Sinbad the Sailor - Frankenstein IV

"The information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search, than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light" (31).

"The Arabian who had been buried with the dead" is a reference to the Fourth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor in the Middle Eatern collection of folk tales The One Thousand and One Nights. On his fourth voyage, Sinbad finds himself on an island inhabited by a civilization of people whose tradition it is to bury the remaining spouse alive with the deceased partner. When Sinbad's wife falls ill and dies, Sinbad is lowered into the tomb along with her. Once in the tomb, Sinbad witnesses death and decay in all forms until he hears a stirring that he follows, only to find a way out of the tomb, to find the passage of life.

Shelley probably chooses the story of Sinbad because it is so similar to Frankenstein's voyages in the tomb, as he watches bodies decaying in his search for the spark of life. And similar to Sinbad, Frankenstein feels he has found a way out when he discovers that one secret that has been ever hidden from man.

http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Dixon/dixon01_12.htm

Mutability - Frankenstein III

"We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!" (67).

Shelley interjects the last two stanzas of the poem Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the man Mary eloped with when she was almost seventeen. The poem seems to describe Victor's situation with perfect accuracy; he had dreams of his monster that made sleep terrifying; he would be perfectly happy until a sudden thought made him remember his creation; yet in the end, it matters not what Frankenstein feels, for he loses almost everything. All that remains is the ability to change.

Clerval - Frankenstein II

"Clerval! beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words, and to dwell on the praiseof which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the 'very poetry of nature'" (113).

When Shelley uses the "very poetry of nature" to describe Clerval, she is making an allusion to The Story of Rimini by Leigh Hunt. In the story, those words are used to describe the prince Paola who takes the place of his brother to wed Francesca. When Francesca is told that her betrothed will not be there to marry her, she is rather upset, but when Paola arrives and realizes her discomfort, he soon mends the scene. As Clerval is formed in the "very nature of poetry," he similarly realizes discomfort or unhappiness and works to mend it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0xhcAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR8&lpg=PR8&dq=the+story+of+rimini+summary&source=bl&ots=SMuvlWrUKq&sig=SJNMr6RKMWjy96mYfuaj8YWVFF0&hl=en&ei=GHK4TpndEcjA2gWWqujMDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFwQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Very%20poetry%20of%20nature&f=false

The Worth of Beauty - Frankenstein I

"They consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' house -- my more than sister -- the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures" (17).

Elizabeth's character is likely used by Shelley as a contrast to the monstrosity of Victor’s creation, used to explore the human regard for appearance through the way the two are treated. Elizabeth’s character is never truly discussed in terms other than her appearance; she appears beautiful, so therefore she must be good. The monster is generally assumed to be a similar case: he is ugly, therefore he is evil, while in reality the monster is of true and noble heart.

While exploring the morality of basing goodness on appearance, Shelley fails to give a character in her novel the opposite issues of the monster: a beautiful appearance with an evil heart. This may be because Shelley is never truly driving at this issue, she may merely be trying to get across that parenting matters; if one gets treated well, they will usually behave well. For instance, a large part of the reason Elizabeth ends up how she does is because of the people that take her in as a child. Victor’s monster, on the other hand, has at least as much, if not more, brain potential to become good and kind and wise, yet his appearance hinders all good relations to him. In this way, Shelley may be speaking out against institutions like insane asylums (also called lunatic asylums), which are now known for being places of social alienation. These institutions were generally thought of as being good, until depiction in popular culture, like Francisco de Goya's The Madhouse (painted between 1812 and 1814), told otherwise. Shelley's discussion of the morality of judging on appearances alone may have been influenced by this painting.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/goya/7/711goya.html