Frankenstein Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Frankenstein - Essay Example He said, â€Å"the passion caused by the great and sublime in nature is astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.† In other words, rather than being exclusively something that can be considered beautiful beyond description, Burke suggests that it is instead that element that fills the mind so compellingly with the object under consideration that the mind cannot consider any other ideas or thoughts, nor can it come to any adequate conclusions regarding the object that it the main subject of consideration. Working on Burke’s concepts of the sublime, one can quickly recognize it within Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, particularly in Chapter 10 where Shelley explores both the Romantic conception of the sublime as overwhelming beauty as seen in nature and Burke’s idea of the sublime as something so overwhelming to the mind that it results in a horror that cannot be overcome by rational thought. The chapter begins with Victor’s escape into nature as a means of attempting to overcome his depression and guilt regarding Justine’s death. In this escape, Shelley uses the Romantic conceptions of the sublime as an overwhelming sense of beauty and universal connection through the forces of nature. While this is still imbued with a sense of greatness beyond the understanding of the human mind, this is not necessarily the direct and immediate experience of horror depicted by Burke. Shelley describes the scene thus: â€Å"The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves, or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche, or the cracking reverberated along the mountains of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable