Oral and written narrative modes in Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”

The article problematizes the relations between the category of oral and written modes and the poetological system of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Despite being highly popular with both the readers and the researchers, the novel, nevertheless, tends to be incorrectly described and analyzed in terms of its narrative form. The article provides a detailed description of the novel’s system of writing and reading, speaking and listening which form the basis of Frankenstein's narrative. This description allows to prove the idea of a double-natured narrative mode further on to be connected to the poetological system of the novel as a whole. Looking at the embedded compositional structure through the prism of oral and written modes highlights the problematics of creation and destruction in their dialectics. Fragmentation and integration as the key characteristics of a mode help reformulate the central conflict which involves a person’s internal (psychological) and external (social) identity. The novel’s narrative levels (from the author to the third-level narrator) appear to be principally isomorphic. Yet taking into consideration the value given to each of the modes, it is possible to put the narrative agents into hierarchy which provides a system orientation for the reader.