When Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, I imagine a number of people interpreted it to be a warning about the perils of hasty scientific advancement, but after reading her 1831 introduction, I saw Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a monster in the novel as a parallel to Mary Shelly’s creation of the novel itself. It would seem, if this train of thought were to be followed, that Shelley is implying that once written, a piece becomes its own entity, with a life of its own.

Mary Shelley, in the introduction to Frankenstein, refers to her writing as her “hideous progeny”, describing it as her own “monster” let loose upon the world. She describes the conception of the idea to write the novel, and tells of it using the same voice that she gives the character of Frankenstein. Shelley writes “My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie,” describing how the ideas controlled her mind with the same passion that Frankenstein has when he himself is controlled by the idea to give life to a creation. The first time I read this passage, I hadn’t read Shelley’s 1831 introduction, and Frankenstein appeared to be merely an archetypal mad scientist. After rereading this passage in the context of Shelley’s introduction, I’ve noted that Frankenstein’s creative fervor could represent the inspiration of a writer, which would support the idea that the creature represents a literary work.

One of the most interesting parts of Mary Shelley’s introduction is when she describes the novel as “the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words”, clearly referencing the fact that her husband, Percy Shelley, died between the writing of the novel and the addition of the introduction. She goes on to elaborate that for her, the novel keeps the memory of her husband alive. This is particularly true considering that within the text of the novel Mary Shelley used an excerpt from one of her husband’s poems, “Mutability”. Just as Frankenstein’s creation reminded him of the past and outlived his loved ones, Mary Shelley’s novel does the same to her.

The elaborate construction of the novel, with multiple stories contained within other stories, further elaborates this idea. In Frankenstein, there are a number of different narratives embedded in other narratives. The frame of the primary narrative is the letters of Robert Walton, where Walton describes his voyage and his chance encounter with Frankenstein. The rest of the narrative is Frankenstein’s horrified account of his experience. Within the narrative framed by Walton’s letters is another narrative, describing the experiences of Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a monster. Within the creature’s narrative, the creature tells his own story, as well as the story of a family he watches. During this time the creature explains that he began reading other works, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost. The interconnectivity of each of the narratives in Frankenstein, as well as the connection to outside works can be interpreted in the context of Mary Shelley’s metaphor of literature, where it can be inferred that Shelley is referencing the relationships between written works, and the accumulation of recurring ideas through literature.

Adaptation, a film directed by Spike Jonze, also uses this format of narratives within narratives. Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Adaptation, adapts Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, which is about an orchid poacher, John Laroche.  The film revolves around the semi-fictional character of Charlie Kaufman, who writes an adaptation of The Orchid Thief. The idea of Charlie Kaufman (the real one) incorporating himself into the work is similar to how Mary Shelley creates the character of Victor Frankenstein to represent herself or any writer, and the life a work has on its own once released. Shelley includes Victor’s creation of a monster to represent the creation of any literary work. Through the fictional Charlie Kaufman, the real Charlie Kaufman tells the story of the fictional Susan Orlean, who tells the story of the fictional John Laroche. The narrative of the film also tells the story of the fictional Donald Kaufman, Charlie’s twin brother. This bears a strong resemblance to the way Mary Shelly tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who tells of his creation, who tells of a family he observed. The interconnectivity of each of the narratives in Frankenstein, as well as the connection to outside works can be interpreted in the context of Mary Shelley’s metaphor of literature, where it can be inferred that Shelley is referencing the relationships between written works and the accumulation of recurring ideas through literature. The connection between the film, Adaptation, and the creation in the film, the screenplay, serves the same purpose, but in a way that is not only more direct, but appears to have a more broad meaning in terms of literature, as it includes film.

The ambiguous ending of the novel, where it is unclear whether or not the monster survives, appears to be a conscious indication of Shelley’s awareness that her creation would continue to live long after her own death, thought it might fade into obscurity. On that point she was correct, as people continue reading the novel today, and just as Victor’s creation is still free to do as he pleases, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is still able to carry a message, and is still constantly adapting and evolving.

Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman can be read as a remediation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in the way that it incorporates the idea of intertextuality, and shows how within every story there are countless other stories. One possible thesis for the film would be the idea that every story is a remediation of existing ideas, whether the ideas are real events, a previous work, or merely ideas in the writer’s mind, just as Frankenstein remediates the idea of a creation story (such as in Genesis), some poems by Mary Shelley’s husband, Percy Shelly, and her original ideas. The fact that the film itself is a remediation only further exemplifies the idea that all created works take pieces from other works, and therefore, are intertextual.

The most profound difference between Adaptation and Frankenstein is that Adaptation is a film. While this may seem like a terribly obvious distinction, it has a significant impact on the way the story is told and received.  In the film, Laroche explains that he loves plants because “they’re so mutable.”  Though this line has nothing to do with the fact that Adaptation is a film, it is a direct reference to Percy Shelley’s “Mutability.”  Laroche goes on to mention the name of the film, explaining that “adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.” Laroche here refers to remediation as a form of mutation enabling a work to adapt to its surrounding and survive. The film took the Frankenstein story, of a creator obsessed with doing something no one has done before, and by making it into a film changed it in a way that the message could still be understood by modern audiences.

One scene that makes a number of points about remediation is the scene where Charlie Kaufman is talking with Valerie Thomas about his adaptation of the film. Valerie Thomas wants to create details of the plot that don’t exist in the original book, such as a romance between Susan Orlean and John Laroche, but Kaufman argues that he wants the screenplay to remain true to the original, without adding Hollywood effects and devices. This statement is ironic, because the film itself bears nearly no resemblance to ­The Orchid Thief and even less resemblance to Frankenstein in terms of plot. In fact, one scene where Charlie Kaufman discusses the novel with his agent Marty, Kaufman points out that the book has no plot, and takes Marty’s suggestion to just “Make one up.”  This situation is significant because it brings to light the fact that a remediation cannot be exactly like the original. This makes sense, because otherwise there would be no purpose in remediating the work. Even though the plot of Adaptation is nothing like that of Frankenstein, it does manage to capture the essence of Frankenstein in its self-referential concepts and framed-narrative style.

The introduction of the film serves a number of purposes. The opening line of the film is Kaufman saying, via voice-over, “Do I have an original thought in my head?” This line, in addition to referencing that the film is a remediation, also calls to mind the creation of the film itself.  Nicholas Cage, who says the opening line, obviously did not write the screenplay, and so the line could be referencing the writer, Charlie Kaufman. Also, the visual at the time this line is spoken consists of a black screen with the credits, calling to mind the other people involved in the creation of the film. In film, any idea that may have been original becomes part of a bigger work with hundreds of people involved. Unlike a book, which has only one direct author, a film always involves a large number of people, making film a perfect medium to demonstrate the collaborative effort of creation.  While not directly a part of the film, the credits of Adaptation add to the work in other ways as well. In the end credits, a quote is used from the film “The Three”, a nonexistent screenplay written by the fictional Donald Kaufman. The quote begins “We’re all one thing…like cells in a body”, further adding to the idea that each of the stories in the film are all one work, just as any text contains a number of different texts.

Adaptation demonstrates the idea that every work, whether it be a film, text, or any other creation, is an intertextual remediation. Even further, by being an advanced version of a work that has been evolving for almost two centuries, it emphasizes the limitless potential of a work to grow and adapt as time progresses. As the Frankenstein novel continues to adapt, the number of works that become a part of it, such as Adaptation, will only continue to grow, making the text a living creature as unstoppable as Shelley’s monster.

In the final essay, I talk about the concept that every written work is an intertextual remediation, and the essay itself is a reference to two other works, remediated into one. The two essays I combined were thematically similar. In fact, the second essay was written as an extension of the first, going into more detail, and taking the idea of intertextuality into the medium of film.

With this project, I really focused on use of digital tools for revision. The revised project consists of large segments from two previous essays. A significant portion of the essay is directly ripped from other works. This is a task that would be difficult, if not impossible, without the use of a word processing program on a computer. This only emphasizes some of the points in my essay more strongly.

At times, I feel that I could still work on sentence structure. I used complicated sentences, which occasionally confuse the writer. This is another point I’ve worked on in this final project, but I hope to improve on it more in the future.

