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We speak student!

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There's a curse on our village.

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The curse of Frankenstein!

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Frankenstein a la Shmoop

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What is the narrative structure of Frankenstein?

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So the narrative structure of Frankenstein

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is incredibly complicated.

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It's part of why it's so fun to read.

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First, let's talk about why it's written in the form of letters.

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Any novel that's written in letter form

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is called an epistolary novel.

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This word "epistle" just means "letter."

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It's like another fancy word for saying "letter."

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At the time, most novels were written in epistolary form.

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This isn't -- It wasn't something new.

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Clarissa, Pamela, Dracula -

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These were all epistolary novels.

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The reason that stories were written in an epistolary fashion

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is because it made it seem a little bit more real.

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We come across a letter and it's like,

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"Oh, well, someone wrote this letter."

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And it kind of gives us the sense that what's happening

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is a little truer.

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You know, in reality TV, you can have

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a shaky camera and stuff like that

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to make it feel more real.

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- What they did is they had epistolary -- - That was their confessional.

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Exactly. You know, even novels that weren't

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straight-up letters would start with some frame story.

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So the frame story is, you know,

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the story that surrounds the actual kind of plot of the novel.

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And a lot of novels had this frame story

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that would be like,

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"Oh, I stumbled across a journal

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and that's how I'm getting all this information."

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And then they tell the story.

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And it just gives it a little bit more sense of reality.

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Frankenstein is a particularly cool one

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because it's not just letters,

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it is so many layers of narrative.

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So at one point in the novel,

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you have --

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The De Laceys are hanging out

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and the monster is telling their story

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and Victor Frankenstein is quoting the monster's story

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to Walton on the boat,

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who's recording it and writing it to his sister.

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So you have, like, I don't know,

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- Phone tag. - Walton's sister... Exactly!

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It's phone tag.

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It's Walton's sister, Walton,

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Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein, and the De Laceys.

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So you have like four or five layers of narration here.

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And, yeah, like you're saying, it's kind of this idea that

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by the time it gets to Walton's sister,

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how much of it is real anymore?

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So it's kind of this fun, you know,

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tug of war between, "Oh, it's real.

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It's letters. It's written in epistolary form."

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and then it's like, "Oh, but, you know,

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it went through six layers of narration to get there."

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Hmm. Okay, cool. Highly filtered.

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[ mm ]

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[ suspenseful music ]

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[ screaming ]

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What is an epistolary novel?

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What is the advantage of writing in this form?

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When it comes to Frankenstein,

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what is the drawback of this form?

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