Creator-Creature's Oneness: a Stylistic Analysis of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'

This dissertation provides a stylistic analysis of Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein” in order to prove the oneness of the novel's main characters, namely Victor Frankenstein and the monster. The stylistic analysis is carried out from the general to the specific, in other words, since the novel is regarded as a cluster of layers, this study begins with the examination of its outer layers and then gradually moves to the inner layer, which is crucial to the core of the inquiry. Thus, the first chapter deals with the examination of the novel's narrative structure, particularly it focuses on the three main characters' role of narrators and focalizers, notably the stylistic analysis in this chapter is grounded upon Gérard Genette's and William F. Edmiston's narrative theories. In the second chapter, I have highlighted how the novel includes several literary genres' stylistics conventions. Therefore, through the analysis of graphology in Walton's narration I have argued that the novel falls into the genre of epistolary novel, in addition I have shown how the work is a prototype of Gothic Novel, lastly I have argued that Mary Shelley's story is an example of Detective Fiction as well. The last chapter of the thesis is crucial to the aim of the whole study, indeed it is in this last chapter that the oneness of Victor and the monster has been examined. To this extent, I have employed the notion of mind-style and self-concept. Mind-style was originally designed by Roger Fowler and discussed by many stylisticians over the years, therefore in addition to Roger Fowler's writings my analysis is grounded upon Elena Semino's works as well. Through the analysis of transitivity, modality and repetition of the same linguistic patterns in the characters' depictions of nature, the examination of their self-concept (with regard to Milton's Paradise Lost characters) and lastly through the study of conceptual metaphors employed by both of them, the thesis has showed that Victor and the monster are two halves of the same being.