This study will analyze the effect of the natural settings in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude." The study will argue that the effect of natural setting of Mary Shelley's novel is the establishment of nature as a mysterious and powerful force which human beings attempt to control and shape for their own purposes. On the other hand, the effect of the natural setting in Percy Shelley's poem is the establishment of nature as a kindred spirit to the human being who is imprisoned by solitude.
The natural setting in the story of Dr. Frankenstein is not immediately alien or threatening. In fact, the writer of the letter which begins the novel finds an affinity in nature: "As I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I felt a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. . . . Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid" (Shelley, Frankenstein 15). But even here we see the suggestion of the threat that is to come. The cold wind reminds the writer of the "icy climes" where he is bound, far from the security of the city, and his "fervent and vivid . . . daydreams" foreshadow the clash between nature and human longing for power which will follow.
Before long, the natural setting closes in on the characters, giving the reader a sense of claustrophobia and a hint of dread: "we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides" (Shelley, Frankenstein 22). The ship is shortly wrecked. When the novel proper commences, the narrator establishes himself as superior to the threat of nature: "Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which . . . had become food for the worm" (Shelley, Frankenstein 50). Death and sickness are again and again associated with the natural setting: "She died on the first approach of c...