Lesson overview

Detailed practice
Story - Narrative
Young adult and up
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
complaint
gothic
intensity
drafting
editing
voice
style
parallelism
emotion
lament
project
comparison
escalation
word choice
heightening
compression
intensifiers
contrast
argument
evoking emotion
In this lesson we rewrite a short passage from Frankenstein, in which the monster laments his own creation. We approach our variation in two drafts: the first focuses on structure (a complaint followed by unfavourable comparisons), and the second focuses on voice (using word choice and phrasing to achieve a level of Gothic Romantic intensity). We also use this snippet as a keyhole view into the 19th century British crisis of faith at a time of scientific breakthrough.