Is Mary Shelleys Frankenstein typical of the horror genre? Essay

Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein typical of the horror genre? To answer the question above, I firstly need to be clear about the term 'genre.' Genre is a particular style in art or literature, some examples of genres are: romantic, Romance, science-fiction and Gothic. Each genre has its own personal features, for example the romance genre deals with love, it normally has exotic settings and it deals with emotional issues. I am going to try and categorise the book and then try to decide whether or not it is just a horror story, or if it is more than that. If it is just a horror story then it will focus on death, darkness, fear and terror. It will also try to shock the reader and it will use suspense heavily. With this in mind, Frankenstein is definitely a horror story, for example Victor Frankenstein said, on the day when the creature was born, "a dreary night in November." This shows that the day is dark, which is typical of a day in a horror story. "Infuse a spark... into this lifeless thing" this is when he is talking about the creature, and there is definitely and emphasis on death and darkness. Victor says he also has "astounding horror" this shows that he is feeling especially horrified with the monster. From the beginning of the book, the horror genre is the primary genre in the novel, even before Victor Frankenstein's story has even begun there is evidence of horror. Just before he starts to tell his story, he tells Robert Walton that his story has "unparalleled misfortunes" and that he has "memories of evil" this is meant to strike fear into the reader and into Robert Walton, it shows that Victor Frankenstein is deeply horrified with what has happened to him. There is also evil in this story a... ...ypical through out all of the book. I believe that Frankenstein is definitely a horror story and that it is also a Gothic story, because it has many features that are typical of these genres. I do not believe that they are the main genres though, as the Romantic genre is a lot more dominant in this novel. I believe that this is mainly because of the time period that it was set in, as it was written in 1818, and this was when people were starting to discard the horror genre, and they were starting to believe in nature. Also the horror genre is only present in a few of the chapters and the Romantic genre is present in most. There are many other genres present, but none of them are feature as much as the Romantic genre. I do believe that Frankenstein is typical of the horror genre, but only in some of the novel, and it is more typical of the Romantic genre.