The game takes place in a mansion, isolated in the fictional Arklay Mountains, near the fictional Raccoon City. The story begins with the Raccoon City Special Tactic and Rescue Service searching for clues about a series of grisly murders in the area, some of which involve corpses that have been partially eaten. When the S.T.A.R.S. team is attacked by vicious dogs, they take shelter in a mansion, where the team is split up. Eventually the characters discover that the mansion is overrun by zombies, and that underneath the mansion is an underground science facility where biological weapons are being developed. The zombie infestation turns out to be the result of a rapidly mutating biological weapon that reanimates dead bodies and causes them to attack the living, and the characters learn that this weapon, known as the Tyrant Virus, has unintentionally been released in the mansion.

After finishing the game, I came to the conclusion that the biological weapon in the game could easily be used to make points about biological weapons in real life. I took the game to be a criticism of biological weapons, and the dangers of experimenting with them. One thing that makes video games a powerful medium is their immersive nature. Reading about biological weapons can create a sense of fear in the reader by describing their dangerous effects. Film can describe the same effects with images, causing them to hit a little closer to home as we imagine what it would be like to see such devastation. Most powerful of all, Resident Evil places the player in the shoes of someone encountering the biological weapon. You don’t just see a person fighting off zombies, you fight them off yourself. Assuming the identity of a person in such a crisis, and being responsible for your own “life” makes the threat incredibly real for the player. If you don’t push the right buttons fast enough, the character dies. In Resident Evil, when this happens the game doesn’t tell you “The character is dead”, but rather makes it more personal by saying “You are dead”, forcing you to resume from the last point your progress was saved. This level of immersion doesn’t exist in a film or a book. Even when the Resident Evil series was adapted into film and novel media, they lack the sense of personal fear that makes the message so powerful. If the game criticizes biological weapons by associating them with fear, the medium is important for creating that fear.

Another form of interaction I took note of while playing were some obvious choices the player has to make, as well as more subtle ones. At the beginning of the game, the player is given the choice between two protagonists, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. This choice influences how the game is played from that point on, as Jill possesses a lockpick that grants access to different rooms in the mansion, and thus alters the progression of the narrative for the player. Throughout the game, certain pieces of the story are revealed through “documents” found in various places such as desks, lab tables, and even clutched in the hands of corpses. These texts range reports of how the Tyrant Virus was developed to diaries of scientists who were accidently infected. Though these intertextual texts give a layer of depth by providing information from the point of view of other characters, they add another layer of variability to the game. Based on the nonlinear layout of the mansion, the player may find these documents in a different order, or miss some completely. For use in settings like classrooms, where books are a standard medium of study, a video game would be ineffective. If a teacher wanted to lead a discussion on a certain one of these texts, it would be impossible to be sure that every student took the same paths and found the same documents.

Sven Birkerts asks, “If everything is possible between reader and writer…does the idea of literature vanish altogether in the new gratification system of exchanged and shared impulses (161)?”  Birkerts’ implication here is that for literature to be valid, rather than just a source of meaningless entertainment, it must be concrete, permanent, and uninfluenced by the reader. A lot of electronic texts, especially video games such as Resident Evil, not only require the player to make choices, but to exercise more than just reading skills.  With a book, the narrative moves forward in a linear fashion on its own. The writer writes it, and anyone, provided they have a grasp of the language the text is written in, can read it. The reader reads and interprets the text to the best of his or her ability. If a person decides halfway through reading a print text that the text is frustrating, the reader can still move freely through the text. This may seem like an absurd statement, but when electronic texts are considered, it becomes relevant. With a video game, the entire textual product doesn’t exist at once. If a person is not able to solve a certain puzzle or defeat a boss (tasks which require skill on the player’s part), all points of the process beyond the present are not available. Just as those who missed certain “documents” in the mansion, students who were not able to progress forward would be lost in the conversation, whereas they could easily skip ahead to a passage in a book.

After playing through Resident Evil, I would have to say I believe it to be a valid medium, but only for certain purposes. Just as film may convey a certain message to a broad audience more effectively than a book, and a book can be used to ensure uniform understanding of a concept (among countless other things), a video game can be a better medium for certain ideas. To take an idea from N. Katherine Hayles, print texts, film, and even video games play their own roles in medial ecology. As mutations in a population evolve in divergent paths, they become more diverse, but are often equally viable. Video games merely represent a new species filling its own evolutionary niche.  I’ve already started noticing more and more video games with strong narratives and deep messages.  But unlike Sven Birkerts, I don’t believe video games to be a species competing with books, but one that happens to inhabit the same ecosystem.

