens to Victor’s story, so does Walton; as
Walton listens, so does his sister. By focusing the reader’s attention on narration, on the
importance of the storyteller and his or her audience, Shelley may have been trying to link her
novel to the oral tradition to which the ghost stories that inspired her tale belong. Within each
framed narrative, the reader receives constant reminders of the presence of other authors and
audiences, and of perspective shifts, as Victor breaks out of his narrative to address Walton
directly and as Walton signs off each of his letters to his sister.
The picture that Victor draws of his childhood is an idyllic one. Though loss abounds—the
poverty of Beaufort and the orphaning of Elizabeth, for instance—it is always quickly alleviated
by the presence of a close, loving family. Nonetheless, the reader senses, even in these early
passages, that the stability and comfort of family are about to be exploded. Shining through
Victor’s narration of a joyful childhood and an eccentric adolescence is a glimmer of the great
tragedy that will soon overtake him.
Women in Frankenstein fit into few roles: the loving, sacrificial mother; the innocent, sensitive
child; and the concerned, confused, abandoned lover. Throughout the novel, they are universally
passive, rising only at the most extreme moments to demand action from the men around them.
The language Victor uses to describe the relationship between his mother and father supports this
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image of women’s passivity: in reference to his mother, he says that his father “came as a
protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care.” (p-27) Elizabeth, Justine
Moritz, and Caroline Beaufort all fit into this mold of the passive woman. Various meta-narrative
comments (i.e., remarks that pertain not to the content of the narrative but rather to the telling of
the narrative) remind the reader of the fact that Victor’s narrative is contained within Walton’s.
Victor interrupts his story to relate how Elizabeth became a part of his family, prefacing the
digression with the comment, “But before I continue my narrative, I must record an incident.”
Such guiding statements structure Victor’s narrative and remind the reader that Victor is telling
his story to a specific audience—Walton.
Foreshadowing is ubiquitous in these chapters and, in fact, throughout the novel. Even Walton’s
letters prepare the way for the tragic events that Victor will recount. Victor constantly alludes to
his imminent doom; for example, he calls his interest in natural philosophy ‘the genius that has
regulated my fate’ and ‘the fatal impulse that led to my ruin’. Victor’s narrative is rife with
nostalgia for a happier time; he dwells on the fuzzy memories of his blissful childhood with
Elizabeth, his father and mother, and Henry Clerval. But even in the midst of these tranquil
childhood recollections, he cannot ignore the signs of the tragedy that lies in his imminent future;
he sees that each event, such as the death of his mother, is nothing but ‘an omen, as it were, of
[his] future misery’.
This heavy use of foreshadowing has a dual effect. On the one hand, it adds to the suspense of
the novel, leaving the reader wondering about the nature of the awful tragedy that has caused
Victor so much grief. On the other hand, it drains away some of the suspense—the reader knows
far ahead of time that Victor has no hope, that all is doomed. Words like ‘fate,’ ‘fatal’, and
‘omen’ reinforce the inevitability of Victor’s tragedy, suggesting not only a sense of resignation
but also, perhaps, and an attempt by Victor to deny responsibility for his own misfortune.
Describing his decision to study chemistry, he says, “Thus ended a day memorable to me; it
decided my future destiny.”(p-39)
Whereas the first two chapters give the reader a mere sense of impending doom, these chapters
depict Victor irrevocably on the way to tragedy. The creation of the monster is a grotesque act,
far removed from the triumph of scientific knowledge for which Victor had hoped. His
nightmares reflect his horror at what he has done and also serve to foreshadow future events in
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the novel. The images of Elizabeth ‘livid with the hue of death’ prepare the reader for
Elizabeth’s eventual death and connect it, however indirectly, to the creation of the monster.
Victor’s pursuit of scientific knowledge reveals a great deal about his perceptions of science in
general. He views science as the only true route to new knowledge: “In other studies you go as
far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in scientific pursuit
there is continual food for discovery and wonder.”(p-40) Walton’s journey to the North Pole is
likewise a search for ‘food for discovery and wonder,’ a step into the tantalizing, dark unknown.
The symbol of light, introduced in Walton’s first letter, appears again in Victor’s narrative, this
time in a scientific context. ‘From the midst of this darkness,’ Victor says when describing his
discovery of the secret of life, “a sudden light broke in upon me—a light so brilliant and
wondrous.”(p-41) Light reveals, illuminates, clarifies; it is essential for seeing, and seeing is the
way to knowledge. Just as light can illuminate, however, so can it blind; pleasantly warm at
moderate levels, it ignites dangerous flames at higher ones. Immediately after his first
metaphorical use of light as a symbol of knowledge, Victor retreats into secrecy and warns
Walton of ‘how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge’. Thus, light is balanced always by
fire, the promise of new discovery by the danger of unpredictable—and perhaps tragic—
consequences.
