Language & Imagery

Analysing Shelley's language and imagery is essential for achieving top marks at GCSE. The examiner wants to see that you can identify specific techniques, explain their effects, and connect them to the novel's themes. This lesson covers the key types of imagery, narrative voice, and language features in Frankenstein.

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The Sublime

What is the sublime?

The sublime is a Romantic concept describing experiences of nature so vast, powerful, and overwhelming that they produce a mixture of awe and terror. Mountains, storms, glaciers, and the sea are typical sublime landscapes.

Key sublime moments in Frankenstein

Passage	Setting	Effect
"The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side"	The Alps	Nature dwarfs Victor — his ambition seems insignificant against the scale of the natural world.
"The thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head... the dazzling light of the lightning"	Storm in Geneva	Lightning is both beautiful and destructive — it mirrors the dual nature of knowledge and ambition.
"I perceived... a figure of gigantic stature" on the glacier	Mer de Glace	The Creature appears in the sublime landscape, associating him with nature's power rather than human society.
The Arctic ice	Walton's expedition	The most extreme sublime landscape — beautiful, vast, and deadly. It represents the endpoint of ambition pushed beyond human limits.

How to write about the sublime

"Shelley uses sublime imagery of the Alpine landscape to diminish Victor's individual ambition against the overwhelming scale of nature. The 'immense mountains' serve as a reminder that nature — which Victor has attempted to master — is ultimately beyond human control. For the Romantic reader, this would reinforce the belief that the natural world possesses a moral authority that human science cannot replicate."

Examiner's tip: When discussing the sublime, always connect it to the Romantic context. The sublime is not just "nice scenery" — it is a philosophical concept about the relationship between humanity and nature. Using the term correctly shows sophisticated understanding.

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Light and Darkness

The symbolic framework

Light and darkness operate as a central symbolic opposition throughout the novel:

Light	Darkness
Knowledge, discovery, hope	Ignorance, secrecy, despair
The Enlightenment promise of progress	The Gothic threat of the unknown
Victor's ambition ("the light of creation")	Victor's laboratory work (in dark, secret spaces)
Fire — the Promethean gift	Fire — also burns and destroys

Key moments

Image	Context	Analysis
"I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being"	The Creation	The "spark" is both literal (galvanism / electricity) and metaphorical (Promethean fire). Victor is bringing light/life into dark matter — but the result is horror, not illumination.
"By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open"	The Creation	The "half-extinguished light" creates a Gothic atmosphere of dimness and uncertainty. The Creation happens not in glorious daylight but in murky semi-darkness — suggesting that what Victor has done is morally ambiguous at best.
The Creature discovers fire	Creature's narrative	The Creature's discovery of fire mirrors the Prometheus myth: fire gives warmth and light but also burns. Knowledge is a double-edged gift.
"dreary night of November"	The Creation	Shelley deliberately sets the Creation on a dark, gloomy night — the pathetic fallacy reflects the horror of what Victor has done.

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Birth and Death Imagery

Creation as unnatural birth

Shelley saturates the novel with imagery of birth, pregnancy, and death — often fused together in disturbing ways:

Image	Analysis
"My workshop of filthy creation"	The "workshop" replaces the womb. Creation happens in a masculine, industrial space rather than a natural, maternal one. The word "filthy" reveals Victor's own revulsion at what he is doing.
"I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished"	The language echoes post-partum depression — the elation of anticipation followed by the horror of reality. Shelley, who experienced difficult pregnancies and infant death, brings visceral authenticity to this imagery.
Victor's "nervous fever" after the Creation	Victor falls ill immediately after creating life — his body rebels. This mirrors the physical trauma of childbirth.
"I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion"	The Creature describes himself as a failed birth — something that should not exist. The violent, medical language is deliberately shocking.

Examiner's tip: Birth and death imagery connects directly to Shelley's biography — her mother died giving birth to her, and she lost her first child. You can argue that the novel's obsession with creation and death is deeply personal as well as philosophical.

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Gothic Imagery

Key Gothic conventions in Shelley's language

Convention	Examples in Frankenstein
Dark, confined spaces	Laboratories, prison cells, the Creature's hovel
Extreme weather	Storms, rain, ice, "dreary night"
Death and decay	Charnel houses, graves, dissecting rooms, dead body parts
The uncanny	The Creature — human but not human; alive but assembled from the dead
Doubles / mirrors	Victor and the Creature as doppelgangers
Secrecy and concealment	Victor hides his creation; the Creature hides from society

Gothic atmosphere in the Creation scene

"I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs."

The language here is deliberately clinical and horrifying: "dull yellow eye," "convulsive motion," "agitated." Shelley combines scientific observation with Gothic revulsion. The Creature is described as a collection of body parts in motion, not as a person.

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Narrative Voice and Perspective

Three narrators, three voices

Each narrator in the novel has a distinct voice:

Narrator	Style	Effect
Walton	Formal, epistolary (letters); enthusiastic, lonely	Establishes the frame and introduces themes of ambition and isolation
Victor	Passionate, self-pitying, dramatic; uses the language of the Romantic hero	We feel his suffering but must question his self-justifications
The Creature	Eloquent, reasoned, emotionally powerful; literary and philosophical	His articulate voice challenges the reader's assumptions — he is no "monster"

Unreliable narration

None of the narrators is entirely reliable:

Narrator	Why they might be unreliable
Victor	He has every reason to justify himself and demonise the Creature
The Creature	He is pleading his case to Victor and has reason to exaggerate his suffering
Walton	He is retelling Victor's story — a second-hand account

Examiner's tip: The question of narrative reliability is a Grade 9 concept. If you note that Victor's account of the Creature is likely biased — and that the Creature's own narrative offers a very different picture — you demonstrate sophisticated critical thinking.

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Pathetic Fallacy

Nature reflecting emotion

Shelley uses pathetic fallacy — weather and landscape reflecting characters' emotional states — throughout the novel:

Passage	Emotional state
"It was on a dreary night of November"	Victor's horror and guilt at the moment of creation
Storms and lightning in Geneva	The destructive power of knowledge; foreshadowing of catastrophe
Sunshine and spring flowers when Clerval arrives	Temporary hope and the healing power of friendship
The frozen Arctic	Desolation, the end of ambition, emotional death
The Mer de Glace	The vast, cold distance between Victor and his humanity

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Key Language Techniques to Identify

Technique	Definition	Example from Frankenstein
Allusion	Reference to another text or myth	Paradise Lost, Prometheus, the Bible
Pathetic fallacy	Nature reflecting human emotion	"Dreary night of November" for the Creation
The sublime	Awe-inspiring, overwhelming natural landscapes	The Alps, the Arctic, Mont Blanc
Doubling / doppelganger	Two characters who mirror each other	Victor and the Creature
Imagery	Vivid descriptive language creating a mental picture	"Dull yellow eye," "watery eyes," "shrivelled complexion"
Symbolism	An object/image representing a broader idea	Fire = knowledge = Prometheus; light/dark = hope/despair
Rhetorical questions	Questions asked for effect, not answers	"Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth?"
Juxtaposition	Placing contrasting ideas side by side	The beauty of nature vs. the horror of the laboratory
Irony	A contrast between expectation and reality	Victor's "new species would bless me" — the Creature curses him
Epistolary form	Narrative told through letters	Walton's letters to Margaret Saville

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Model Analytical Paragraph