Mary Shelley's New Gothic Analysis

Within Manuel Aguirre’s “Gothic Fiction and Folk-Narrative Structure: The Case of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” and A. A. Markley’s “Mary Shelley's ‘New Gothic’: Character Doubling and Social Critique in the Short Fiction.” we see the reevaluation of the presence of the gothic in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Gothic as both a genre and a form of literary narration and Shelley’s usage and possible manipulation of is pondered over in both article. Manuel Aguirre argues that Shelley’s Frankenstein is not purely in genre and style a gothic novel as has been believed since it’s early publication. Inversely, Markley argues that Shelley’s Frankenstein isn’t another Gothic literary work but rather the revision and reinvention of the traditional conventions typically seen within the standard novel in the Gothic genre. Published in 2001, Markley’s “Mary Shelley's ‘New Gothic’” hypothesizes that rather than stick to convention Shelley used Frankenstein as a social critique using it as a way to comment on the pitfalls and changes society needed and as a result created the New Gothic genre. Through analysis of distinctly gothic motifs and symbols in other novels of the period, Markley poses a case study in which he focuses on how Shelley presents these elements seemingly adhering gothic principles, yet simultaneously twists them to push the boundaries of their traditional use. Rather than strict comparison to works separate from Shelley, he decidedly focuses most of his analysis on another one of her works The Elder Son deeming it the most similar of works to Frankenstein and more evidence …show more content…
“Gothic Fiction and Folk-Narrative Structure: The Case of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein.” Gothic Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, 1 Nov. 2013, pp. 1–18., doi:10.7227/gs.15.2.1.
Markley, A. A. “Mary Shelleys ‘New Gothic’: Character Doubling and Social Critique in the Short Fiction.” Gothic Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 1 Apr. 2001, pp. 15–23.,