The theme of secrecy manifests itself in these chapters, as Victor’s studies draw him farther and
farther away from those who love and advise him. He conducts his experiments alone, following
the example of the ancient alchemists, who jealously guarded their secrets, and rejecting the
openness of the new sciences. Victor displays an unhealthy obsession with all of his endeavors,
and the labor of creating the monster takes its toll on him. It drags him into charnel houses in
search of old body parts and, even more important, isolates him from the world of open social
institutions. Though Henry’s presence makes Victor become conscious of his gradual loss of
touch with humanity, Victor is nonetheless unwilling to tell Henry anything about the monster.
The theme of secrecy transforms itself, now linked to Victor’s shame and regret for having ever
hoped to create a new life.
Victor’s reaction to his creation initiates a haunting theme that persists throughout the novel—
the sense that the monster is inescapable, ever present, liable to appear at any moment and wreak
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havoc. When Victor arrives at his apartment with Henry, he opens the door “as children are
accustomed to do when they expect a specter to stand in waiting for them on the other side,”(p48) a seeming echo of the tension-filled German ghost stories read by Mary Shelley and her
vacationing companions.
As in the first three chapters, Victor repeatedly addresses Walton, his immediate audience,
reminding the reader of the frame narrative and of the multiple layers of storytellers and
listeners. Structuring comments such as “I fear, my friend that I shall render myself tedious by
dwelling on these preliminary circumstances” remind the reader of the target audience (Walton)
and help indicate the relative importance of each passage.
Shelley employs other literary devices from time to time, including apostrophe, in which the
speaker addresses an inanimate object, absent person, or abstract idea. Victor occasionally
addresses some of the figures from his past as if they were with him on board Walton’s ship.
“Excellent friend!” he exclaims, referring to Henry. “How sincerely did you love me, and
endeavor to elevate my mind, until it was on a level with your own.”(p-55) Apostrophe was a
favorite of Mary Shelley’s husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who used it often in his poetry; its
occurrence here might reflect some degree of Percy’s influence on Mary’s writing.
Victor’s incorporation of written letters into his story allows both Elizabeth and Alphonse to
participate directly in the narrative, bypassing Victor to speak directly to Walton and the reader.
However, at the same time that the letters increase the realism of the narrative, allowing the
reader to hear the characters’ distinct voices, they also make the overall narrative less plausible.
It is unlikely that Frankenstein would remember the letters word-for-word and even more
unlikely that Walton would record them as such in his own letters to his sister. Furthermore,
there is the question of filtering: the recollections of either Victor or Walton, or both, could be
biased, either subconsciously or consciously. The presence of these letters foregrounds the issue
of whether or not the narrator is reliable.
Women continue to play a mostly passive role in the narrative. Although Elizabeth stands up for
Justine’s innocence, she, like Justine, is completely helpless to stop the execution. Only Victor
has the power to do so, as he is in possession of crucial knowledge that could identify the real
killer. It is clear where the power lies in the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth: he makes
the decisions; she pleads with him to make the right ones.
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Appearing in Ingolstadt at just the right moment to nurse Victor back to health, Henry serves as
the line of communication between Victor and his family, presenting him with an avenue back to
the warmth of society. In asking Victor to introduce him to the professors at the university,
however, Henry drags him back into the realm of chemistry, science, and dangerous knowledge
that he has just escaped. By accompanying Victor on his walking tour, Henry reawakens in him a
sense of health, openness, and friendly society that he had lost during his months of work
creating the monster. Henry plays the foil to Victor; he embodies relentless clarity, openness,
concern, and good health, in sharp contrast to Victor’s secrecy, self-absorption, and ill health.
These chapters contain some of the novel’s most explicit instances of the theme of sublime
nature, as nature’s powerful influence on Victor becomes manifest. The natural world has
noticeable effects on Victor’s mood: he is moved and cheered in the presence of scenic beauty,
and he is disconsolate in its absence. Just as nature can make him joyful, however, so can it
remind him of his guilt, shame, and regret: “The rain depressed me; my old feelings recurred,
and I was miserable.” Shelley aligns Victor with the Romantic movement of late-eighteenth- to
mid-nineteenth-century Europe, which emphasized a turn to nature for sublime experience—
feelings of awe, hope, and ecstasy. Victor’s affinity with nature is of particular significance
because of the monster’s ties to nature. Both distinctly at home in nature and unnatural almost by
definition, the monster becomes a symbol of Victor’s folly in trying to emulate the natural forces
of creation.
Formerly a mysterious, grotesque, completely physical being, the monster now becomes a
verbal, emotional, sensitive, almost human figure that communicates his past to Victor in
eloquent and moving terms. This transformation is key to Victor’s fuller understanding of his act
of creation: before, it was the monster’s physical strength, endurance, and apparent ill will that
made him such a threat; now, it is his intellect. The monster clearly understands his position in
the world, the tragedy of his existence and abandonment by his creator, and is out to seek either
redress or revenge. For the first time, Victor starts to realize that what he has created is not
merely the scientific product of an experiment in animated matter but an actual living being with
needs and wants.