Works Cited

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies. Faber and Faber, Inc., 1994. Print.

Hayles, N. Katherine. Writing Machines. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Mit Press, 2002. Print.

Sven Birkerts isn’t alone in thinking forms of media other than books are “the devil”, and I’ve have to agree that the idea of electronic media replacing print text is a terrifying thought, but I have a hard time believing that electronic texts  oppose books at all. Video games are merely an alternative to books, not a force that aims to destroy them. In some cases, a particular medium works better to make a point. Those who have read the Resident Evil novelizations and seen the Resident evil films may find them enjoyable, but one can argue that remediating them into books is just likely to change the meaning as adapting any book into a film or game. As with any medium, there are pros and cons to video games.

The necessity for a console or a program to play a video game is one major disadvantage, but the console or program allows a more interactive experience with the narrative. The “reader” has a vested interest in the progression of the story,  as the reader becomes an integral part of the text. The reader has choices, and the reader influences how much or how little of the story to experience, due to optional texts within the game.

From the beginning, even before I began the text, I took note of some obvious differences between this game and print texts. Not once in my life have I ever had to download a program in order to read a book. Books are self-contained entities, whereas this text was a script that couldn’t be read on its own. As I started “reading” the text, I began to notice that the text was dependant on more than just a program.

The way “All Roads” functions is by providing a small amount of text and a line where the reader can type commands. After reading the text, the reader decides what command seems relevant, and inputs it. Based on the command, the text will either progress forward, or not. If there was a locked door, I would need to find a command that enabled the character (whose thought processes were exactly like my own, in that I was controlling them) to unlock the door, but using clues from the previous text, such as “a guard dropped a key.”

With a book, the narrative moves forward in a linear fashion on its own. The writer writes it, and anyone, provided they have a grasp of the language the text is written in, can read it. The reader reads and interprets the text to the best of his or her ability. Without the reader, the text still stands. If a person decides halfway through reading a print text that the text is frustrating, the reader can stop reading the text with absolutely no consequence for the book. This may seem like an absurd statement, but when electronic texts are considered, it becomes relevant.

Without my help, “All Roads” could not move forward. Not only was I charged with interpreting the work, but my interpretation of the work had a direct effect on the work itself. If I failed to interpret the significance of a certain passage, that passage would be the last part of the text I read. Sven Birkerts would be absolutely terrified of a work such as this, where process applies not only to creating the text, but reading it as well. Birkerts emphasizes that a text is the product of a writer, and he would be stunned to find the reader contributing to a work as much as is required by an electronic text-based game. In reality, not only was an electronic text more difficult to access, but it asked more of me than any book ever has.

A confusing point about the film is that the characters directly represent some of the people involved with writing the film.  Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Adaptation, adapts Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, which is about an orchid poacher, John Laroche.  The film revolves around the semi-fictional character of Charlie Kaufman, who writes an adaptation of The Orchid Thief. The idea of Charlie Kaufman (the real one) incorporating himself into the work is similar to how Mary Shelley creates the character of Victor Frankenstein to represent herself or any writer, and the life a work has on its own once released. Shelley includes Victor’s creation of a monster to represent the creation of any literary work. Through the fictional Charlie Kaufman, the real Charlie Kaufman tells the story of the fictional Susan Orlean, who tells the story of the fictional John Laroche. The narrative of the film also tells the story of the fictional Donald Kaufman, Charlie’s twin brother. This bears a strong resemblance to the way Mary Shelly tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who tells of his creation, who tells of a family he observed. The interconnectivity of each of the narratives in Frankenstein, as well as the connection to outside works can be interpreted in the context of Mary Shelley’s metaphor of literature, where it can be inferred that Shelley is referencing the relationships between written works and the accumulation of recurring ideas through literature. The connection between the film, Adaptation, and the creation in the film, the screenplay, serves the same purpose, but in a way that is not only more direct, but appears to have a more broad meaning in terms of literature, as it includes film.

The most profound difference between Adaptation and Frankenstein is that Adaptation is a film. While this may seem like a terribly obvious distinction, it has a significant impact on the way the story is told and received.  In the film, Laroche explains that he loves plants because “they’re so mutable.”  Though this line has nothing to do with the fact that Adaptation is a film, it is a direct reference to Percy Shelley’s “Mutability”, which Shelley uses within Frankenstein a number of times. Laroche goes on to mention the name of the film, explaining that “adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.” Laroche here refers to remediation as a form of mutation enabling a work to adapt to its surrounding and survive. The film took the Frankenstein story, of a creator obsessed with doing something no one has done before, and by making it into a film changed it in a way that the message could still be understood by modern audiences.

One scene that makes a number of points about remediation is the scene where Charlie Kaufman is talking with Valerie Thomas about his adaptation of the film. Valerie Thomas wants to create details of the plot that don’t exist in the original book, such as a romance between Susan Orlean and John Laroche, but Kaufman argues that he wants the screenplay to remain true to the original, without adding Hollywood effects and devices. This statement is ironic, because the film itself bears nearly no resemblance to ­The Orchid Thief and even less resemblance to Frankenstein in terms of plot. In fact, one scene where Charlie Kaufman discusses the novel with his agent Marty, Kaufman points out that the book has no plot, and takes Marty’s suggestion to just “Make one up.”  This situation is significant because it brings to light the fact that a remediation cannot be exactly like the original. This makes sense, because otherwise there would be no purpose in remediating the work. Even though the plot of Adaptation is nothing like that of Frankenstein, it does manage to capture the essence of Frankenstein in its self-referential concepts and framed-narrative style.

The introduction of the film serves a number of purposes. The opening line of the film is Kaufman saying, via voice-over, “Do I have an original thought in my head?” This line, in addition to referencing that the film is a remediation, also calls to mind the creation of the film itself.  Nicholas Cage, who says the opening line, obviously did not write the screenplay, and so the line could be referencing the writer, Charlie Kaufman. Also, the visual at the time this line is spoken consists of a black screen with the credits, calling to mind the other people involved in the creation of the film. In film, any idea that may have been original becomes part of a bigger work with hundreds of people involved. Unlike in a book, which only has only one direct author a film always involves a large number of people, making film a perfect medium to demonstrate the collaborative effort of creation.  While not directly a part of the film, the credits of Adaptation add to the work in other ways as well. In the end credits, a quote is used from the film “The Three”, a nonexistent screenplay written by the fictional Donald Kaufman. The quote begins “We’re all one thing…like cells in a body”, further adding to the idea that each of the stories in the film are all one work, just as any text contains a number of different texts.

Adaptation demonstrates the idea that every work, whether it be a film, text, or any other creation, is an intertextual remediation. Even further, by being an advanced version of a work that has been evolving for almost two centuries, it emphasizes the limitless potential of a work to grow and adapt as time progresses. As the Frankenstein novel continues to adapt, the number of works that become a part or it, such as Adaptation, will only continue to grow, making the text a living creature as unstoppable as Shelley’s monster.

Works Cited

Kaufman, Charlie, Adapt. Adaptation. Dir. Spike Jonze.” Screen Gems: 2002, Film.

One thing about the film that can be confusing is that the characters represent real  people.  Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Adaptation, adapts Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, which is about an orchid poacher, John Laroche.  The film revolves around the semi-fictional character of Charlie Kaufman, who writes an adaptation of The Orchid Thief. The idea of Charlie Kaufman (the real one) incorporating himself into the work is similar to how Mary Shelley creates the character of Victor Frankenstein to represent herself, and her creation of the novel. Through the fictional Charlie Kaufman, the real Charlie Kaufman tells the story of the fictional Susan Orlean, who tells the story of the fictional John Laroche. This bears a strong resemblance to the way Mary Shelly tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who tells of his creation, who tells of a family he observed.

One scene that makes a number of points about remediation is where Charlie Kaufman is talking with Valerie Thomas about his adaptation of the film. Valerie Thomas wants to create details of the plot that don’t exist in the original book, but Kaufman argues that he wants the screenplay to remain true to the original, without adding Hollywood effects and devices. This statement is ironic, because the film itself bears nearly no resemblance to ­The Orchid Thief and even less resemblance to Frankenstein in terms of plot. What the film does manage to do is capture the essence of Frankenstein in its self-referential concepts.

