Week One: Frankenstein

The imagery of nature is a powerful motif in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and is almost a mocking presence to Victor, who strives so earnestly to to imitate it, artificially creating life in a vain attempt to mimic nature's effortless beauty. The picturesque scenery of Switzerland is always present, sometimes giving Victor a false sense of happiness during trying times. However, it acts more frequently as a moment of rest for the audience, so that the novel isn't a continuous stream of depressing events one after another. Instead, there is always peace before the storm, a period of calm before the characters are thrown into turmoil, creating a story that repeatedly raises and drops the character's- and the audience's- emotions. These "calms before the storm" occur often throughout the novel, and are usually achieved through detailed descriptions of nature, evoking its sublime power. For instance, when Victor is returning to Geneva after hearing news of William, he travels through a breathtaking landscape of placid waters and snowy peaks, with Shelley not sparing a single detail of the grand splendor of his surroundings. In this environment, even our melodramatic hero notes a feeling of peace washing over him. This journey being framed by the beautiful foliage of nature serves as a period of respite from the terrible events preceding and immediately following the journey. It is the calm before a literal storm which, of course, eventually descends rapidly and without warning upon Dr. Frankenstein, once again returning him to a state of despair.
In other instances, the beautiful scenery of Switzerland acts as an ironic backdrop to Victor's state of mind and his experimentations. The vivid imagery of the landscape only highlights the stark contrast between natural life and the life which Victor created in a poor attempt to emulate it. His experiments only succeed in making a cheap, failed imitation of life, his surroundings forever a reminder of his failure. Thus, Shelley would often paint a lush picture Switzerland, teeming with natural charm and effortless beauty, only to have Victor wallowing in misery amid the fresh blooming flowers. The contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the dark thoughts of Victor conveys to the audience the pitiful struggle of man against nature and puts into perspective the hopelessness of Victor's struggle to overpower it.