While Victor curses the monster as a demon, the monster responds to Victor’s coarseness with
surprising eloquence and sensitivity, proving himself an educated, emotional, exquisitely human
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being. While the monster’s grotesque appearance lies only in the reader’s imagination (and may
be exaggerated by Victor’s bias), his moving words stand as a concrete illustration of his delicate
nature. For the reader, whose experience with the monster’s ugliness is secondhand, it is easy to
identify the human sensitivity within him and sympathize with his plight, especially in light of
Victor’s relentless contempt for him. The gap between the monster and Victor and between the
monster and human beings in general, is thus narrowed.
One of the ways in which the monster demonstrates his eloquence is by alluding to John
Milton’s Paradise Lost, one of the books he reads while living in the peasants’ hovel (described
later in the monster’s narrative). The first of these allusions occurs in these chapters, when the
monster tries to convince Victor to listen to his story. He entreats Victor to “remember, that I am
thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel.”(p-77) By comparing
Victor to God, the monster heaps responsibility for his evil actions upon Victor, scolding him for
his neglectful failure to provide a nourishing environment.
The monster’s growing understanding of the social significance of family is connected to his
sense of otherness and solitude. The cottagers’ devotion to each other underscores Victor’s total
abandonment of the monster; ironically, observing their kindness actually causes the monster to
suffer, as he realizes how truly alone, and how far from being the recipient of such kindness, he
is. This lack of interaction with others, in addition to his made him angry at his creator.
The theme of nature’s sublimity, of the connection between human moods and natural
surroundings, resurfaces in the monster’s childlike reaction to springtime. Nature proves as
important to the monster as it is to Victor: as the temperature rises and the winter ice melts, the
monster takes comfort in a suddenly green and blooming world, glorifying in nature’s creation
when he cannot rejoice in his own. For a moment, he is able to forget his own ugliness and
unnaturalness.
Like Victor, the monster comes to regard knowledge as dangerous, as it can have unforeseen
negative consequences. After realizing that he is horribly different from human beings, the
monster cries, “Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once
seized on it, like lichen on the rock.”(p-93) Knowledge is permanent and irreversible; once
gained, it cannot be dispossessed. Just as the monster, a product of knowledge, spins out of
Victor’s control, so too can knowledge itself, once uncovered, create irreversible harm.
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Certain elements of the narrative style persist as the perspective transitions from Victor to the
monster. Both narrators are emotional, sensitive, aware of nature’s power, and concerned with
the dangers of knowledge; both express themselves in an elegant, romantic, slightly
melodramatic tone. One can argue that the similarity of their tones arises as a function of the
filtering inherent in the layered narrative: the monster speaks through Victor, Victor speaks
through Walton, and Walton ultimately speaks through the sensitive, Romantic Shelley.
However, one can also explore whether the structure of the novel itself helps explain these
narrative parallels. The growing list of similarities between Victor and the monster suggests that
the two characters may not be so different after all.
The subplot of Safie and the cottagers adds yet another set of voices to the novel. Their story is
transmitted from the cottagers to the monster, from the monster to Victor, from Victor to Walton,
and from Walton to his sister, at which point the reader finally gains access to it. This layering of
stories within stories enables the reworking of familiar ideas in new contexts. One such idea is
the sense of “otherness” that many characters in Frankenstein feel. The monster, whose solitude
stems from being the only creature of his kind in existence and from being shunned by humanity,
senses this quality of being different most powerfully. His deformity, his ability to survive
extreme conditions, and the grotesque circumstances of his creation all serve to mark him as the
ultimate outsider. Victor, too, is an outsider, as his awful secret separates him from friends,
family, and the rest of society. In the subplot of the cottagers, this idea recurs in the figures of
both Safie and her father. His otherness as a Muslim Turk in Paris results in a threat to his life
from the prejudiced and figures in power. Her feelings of being oppressed by Islam’s confining
gender roles compel her to seek escape to the more egalitarian ideas of Christianity.
The monster’s fascination with the relationship between Felix and Safie lies in his desperate
desire for Victor to accept him. Felix’s willingness to risk everything for the sake of someone
who has been unjustly punished gives the monster hope that Victor will recognize the hurtful
injustice of abandoning him. However, just as Felix’s bravery in helping Safie’s father escape
stands in stark contrast to Victor’s shameful unwillingness to save Justine, so does Felix’s
compassion for Safie underscore Victor’s cold hatred for the monster.
Language and communication take center stage in these chapters, as the monster emerges from
his infantile state and begins to understand and produce written and spoken language. His
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alienation from society, however, provides him no opportunity to communicate with others;
rather, he is a one-way conduit, a voyeur, absorbing information from the cottagers without
giving anything in return. The importance of language as a means of self-expression manifests
itself in the monster’s encounter with Victor on the glacier. Just as each distinct narrative voice
contributes to the novel’s richly woven web of allusions and biases, the monster’s romantic
feelings of the cottagers as kind and friendly reflects his desperate desire for companionship and
affection.
Texts play an important role throughout the novel, especially in shaping the monster’s
conception of his identity and place in the world. As his language skills increase, the monster
gains a sense of the world through Felix’s reading of Ruins of Empires. In these chapters, he
acquires the ability to understand the crucial texts that he soon discovers, including Paradise
Lost. This text introduces him to Adam and Satan, to both of whom he eventually compares
himself. In addition to shaping his identity, the written word provides the monster with a means
of legitimizing his past. In offering to show Victor copies of Safie’s letters, he hopes to validate;
this perspective \n the tragedy that has befallen them and thus gain Victor’s sympathy. His belief
in the truth of the written word, however, seems particularly naïve in a novel with a narrative
structure as complex as that of Frankenstein; just as he falsely assumes that Paradise Lost is
historically accurate, he hopes groundlessly that his narrative can win Victor over.
One of the novel’s persistent motifs is that of the passive woman, a gentle creature who submits
to the demands of the active, powerful men around her. Safie turns this stereotype on its head
when she boldly rejects her father’s attempt to return her to the constraints and limitations of life
in Constantinople. Her willingness to take the initiative, to strike out on her own in the face of
adversity and uncertainty, makes her one of the strongest characters in the novel, despite her
minor role. Like her father and the monster, Safie is an outsider; unlike them, she manages to
gain acceptance. Additionally, Shelley’s depiction of her character contains a strong crosscultural value judgment. It esteems European culture, with its flexibility, openness, and
opportunities for women, over Arab or Muslim culture, with its rigidity, self-enclosed quality,
and strict gender prescriptions.
Paradise Lost, here and throughout the novel, provides a touchstone for the monster as he tries
to understand his identity. Comparing himself to both Adam and Satan, perceiving himself as
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both human and demonic, the monster is poised uncomfortably between two realms. “Like
Adam,” he says, “I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence,”
but “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 rose within me.”(p-100) Scolded
like Adam and cursed like Satan, the monster is painfully aware of his creator’s utter disdain for
him.
The monster continues to address Victor directly, reminding the reader of the relationship
between the two, emphasizing the concrete situation in which the monster’s story is being told
(the hut on Montanvert), and the complicated narrative structure of the novel. Furthermore,
quotes like “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions,
and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind”(p-107) serve not only
to structure the narrative formally but also to emphasize that the monster has a purpose in telling
his story: he wants to elicit a reaction from Victor, a recognition of Victor’s responsibility for his
disastrous plight.
The theme of sublime nature reappears in the monster’s narrative, and nature’s ability to affect
the monster powerfully, as it does Victor, humanizes him. It is worth noting that whereas Victor
seeks the high, cold, hard world of the Alps for comfort, as if to freeze (and hence incapacitate)
his guilt about the murder, the monster finds solace in the soft colors and smells of a springtime
forest, symbolizing his desire to reveal himself to the world and interact with others. “Half
surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them; and,
forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy,”(p-108) the monster says. Unlike
Victor, he is able to push away, at least temporarily, the negative aspects of his existence.
The contrast, first established at Ingolstadt, between the inwardly focused Victor and the
outwardly focused Henry sharpens as the natural world produces differing effects in the two
men. Earlier, Henry’s interaction with the Frankenstein family and general sociability, counter
Victor’s secrecy and self-isolation. Similarly, his optimism and cheer in the presence of sublime
nature now counter the anxiety that Victor feels in knowing that the monster pervades his natural
surroundings. For Henry, “alive to every new scene; joyful when he saw the beauties of the
setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise,” nature is a source of infinite bliss, while for
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Victor it has become an unending reminder of his imprudent meddling, and of his responsibility
for the tragedies that have plagued him.
An appreciation of nature is not the only aspect of Victor’s character that Henry seems to have
adopted: Henry is now enthusiastic about natural philosophy and eager to explore the world—
much like Victor had been two years before. Victor himself notes that “in Clerval I saw the
image of my former self.” One can argue that Henry represents the impending ruin of another
young, brilliant man by science; one can also argue that he represents the healthy, safe route to
scientific knowledge that Victor never took. In either case, Victor’s emotional outbursts strongly
foreshadow Henry’s death: “And where does he now exist?” he asks. “Is this gentle and lovely
being lost forever?”
The pervading theme of the passive, innocent woman—manifested in the mother who sacrifices
herself for her daughter, the fiancée who waits endlessly for her future husband, and the orphan
girl who is rescued from poverty—culminates in this section with the female monster whose
creation Victor suddenly aborts after being struck by doubts about the correctness of his actions.
