Mary Shelley: The Sublime - Romanticism

To understand this motif, I would recommend reading Frankenstein, a free on-line copy of which can be found here. Mary Shelley wrote at the early stages of a literary movement known as Romanticism. We can see shades of romanticism in her novel, as explored below.

The Romantic Movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement in Europe that started in the late 18th century. It was partly in reaction to the industrial revolution, and the scientific rationalisation of nature's mysteries. The movement focused on intense emotion as an authentic source of all aesthetic experience - with new emphasis on the sublime - emotions like apprehension, horror, terror, awe - with respect to the beauty of nature. Victor Hugo, in fact, defined the Sublime as a combination of the grotesque and beautiful as opposed to the classical ideal of perfection as blemishless. For example, Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame can be considered the sublime, or the way poets looked at thunderstorms or giant waterfalls.

In Frankenstein, there is clear use of the sublime indicating the effects of the romantic movement by Mary Shelley. Take for instance when Victor stands by the hills, mourning the loss of William:

 It advanced; the heavens were clouded, and I soon felt the rain coming slowly in large drops, but its violence quickly increased … While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, "William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy dirge!" 

This scene is a perfect example of how romanticism embraced the sublime nature as a source of unrestrained emotional charge for the individual - a source from which one could draw spiritual renewal, but also face the conflicts of the self.

As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life.

Here, as we can see, the role of lightning is profound for Victor. Firstly, it is evidence of Victor's discovery - seeing lightning destroy a tree set him on the path that led him to study the phenomenon, and then bring back to life his monster. The tempest and the lightning is also a source of comfort - he feels like the nature is with him in his mourning of his brother. And yet, it is also associated with what he hates most - the monster he created, with the help of lightning. As lightning flashes, he sees his creation, a reminder of all he hates in life, hatred born for himself, for creating 'the wretch, the filthy daemon.'

Nature and the sublime is also used as an emotional backdrop to the plot as it develops. The wet, damp London, wherein sorrow is sowed. The high pleasant hills, where Victor heads to 'lift' his spirits. A 'hellish' winter of cold, of abandonment, from which the monster escapes into the spring, which causes his heart to 'lighten'. Victor chases the monster across the world without any result, as reflected by the barren deserts of Arabia, and finally the sheets of ice in the Arctic. But as Victor realises, even the power of nature is nothing in front of the power, and consequences, of science, as the monster continues to haunt him no matter where he goes.