What occasions the conception of the novel for Shelley?
What ghost stories strike her as interesting?
How is the story connected with nightmare for its author?
Describe Mary Shelley's dream
How does she connect motherhood with authoring?

Notice the epigraph from Paradise Lost. What impact does this have on your reading of the story?

What is at stake in Mary Shelley's tale of the novel's inspiration and creation?

The novel is written in a series of embedded letters, why might Shelley have made this choice? What does it mean to write a letter or tell a story?

Why do we hear Walton's voice first and last? What kind of man is he?

Who is he writing to? Is she important?

Why do we hear the story of the Russian lady who loved a pauper?

Is our location important? Where are we? What are we doing? (Both at the beginning and throughout)

When do we first spot the creature?

Why does Victor tell his story to Walton?

Consider that we hear Victor only through Walton and (until the very end) the monster only through Victor. Are these narrators reliable?

How is Victor educated? What does he desire to know?

Contrast Victor's interests with Henry's.

Notice the verb choice when Victor talks about "penetrating" nature (which he genders as female) (pg. 41, others). What's going on there?

What impact does the destruction of the oak by lightening have on him?

Can we read this metaphorically?

What impact do Victor's studies have on his body? Why?

What is the relationship between body and mind in this volume?

What kinds of critique of race, class, and gender does the novel attempt?

How is this complicated?

What is Victor's relationship with his mother?

Consider Justine's role as a woman, servant and orphan.

Why does the monster frame Justine?

What might it mean that Elizabeth is a foundling?

How is her relationship with Victor complicated?

What information and what kind of opportunities are available to the women in the novel?

Consider the physical nature of characters and things in the novel. The monster, the dead bodies, etc.

What does it mean to be made as the monster is made, from pieces?

Why does Victor design the creature the way he does?

What does he imagine he will be to the creature?

What effect does his work have on Victor's body?

What is the importance of friends and family in the text? For Walton? For Victor?

What is Victor's childhood like?

What impact does his mother's death have on Victor? Read his dream. When does he dream it?

How are familial relationships presented throughout the novel?

Do you notice anything incestual about Victor and Elizabeth's relationship?

In what ways are love and sex constructed by the novel?

Consider the positions of Madame Frankenstein, and Elizabeth in entering their marriages. What is unusual here?

What is the difference between invention, creation and childbirth?

Is the monster an invention or a creation? What defines either?

Reread the creation scene. Consider it both in light of Biblical creation or physical childbirth.

What is the meaning of Victor's nightmare after the creature's animation?

What does he wake to see?

Consider Victor as both a godlike creator and a mother.

What is the role of the feminine or female in the creation of the monster?

What happens to Victor that evening?

Why does Victor seem to forget his creature entirely?

When does it reemerge in his life?

What has it done?

Can you guess why?

Why doesn't Victor defend Justine with the truth?

Who does speak for Justine?

What kind of character is Victor? Henry? Elizabeth? The Monster?

What role does Romantic poetry play in the novel?

Why does Victor do what he does? Why does he believe he has the right? Is Walton similar?

Do you believe Victor's representation of himself?

Consider the myth of Prometheus. Were his actions justifiable? Why or why not?

Why might this novel be considered the first science fiction work?
Can you argue against this notion?

Can you think of other texts that incorporate these elements?

Why are later versions of the Frankenstein story so wildly different from the one Mary Shelley wrote?

Have we encountered any antiheroes so far in our reading?

How is the antihero different from the antagonist or villain?

Frankenstein is written during the Enlightenment. What elements of Enlightenment ideals or philosophy are apparent in the novel?

Does Shelley question any of the Enlightenment beliefs?

Do you think Frankenstein is a Gothic novel (there is some disagreement on this)? Why or why not?

What are the key elements of the Gothic?

How is the Gothic related to female sexuality?

Is Frankenstein a humanist novel? Why or why not?