Though never alive, the female monster is a powerful presence: to Victor, she represents another
crime against humanity and nature; to the monster, she represents his one remaining hope for a
life not spent alone. Even Victor, as he tears his creation apart, recognizes her near-humanity: “I
almost felt,” he says, “as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being.”(p-130) Victor’s
decision to destroy the female creature can be seen as an explicitly anti-feminist action. He fears
her ability to reproduce (and thereby create a “race of devils”); he fears that, as a woman, she
will refuse to satisfy the male monster for whom she has been created; and he fears that he will
unleash another power into the world that he cannot control. Unlike the God of Genesis, who
creates a woman to keep Adam company, Victor does not have ultimate power over his
creations. His anxiety leads him to project a stereotypically male activeness onto the female
creature; his decision to destroy her ensures her absolute passivity.
Victor sprinkles his speech with meta narrative comments that remind the reader of the
relationship between storyteller and audience, shape the upcoming narrative, and demonstrate the
narrator’s deep emotional investment in his story. “I must pause here; for it requires all my
fortitude to recall the memory of the frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail,
to my recollection,” Victor says, illustrating that he is overwhelmed by emotion and offering a
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glimpse of the horrific story that he is about to tell. Victor’s apostrophes to his absent friends
serve the same purposes, adding to the emotional impact of his speech, emphasizing the
poignancy of his nostalgic memories, and calling attention to the layered narrative. When Victor
cries out “Clerval! Beloved Friend! Even now it delights me to record your words,”(p-120) the
reader senses the power of Victor’s emotion and its ultimate uselessness against the force of fate.
Additionally, the mention of recording Henry’s words underscores the fact that it is only through
Walton that the reader has access to the other characters and their narratives.
Victor’s pattern of falling into extended illness in reaction to the monster suggests that the
deterioration of his health is, to some extent, psychologically induced—as if guilt prevents him
from facing fully the horribleness of the monster and his deeds. “The human frame could no
longer support the agonizing suffering that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in
strong convulsions,”(p-135) he recounts of his despair at seeing Henry’s corpse, making an
explicit link between psychological torment and physical infirmity. That Victor also falls ill soon
after creating the monster and experiences a decline in health after the deaths of William and
Justine points toward guilt as the trigger for this psychological mechanism.
Henry again serves as a link between Victor and society, as his death brings Alphonse to visit his
son. “Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my
father,”(p-138) Victor says. As a result of spending so much time in Ingolstadt ignoring his
family, and also as a result of the monster’s depredations, Victor becomes aware of the
importance of interaction with family and friends. Having failed to inspire love in Victor, the
monster seeks to establish a relationship with his creator that would force his creator to feel his
pain. By destroying those people dear to Victor, the monster, acutely aware of the
meaningfulness of social interaction, brings Victor closer and closer to the state of solitude that
he himself has experienced since being created.
Victor’s formerly intense connection with sublime nature continues to fade, providing him no
refuge from the horror of the monster’s deeds. No longer an enlightening or elevating source of
inspiration or consolation, the natural world becomes a mere landscape within which Victor’s
tragic dance with the monster plays itself out. The barren Arctic wasteland into which Victor
soon chases the monster embodies the raw and primal quality of his hatred for his creation and
becomes the final, inescapable resting place for both man and monster.
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The murder of Elizabeth forms the climax of the novel, as it is the moment in which the monster
finally succeeds in obliterating Victor’s social world. With his family, best friend, and faith in
science snatched away from him, Victor can derive meaning in life only from his hatred of the
monster. The crucial transition has been made: stripped of Elizabeth, the last, and most
important, element of his life, Victor becomes dehumanized and develops an obsessive thirst for
revenge similar to that exhibited previously by the monster.
By this point in the novel, Victor has assumed the very inhumanity of which he accuses the
monster. Just as the monster earlier haunts Victor, seeking revenge on him for having destroyed
any possibility of a mate for him, Victor now experiences an obsessive need to exact revenge on
the monster for murdering his loved ones. Like the monster, he finds himself utterly alone in the
world, with nothing but hatred of his nemesis to sustain him.
Echoes of the monster’s earlier statements now appear in Victor’s speech, illustrating the extent
to which Victor has become dehumanized. ‘I was cursed by some devil’, he cries, ‘and carried
about with me my eternal hell’. This is the second allusion to the passage in Paradise Lost in
which Satan, cast out from Heaven, says that he himself is Hell. The first allusion, made by the
monster after being repulsed by the cottagers, is nearly identical: ‘I, like the arch fiend, bore a
hell within me’. Driven by their hatred, the two monsters—Victor and his creation—move
farther and farther away from human society and sanity.
