Literary Criticism

     In 1824 an anonymous author from Knight's Quarterly wrote a review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The writer was succinct and justified in his or her negative criticism and reveals many imperfections the book contains. There are a couple key points that are important to highlight:

• Mary Shelley wrote the entire book with a hasty tone. The plot line is rushed and leads to many unrealistic situations. The critic writes that this type of story would require time and development.
• The science is completely unrealistic and unbelievable. Points such as the unnecessary great size of the monster, the unearthly ugliness from something that was made out of human parts, and the fact that Shelley tries to define life by making it create-able, bring up many aspects of the book that detract from the quality.
• The critic sympathizes with the monster only because his suffering from loneliness and bitter occurrences with humans. The suffering of the monster is the only thing imaginably human in the novel but is quickly drowned out by the obvious imperfections within the other characters.  

     This new information has shed light on a completely different aspect of the novel that I hadn't thought about before. The critic unveils many problems, such as those listed above, that I had never thought of before. Now when I read passages from the novel I look at the story with a critical eye and different, more negative, opinion.