English Paper

This is a formal analytical essay using MLA guidelines for documentation and format. Your

essay should:

1. include a header in the top left margin with your name, date, and course name

2. include a content-related title, centered on the line

3. be double spaced

4. include internal works cited entries using MLA

5. include a Works Cited page listing your source, using MLA

6. be 4 to 6 double-spaced pages, not including the Works Cited page

You do not need any outside sources except for the primary source you’re analyzing.

Essay Goal:

The aim is to produce an essay that is academic in tone (and, of course, free of informal language

and frequent technical/usage errors) and analyzes a major work closely in order to respond to one

of the essay prompt options. 

Prompt: 

Mary Shelley includes a number of literary devices in Frankenstein, and indeed, this

novel might be said to epitomize the things we primarily associate with the Romantic

Period. But to look more in depth, think about things like themes and symbols. I would

suggest that “responsibility” is a key word when thinking of this novel. We know that the

deaths of Victor’s little brother, his best friend, and his bride are all attributable to the

Creature, but is there more to it than that? Is Victor absolutely an innocent victim?

Consider, as you think of this question, that when the Creature describes what his first

moments of life were like, his impressions of the world are almost exactly like the

impressions we might imagine a newborn baby experiences—except that Victor, his

maker, is not there to guide him. To explain what I’m getting at, speaking hypothetically,

if a toddler breaks something in a store, the toddler isn’t the one who has to pay for it—

the parent is. To what extent might this hypothetical scenario alter our perceptions of the

characters in the novel?