The final section of the novel, in which Walton continues the story, completes the framing
narrative. Walton’s perception of Victor as a great, noble man ruined by the events described in
the story adds to the tragic conclusion of the novel. The technique of framing narratives within
narratives not only allows the reader to hear the voices of all of the main characters, but also
provides multiple views of the central characters. Walton sees Frankenstein as a noble, tragic
figure; Frankenstein sees himself as an overly proud and overly ambitious victim of fate; the
monster sees Frankenstein as a reckless creator, too self-centered to care for his creation.
Similarly, while Walton and Frankenstein deem the monster a malevolent, insensitive brute, the
monster casts himself as a martyred classical hero: “I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly
and exult in the agony of the torturing flames,”(p-170) he says. Fittingly, the last few pages of
the novel are taken up with the monster’s own words as he attempts to gain self-definition before
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leaving for the northern ice to die. That the monster reassumes control of the narrative from
Walton ensures that, after Victor’s death and even after his own, the struggle to understand who
or what the monster really is—Adam or Satan, tragic victim or arch-villain—will go on.
4.6.2.2 Devices of Creating Authenticity:
Various names are mentioned to give it an authentic feel – e.g. Homer, Shakespeare, Cornelius
Agrippa, Shakespeare, works of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus, reference of books- Paradise
Lost, Plutarchs Lives, and The Sorrows of Werter etc.
Reference to historical people is also done- ‘I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers,
Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus’(pg-99). The first and third
were figures of legends, while the second one was an Athenian law-maker and was historical.
The last two were warriors.
Names of places like Germany, France, Geneva, England Tartary, Russia, also make the reader
feel the reality in the events.
Mention of places and the wonderful sights are done, which brings before the eyes of the reader
the journey taken by Victor- ‘It was on a clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I
saw the white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames, presented a new scene; they were flat,
but fertile …..We saw Tilbury Fort, and remembered the Spanish armada; Gravesend,
Woolwich, and Greenwich, places I have heard of even in my country. At length we saw the
numerous steeples of London, St. Paul’s towering above all, and the tower famed in English
history’.(pp-120-121)
Names of seas mentioned give a sense of reality of the journey-‘The blue Mediterranean
appeared; and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter and hide himself in a vessel bound for
the Black Sea’.
Dramatic Visualization:
Dramatic visualization as a technique is used here to make the scene more visual and
imaginatively present to the readers:
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‘Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbed among the unhallowed damps of
the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble and
my eyes swim with the remembrance…..’(p-43)
‘I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared, and that the young buds were shooting forth
from the trees that shaded my window. It was a divine spring; and the season contributed greatly
to my convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom; my gloom
disappeared, and in a short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by fatal passion’
‘Pathetic fallacy’ or the reflection of the characters mood in the atmosphere and inanimate
objects is also seen in the above lines.
4.6.2.4 Use of Tropes:
Personification;
‘I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation’
‘There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing
a perpetual splendor’.
‘My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus’.
‘I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine
has been’.
‘Harmony was the soul of our companionship’.
‘Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction’.
‘….and the moon gazed on my midnight labors’’
‘Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned, and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the
church of Ingolstad’.
‘I saw the lightening play on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most beautiful figures’.
‘The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more’.
‘Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me a sensation of pleasure’.
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‘The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me’.
‘The wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it,
and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues’.
‘My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my vices will necessarily arise
when I live in communion with an equal’.
‘Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents’.
‘As time passed away I became more calm: misery had her dwelling in my heart’.
‘Despair had indeed almost secured her prey, and I should have sunk beneath this misery’.
Metaphor:
‘But success shall crown my endeavors. ……the very stars themselves being witnesses and
testimonies of my triumph’.
‘She continued with her foster parents, and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden
rose among dark-leaved brambles’.
‘She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract’.
‘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’.
‘Night also closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more
gloomily’.
‘But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has enticed my soul’.
Repetition:
‘Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?’
‘Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?’.
‘Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hair’.
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Simile:
‘What a noble fellow! You will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as
silent as a Turk’.
‘He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl’.
‘He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind’.
‘The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home’.
‘I find it arise like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources’.
Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells besides the
great and unexplored ocean of truth’.
‘I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life, aided
only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light’.
‘I threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to
stand in waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared’.
‘Elizabeth also wept, and was unhappy; but her’s also was the misery of innocence, which, like a
cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness’.
‘The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brook, there to gaze upon the
arrow which had pierced it, and to die- was but a type of me’.
‘The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and
interspersed by rifts that sink deep’.
‘But, I saw that her presence diffused gladness through the cottage, dispelling their sorrows as
the sun dissipates the morning mists’.
‘I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils; destroying the objects that obstructed me, and
raging through the wood with a stag-like swiftness’.
‘I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my next creation, and this was to me like
a torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head’.
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Hyperbole:
‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous
power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that
require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consisting for ever’.