Mary Shelley, in the introduction to Frankenstein, refers to her writing as her “hideous progeny”, describing it as her own “monster” let loose upon the world. She describes the conception of the idea to write the novel, and tells of it using the same voice that she gives the character of Frankenstein. Shelley writes “My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie,” describing how the ideas controlled her mind with the same passion that Frankenstein has when he himself is controlled by the idea to give life to a creation. The first time I read this passage, I hadn’t read Shelley’s 1831 introduction, and Frankenstein appeared to be merely an archetypal mad scientist. After rereading this passage in the context of Shelley’s introduction, I’ve noted that Frankenstein’s creative fervor could represent the inspiration of a writer, which would support the idea that the creature represents a literary work.

The elaborate construction of the novel, with multiple stories contained within other stories, further elaborates this idea. In Frankenstein, there are a number of different narratives embedded in other narratives. The frame of the primary narrative is the letters of Robert Walton, where Walton describes his voyage and his chance encounter with Frankenstein. The rest of the narrative is Frankenstein’s horrified account of his experience. Within the narrative framed by Walton’s letters is another narrative, describing the experiences of Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a monster. Within the creature’s narrative, the creature tells his own story, as well as the story of a family he watches. During this time the creature explains that he began reading other works, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost. The interconnectivity of each of the narratives in Frankenstein, as well as the connection to outside works can be interpreted in the context of Mary Shelley’s metaphor of literature, where it can be inferred that Shelley is referencing the relationships between written works, and the accumulation of recurring ideas through literature.

One of the most interesting parts of Mary Shelley’s introduction is when she describes the novel as “the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words”, clearly referencing the fact that her husband, Percy Shelley, died between the writing of the novel and the addition of the introduction. She goes on to elaborate that for her, the novel keeps the memory of her husband alive. This is particularly true considering that within the text of the novel Mary Shelley used an excerpt from one of her husband’s poems, “Mutability”. Just as Frankenstein’s creation reminded him of the past and outlived his loved ones, Mary Shelley’s novel does the same to her.

The ambiguous ending of the novel, where it is unclear whether or not the monster survives, appears to be a conscious indication of Shelley’s awareness that her creation would continue to live long after her own death, thought it might fade into obscurity. On that point she was correct, as people continue reading the novel today, and just as Victor’s creation is still free to do as he pleases, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is still able to carry a message, whether it be one about scientific advancement, or the power of writing.

As I mentioned in my last post, the whole of the novel is framed within the letters of Robert Walton to his sister. Upon further reading, I’ve found that within the narrative framed by Robert Walton’s letters is another narrative, describing the experiences of Frankenstein’s creation. Within the creature’s narrative, the creature tells his own story, as well as the story of a family he watches.

The interconnectivity of each narrative can be interpreted in the context of Mary Shelley’s metaphor of literature, represented by Frankenstein’s creation. In this consideration, it can be inferred that Shelley is referencing the relationships between written works, and the accumulating of recurring ideas through literature.

In any written text, there is no such thing as a completely original idea. As Sven Birkerts said in The Gutenberg Elegies, “the writer does not create the unknown and unforeseen whole cloth out of nothing.” In order words, every time someone writes something, they are reusing ideas that have been around for immeasurable amounts of time, but rearranging them into a new creation. Each of the frames in Frankenstein can be seen as a new work, but in addition to being an independent work, each frame accumulates the ideas within it. Shelley further exemplifies this idea by incorporating other works, such as Percy Shelley’s “Mutability”, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Rather than creating new ideas, Mary Shelley deliberately used established ideas, for the purpose of demonstrating the interconnectivity of text.



The frame of the narrative is found in the letters of Robert Walton, where Walton describes his voyage and his chance encounter with Frankenstein. The rest of the narrative is Frankenstein’s horrified account of his experience. This frame occurs after the main part of the narrative, and yet Frankenstein is still pursuing his creation. This suggests that the creation, whether it be Frankenstein’s monster or Shelley’s writing, is still free and able to have an impact, and allows the reader to consider this idea throughout the actual narrative.

A line that made me think of Sven Birkerts was this:

“Learn from me, if not by any precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley, 57).

This seems to go hand in hand with Birkerts’ fear of globalization of information, and his warning against the attempt to learn everything, which leads to understanding nothing. It can be interpreted that Shelley’s warning against the reckless pursuit of knowledge may be along the same lines as Birkerts, or that Shelley is warning against the obsession with a particular subject beyond reason.