Frankenstein Reading Guide: Letters 1-4 Name______

Vocabulary: enterprise (n.)- adventure, endeavor foreboding (n.) fear; (adj.) signaling something bad satiate (v.)- satisfy ardent (adj.)- passionate countenance (n.)- appearance dauntless (adj.)- fearless harrowing (adj.)- frightening irrevocably (adv.)- in a way that is impossible to change mariner (n.)- sailor perseverance (n.)- dedication, commitment 1. Who is writing the letters? To whom is he writing?

2. Where is Walton when he writes Letter 1? Why is he there? What are his plans? (15-16)

3. Why is Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner important to Walton? How is the stranger similar to the ancient mariner? (21)

4. What mood does Shelley create by alluding to Coleridge’s Romantic poem?

5. What do you think of Walton's question "What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man"(24)? How does it characterize him? What does it say about the nature of mankind?

6. How much time has elapsed between Letter 3 and Letter 4? What "strange accident" has happened to the sailors?

7. Why does the man picked up by the ship say he is there? What shape is he in? Why does Walton feel he finally found an equal in this strange man? (26)

8. Why does the man agree to tell Walton his story? (31)

9. How does Walton’s desire for a friend affect his attitude toward the stranger? What effect might this have on the reader’s trust in Walton as a reliable narrator? Characters in the Novel:

Summary: The Letters In a letter to his ______Margaret in England, ______expresses ______over his plans to discover a passage from Russia to the North Pole. He yearns for a ______to share his dreams, despairs, and successes. What he finds is______, stranded and nearly frozen on the ice, yet determined to continue his pursuit northward. Sensing that Walton is a kindred spirit in his pursuit of ______and the unknown, Frankenstein offers his history as a moral tale.