‘Thus far have I gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas: the very stars themselves
being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph’.
‘I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions’,
‘In a thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge’.
‘Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection, and his many letters’.
‘It is impossible, one might as well try to overtake the winds, or confine a mountain-stream with
a straw’.
‘A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine’.
‘I felt as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and
endeavoring to plunge me into the abysses.
‘In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived’.
‘But thousands of others may be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage’.
‘I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their
reception of me’.
‘My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a thousand sights of
beauty’.
‘There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me’.
‘This death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy
him’.
If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a
hundred fold’.
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‘And yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances, which call forth a woman’s’.
-rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful silent farewell’.
‘I was miserable and overcome with a thousand fears’.
‘I was unable to pursue my train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept
bitterly’.
‘A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I
could not, my father, sacrifice the whole human race’.
‘Oh! Not the ten-thousandth portion of the anguish that was mine during the lingering detail of
its execution’.
Anticlimax:
‘I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst and want of sleep’.
‘Her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar’.
‘I saw a poor, helpless and miserable wretch’.
‘The surface of the earth was hard, and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter’.
‘Cold, want, and fatigue were the least pains which I was destined to endure’.
‘Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as torn by remorse, horror, and despair’.
Climax:
‘I will be cool, persevering, and prudent’.
‘I with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally, and looked upon Elizabeth as minemine to protect, love, and cherish’.
‘Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labors’.
Apostrophe:
‘Heaven shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again testify my gratitude for
all your love and kindness’.
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‘Heaven bless my beloved sister!’
‘Dear Mountains! My own beautiful lake! How do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits
are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my
unhappiness?’
‘My country, my beloved country! Who but a native can tell the delight I took again in beholding
thy streams, thy mountains, and more than all, thy lovely lake!’
‘William, dear angel! This is thy funeral, this is thy dirge!’
‘Dear William! Dearest blessed child! I shall soon see you again in heaven, where we shall be
happy; and that consoles me, going as I am to suffer ignominy and death’.
‘Oh earth! How often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being’?
‘Oh! Stars, and clouds, and winds, ye are all about to mock me: if ye really pity me, crush
sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in
darkness’.
‘By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and
eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to
pursue the daemon who caused this misery until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict’.
‘And I call on you, spirits of the dear; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and
conduct me in my work’.
‘O blessed sleep! Often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to
rapture’.
Exclamation:
‘Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety, your surprise
would have been boundless’.
‘Unhappy man! Do you share my madness?
‘Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and , happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to
quit you all?’
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‘Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you
that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed, are a thousand years old, and as musty as
they are ancient?’
‘Beautiful! – Great God!’
‘Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance’
‘…he can tell. – Oh, save me! Save me!’
‘Adieu, my cousin, take care of yourself; and, I entreat you write!’
‘William is dead! – that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart, who was so
gentle, yet so gay! Victor, he is murdered!’
‘Ah! I wish you had come three months ago, and then you would have found us all joyous and
delighted!’
‘The murderer discovered! Good God! How can that be? Who could attempt to pursue him?’
‘The God of Heaven forgive me!’
‘She perished on the scaffold as a murderess!’
‘Begone! I will not hear you.’
‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in
disgust?’
‘Now is the time! – save and protect me!’
‘Great God!’ exclaimed the old man, ‘who are you?’
‘Let me go’ he cried; ‘monster! Ugly wretch! You wish to eat me, and tear me to pieces- you are
an ogre- Let me go, or I will tell my papa.’
‘Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent.’
‘Awake, fairest, thy lover is near- he who would give his life but to obtain one look of affection
from thine eyes: my beloved, awake!’
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‘You are my creator, but I am your master; - obey!’
‘Villain! Before you sign my death warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe.’
Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake do not let him enter!’
‘What a divine day! How happy and serene all nature appears!’
‘Alas! life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.’
‘Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hair, and doomed him to waste in
wretchedness!’
‘Prepare! Your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs and provide food; for we shall soon enter
upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred’.
‘Peace, peace! Learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own”.
‘Alas! the strength I relied on is gone’’.
Synecdoche:
‘…and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of
the infidels’.
This sentence refers to the Round Table of Sir Arthur, where King Arthur’s circle of knights at
Camelot always met.
‘I will not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite’.
Metonym:
‘But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated’.
‘Darkness has no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of
bodies deprived of life, which from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become the food
for the worm’.
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Transferred Epithet:
‘So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it”.
‘I closed not my eyes that night’.
‘Do not ask me’, cried I’.
‘Beloved and vulnerable parent! He still remained to me’.
Euphemism:
‘I wait for one event, and then I shall repose in peace’.
‘She is now at peace for ever.’
‘When she again lived, it was only to weep and sigh’.
‘Poor William!’ said he, ‘dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother!’
‘Sleep crept over me; and I felt as it came, and blest the giver of oblivion’.
