Frankenstein!

Frankenstein was an interesting read. It's read as a series of letters being written by the captain of a boat who is transcribing a story told by Frankenstein. Story inside of a story. And then there's the part where Frankenstein recalls the monster's story. A story within the story in a story. We need to go deeper. Storyception.

I couldn't help but wonder, as I read, what the point of the layered levels of the story was. At first I thought that maybe the fact that this was being told to the captain by Dr. Frankenstein was meant to make it seem more like a tall tale or the rantings of a dying man, but the fact that captain Walton actually sees the monster kind of defeats this purpose. So I'm still not entirely sure what the purpose behind this is.


And to change topics completely, I have to say that one thing really bugged me throughout this novel. Dr. Frankenstein is prone to falling into comas when under emotional duress. Somebody died? Out with a fever for 3 months. See the monster? 6 months of comaville. See a scary shadow? Coma time! Does he just have a really weak disposition? The guy must look like a skeleton with all the time he spends bedridden. It just seemed silly to me.

Maybe it's supposed to be Dr. Frankenstein's embellishing his story a bit as he retells it to Walton -- he did come off as pretty melodramatic and emotional as he recounted the tale. Perhaps Mary Shelly does it on purpose. The only confirmation we have of Frankenstein's story is the sighting of the monster. So we know it exists, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Frankenstein couldn't have made up large portions of the story. Something to think about, I guess.