Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley has so commonly been typecast as an author that strictly writes in the gothic form. While, for the most part this can be proven true, it by no means defines her writing style. For such a young girl she impressively demonstrates her knowledge of literary figures and their works and also of the Bible and its passages of importance. She alludes to people such as Coleridge and Dante. While she is mentioning these people and their works she uses very vivid and almost morbid imagery to depict the feelings that Victor is experiencing towards his creature and visa versa.

“I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” In Dante’s “The Inferno,” he discusses the different circles f Hell and what a person would have to do so be placed in these circles (based on how terrible the sins that person committed were). To think that this creature that Victor has given life to could be so terrible that even a man who can visualize the nine levels of Hell cannot even grasp, is in reality something completely unimaginable. But just a little farther down the page Shelley continues with her allusions and references to popular authors of the time. For example, “Like on who, on a lonely road, Doth was in fear and dread… Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.” These allusions give the novel a little more relatbility because even if a reader does not particularly enjoy Shelley’s writing there is still some respect because she gives credit to the others.

This novel focuses very much on the value of life and death and also their role and cycle on every human being, Victor and the creature both toy back and forth between slight understandings to utter confusion. Even when he briefly mentions God it is in the worst of emotions or at least the most intense of emotions, “Beautiful—Great God!”

In this novel, “Frankenstein,” the imagery that Shelley uses is what makes the story as deliciously morbid as it is. “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.” It is imagery like this both tactile and visual, that make the story seem so real. While reading the novel it seems like this is something that really could happen at any given moment.