The Importance Of Weather In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

One of the strangest weather events in recent history occurred in 1816, the so called year without a summer. During this year, due to an (unknown at the time) volcanic eruption in Indonesia, temperatures in Europe were much lower than average, leading to crops failing and famine. With strange weather event occurring, it makes sense that one of the books written that year, Frankenstein, has some stranger weather of its own. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there are several sudden storms and inhospitable climates. The harsh weather in this novel is closely related to appearances of the monster. Shelley could be suggesting that the creation of the monster should be judged harshly as it seems to be by nature, as well as Victor after the abandonment of the second monster, after which he as well as followed with and harmed by storms. The first instance of a storm in the novel after the pivotal creation of the monster is

This time a storm does not directly accompany the monster, although a storm with rain “pouring in torrents” does proceed the monster’s arrival (86). However, it is also significant that it is on a glacier with a surface that “is very uneven, rising like the waves of the troubled sea” as the monster meets Victor and subsequently tells him his sympathetic life story (88). The storm proceeding the monster reinforces the fact that his creation is a gloomy dark act, but the fact that the meeting occurs on a barren, cold, sunny glacier is also significant. It could show that while the creation of the monster was dark, and the monster itself is certainly harsh and a brute like the glacier. So while the monster is no saint, and his creation is not to be praised, the weather makes it seem like he should not be immediately judged, a sentiment which is supported by his