e Victor had to use the bodies of dead humans. At night Victor would secretly steal the bodies from their resting place and take them to his chamber. Victor would take the body part from the deceased that he needed and would cut it off. He would then attach the part to his creation, the monster. The description of the monster at its moment of coming alive is hideous : His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of lustrous black and flowing, his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but those luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes and straight black lips. The monster's yellow skin, watery eyes, and black lips help add terror to the story and are examples of grotesque elements. Another characteristic of the Gothic novel in Frankenstein is the mystery. In the book Mary Shelly never tells the reader how Frankenstein is really created. We know that Victor used the limbs of dead bodies to create the body of the monster, but we never found out how the monster was brought to life. It is also a mystery that the monster was able to follow Victor everywhere he went. How did the monster know that Victor was going back to his home in England, and how would the monster be able to travel the great distance? These are elements of mystery that can't be answered. A characteristic that is in many Gothic novels is the desolate environment. As you remember the story of Frankenstein begins and ends in the arctic ice. In the beginning of the story, Walloon's ship is surrounded by ice and can't move. The crew is trapped for many days. Victor is confined to a desolate place when he is trying to carry out his experiment. Victor restricts himself inside his laboratory that contains human body parts. At the end of the story Victor dies in the freezing and depressing location of the arctic. The monster also is part of a desolate environment. While the monster is learning the ways of humans he is confi...
