The Clever Use of Diction in Mary Shellys Frankenstein :: essays research papers

Frankenstein is the story of an eccentric scientist whose masterful creation, a monster composed of sown together appendages of dead bodies, escapes and is instantly loose in the country. In Frankenstein, Mary Shellys diction enhances fear-provoking imagery in order to induce apprehension and suspense on the reader. Through come in this appall account, the reader is almost told how to feel generally a feeling of uneasiness or fright. The fountains diction makes the images throughout the story more lustrous and dramatic, so dramatic that it can almost make you shudder.A clear example of the purpose of diction to provoke fear is seen in Chapter IV. Mary Shelley uses nomenclature such as wretch, yellow skin, horrid, white sockets and shriveled to describe the monster, thus making our stomachs churn. Later on, she uses words such as livid, grave-worms, crawling, dim and convulsed to describe a terrifying nightmare Victor Frankenstein, the main character, had had the night his monster came to life.Mary Shelley carefully picked which words to use when describing a certain object, place, or situation. She obviously knew what words would arouse our trepidation and make us quiver at the thought of such a unspeakable description. Whether its because of the way the word fits in the sentence or because of the sound of it, words like disturbed and chattered simply make us feel uneasy. When the author was describing the petrifying appearance of the creature, she made sure to use words that would make us sick to our stomachs in order to get a really full(a) idea across about how simply disgusting this now-animate creature was. She does this by explaining to us how the creatures yellow skin scarcely covered the realize of muscles and arteries beneath. The thought of seeing something so sickening even makes us make a wry face and try to get the image out of our heads and thats exactly the reaction the author is hoping to see from us. This also helps us know how Mr.