‘Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint
happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life’.
‘Take possession of your tenement, and let me fly from this place’.
‘Soon, oh! Very soon, will death extinguish these throbbing, and relieve me from the mighty
weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also
sink to rest’.
‘His sentence was pronounced’.
‘He pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed for ever’.
‘Alas! he is cold, he cannot answer now’.
Oxymoron:
‘One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay…’
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‘You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I – I have lost
everything, and cannot begin life anew’.
‘To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death’.
‘…but now that I have finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and
disgust filled my heart’.
‘A meeting, which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness’.
‘A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed
and opened my senses’.
‘What would be your surprise, my son, when you expected a happy and glad welcome, to behold,
on the contrary, tears and wretchedness?’
‘While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific…..’.
‘It is a scene terrifically desolate.’
‘The weather became fine, and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert
and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure.’
‘Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?’
‘Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast
me abroad an object for scorn and horror of mankind.’
‘But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.’
Pastiche:
The use of Pastiche is done where the author has made use of forms and styles of other authors
as a tribute or to heighten the event-
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Coleridge’s ‘The Ancient Mariner’s’ lines 446-451, are written to describe the feelings of fear
in Victor, after creating the Creature and running away from him:
“Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”(p-47)
She has also quoted the lines from Percy Shelley’s poem ‘Mutability’ lines 9-16, to show Victors
desolation and state of mind after fleeing from his own creation, and his thoughts of human
impulses confining to only hunger, thirst, and desire:
We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise one wandering thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow
The path of its departure still is free.
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Naught may endure but mutability!(p-76)
The lines from William Wordsworth’s poem “Tintern Abbey” lines 76-83, tell the readers about
Victor’s feelings and thoughts about Clerval, his friend. It describes his friends love for nature
and his friendship and love for him:
‘The sounding cataract
Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and the gloomy wood,
An appetite; a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
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By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow’d from the eye.’(p-120)
Anthimera:
The author has also made use of the literary technique- anthimera, where the substitution of one
part of speech is done for another:
‘Still I would penetrate their misty veil, and seek them in their cloudy retreats. What were rain
and storm to me?’
‘I was delighted when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my ears,
proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had often intercepted the light from
my eyes’.
Pathos:
‘Pathos’ is applied everywhere in the narration of Victor, where emotional appeal is used to
inspire pity and sorrow towards him:
‘I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were
rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived’.
‘No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the night, which I spent,
cold and wet, in the open air’.
‘Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and snow poured around me;
mighty rivers were frozen; the surface of the earth was hard, and chill, and bare, and I found no
shelter’.
‘What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only
objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes, indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in flowery meadows
and pleasant vales with friends of my youth; but I awoke, and found myself in a dungeon.
Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation,
and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad; and during many months, as
I understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation’.
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Framing:
The technique of Framing is followed in the novel. In chapter 6, in between the narration of
Victor to Walton about his story, the dialogues of Victor and his friend Henry Clerval are
included. Here again framing is done in this chapter in the form of a letter from Elizabeth to
Victor.
In chapter 7 also, framing is done in the form of a letter from his father to him.
In chapter 11, the tale told by the Creature to Victor, is put in between, and in chapter 14,
framing is done in the form of the story of Safie told by the Creature to Victor.
Retort/Exclamation:
The use of Rhetorical Questions and Exclamation is done, throughout the novel to emphasize on
the feeling of fear, pity, and happiness, along with questions asked not for the purpose of
eliciting an answer but for asserting or denying something obliquely:
‘And then of what use would be pursuit? Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the
overhanging sides of Mont Saleve?’
‘The murderer discovered! Good God! How can that be? Who could attempt to pursue him?’
‘What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?’
‘Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drank also of the intoxicating draught?
Hear me- let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!’
The technique used in the above sentence, is also called as incluing, where the writer is gradually
exposing the reader to background information, to clue them in the world, the author is building.
‘Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and
misery; had he not murdered my brother?’
‘Alas!’ said she, ‘how shall I ever again believe in human goodness?’
‘Oh, Justine!’ said she, ‘why did you rob me of my last consolation?’
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‘What were rain and storm to me?’
‘How dare you sport thus with life?’
‘What did their tears imply? Did they really express pain?’
‘What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?’
‘Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into
forgetfulness and rest?’
‘Who can follow an animal which can traverse the sea of ice, and inhabit caves and dens where
no man would venture to intrude?’
Paradox:
It is a phrase that describes an idea composed of concepts that conflict.
Justine died; she rested; and I was alive’.
‘But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows, nor shared my thoughts, I was alone. I
remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me:
and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him’.
‘But he found that a traveler’s life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments’.
The above sentence also points out a concise statement that contains a cleverly stated subjected
truth or observation, which is known as Aphorism.
These are the reasons why Frankenstein is popular.
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