Critical Reviews: Frankenstein

Christianne Finlay

Section 16

Denise Scagliotta

Critical Reviews on Frankenstein: 19th Century

Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, was reviewed critically after it’s first publication in 1818. There are three specific reviews that are of some importance, in that all of these reviews look at the educational and social aspects and impacts of the novel. At the time, there was crisis as to how educated the working and middle class should be and controversy as to how literacy played a role in this education. Shelley’s novel came near the end of the gothic era, in which novels demonstrated the supernatural, violent crime, and even sexual misconduct (Heller 328). Frankenstein focuses on the difficulties and evils of being a lower class person aspiring to reach middle or upper class standing, via education, literacy, and learning the social values of the bourgeois families. This is shown in the novel specifically when the monster finds a family, listens to their stories, reads their books, helps with their work, and yet