ENG 1DB Unit Test: Frankenstein /50

Part A: Multiple Choice (25 marks)

Read each question and the answer choices carefully. Write the correct answer on the line beside
each number.

_____ 1. What is the structure or form of the novel?

a. diary
b. autobiography
c. epistolary novel
d. historical fiction

_____ 2. The time period of the novel, which honored the ideas of the importance of the
individual, imagination and freedom of expression is:

a. The Elizabethan
b. The Renaissance
c. The Romantic
d. The Restoration

_____ 3. What is the subtitle of Frankenstein?

a. “Paradise Lost”
b. “A Tale of Horror”
c. “The Modern Prometheus”
d. “A Tale of the Pure Grotesque”

_____ 4. Who are the three narrators of Frankenstein?

a. Robert, Elizabeth and Victor

b. Shelley, Victor and Henry
c. Robert, Victor, and the Creature
d. William, Victor, and the Creature

_____ 5. What does the use of a framed narrative serve?

a. To compare Victor and the Creature

b. To emphasize the Gothic genre of the novel
c. To offer different perspectives and compare characters.
d. To show Mary Shelley’s omniscient perspective.

_____ 6. Where is Robert, and why is he there?

a. He is in the Arctic, hunting for whales.

b. He is in Russia, trapping and trading fur.
c. He is in the Arctic, exploring unknown regions.
d. He is in Iceland doing research on life in cold climates.

_____ 7. How does Robert feel about Frankenstein when they first meet?

a. He thinks Frankenstein is mad, but likable.

b. He thinks Frankenstein is intelligent and friendly.
c. He thinks Frankenstein is curious but untrustworthy.
d. He likes Frankenstein, and hopes they will become friends.

_____ 8. What two major events happened to Frankenstein when he was seventeen?
a. His brother was born and he fell in love.
b. He received his inheritance and traveled abroad.
c. His mother died and he went to Ingolstadt university.
d. He got his first job and moved to his own apartment.
_____ 9. What word best describes how Frankenstein feels when he first brings the
creature to life?

a. afraid
b. surprise
c. horrified
d. Godlike

_____ 10. “…I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress and
some books. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the
books were written in the language the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they
consisted of “Paradise Lost,” a volume of “Plutarch's Lives,” and the “Sorrows of Werter.”
The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and
exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary
occupations.”

This quote accomplishes all of the following except…

a. To establish the monster as basically human.

b. To give insight about the monster’s source of intelligence.
c. To display the monster’s reasoning being upset with Victor.
d. To establish a connection between the monster and the reader.

_____ 11. At the end of Frankenstein, the creature says "But soon I shall die, and what I now feel
be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile
triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames".

What literary device is demonstrated?

a. simile
b. metaphor
c. imagery
d. personification

______ 12. Which of the following characters best represents Victor's foil at the end of the story?

a. Mary Shelley
b. Robert Walton
c. The Creature
d. Henry Clerval

_____ 13. Words like “fate,” “fatal,” and “omen” are often used in Victor’s description of his
tragedy. These words accomplish all of the following except which of the following?

a. Reflect Victor’s acceptance of his actions.

b. Show Victor’s inability to accept responsibility for what he has done.
c. Create a tense atmosphere.
d. Contribute to the idea that Victor has tampered with divine power.
e. Display the monster’s original intentions.

_____ 14. The Delaceys provide all of the following except?

a. show the courage of women

b. show the creature what family is
c. create a sense of belonging for the monster
d. they provide a way for the creature to learn language
_____ 15. “He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were
fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin
wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched
out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.”

This is an example of what literary device?

a. simile
b. metaphor
c. imagery
d. allusion

_____ 16. What was one of the themes of the writers who influenced Frankenstein?

a. Life and death

b. Love and friendship
c. Religion and Faith
d. Science and exploration

_____ 17. What natural phenomena influenced Frankenstein?

a. He watched a tree being hit by lightning during a storm.

b. He became interested in the theories of electricity and galvanism.
c. He watched an apple fall from a tree and became interested in gravity.
d. He watched an animal die and became interested in decomposition.

_____ 18. The setting of the story includes which locations?

a. Scotland, Ireland and Italy.

b. Geneva, France and Moscow.
c. France, the Arctic and Moscow.
d. Ingolstadt, Swiss Alps and the Arctic.

_____ 19. Read the following selection: “ I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her
lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I
thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her
form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.”

Omens are large part of gothic literature. What does this dream of Victor’s indicate?

a. He is prone to nightmares.
b. He is obsessed with Elizabeth
c. He is afraid of commitment in a relationship.
d. He is aware that his research will cause harm to those he loves.

_____ 20. Identify the theme found in this quotation: “I had worked hard for nearly two years,
for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived
myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation;
but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and
disgust filled my heart.”

a. Ambition can lead to ruin.

b. People are born innately good.
c. Parents are responsible for the actions of their children.
d. Scientists are responsible for the outcome of their discoveries.
_____ 21. In this selection, what does the author’s use of personification emphasize?
“by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters”

a. Victor’s fear of the dark

b. The beauty and power of the moon
c. The time of year in Ingolstadt
d. The way the light seemed like an intrusion to Victor.

_____ 22. What were Gothic writers interested in?

a.The Individual and Technology

b. he Individual and the Working class
c.The Individual and Education
d. The Individual and Isolation

_____ 23. How does Victor evolve over the course of the novel?

a. He transforms from a shy boy to a public figure.

b. His innocence transforms into guilt.
c. He transforms from a scientist to a lover.
d. His cowardice transforms into intellect.

_____ 24. What does the monster feel when Victor dies?

a. Relief that he is now free

b. Both happiness and sadness
c. Glad that Victor never got revenge
d. Determined to build his own companion

_____ 25. What does Walton do when he understands that the danger of a single-minded pursuit of
knowledge?

a. He pulls back from his mission at sea.

b. He chooses to follow a religious path.
c. He removes himself from all future adventures.
d. He decides to write a book rather than discover land.

Part B: Passage Analysis (25 marks)

Read the following passage from Chapter 20 of Frankenstein and answer the accompanying
questions. Write in complete sentences and use specific details to support your responses. Do not
repeat information across answers.

1. Describe the place Victor works. How does this add to his feeling of isolation?
(3 marks)
2. How much time has passed between his creations? (1 mark)
3. Give four reasons why Victor changes his mind. Does this reasoning seem sound? (5 marks)
4. What opinion does Victor have of his creation? (1 mark)
5. What does Victor do after realizing the potential problems of creating a female monster?
(2 marks)
6. How is suspense created in this passage? (2 marks)
7. Victor uses both metaphor and imagery to describe the creature. Find an example of each
explain the overall effect of the description. (3 marks)
8. Give a contextual definition for three of the underlined words in the passage: malignant,
precarious, loitered, countenance. (3 marks)
9. In one good paragraph, explain how Shelley presents the theme of the danger of knowledge
in this passage. (5 marks)
Excerpt from Chapter 20, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was just rising from the sea; I
had not sufficient light for my employment, and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I
should leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a
train of reflection occurred to me which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three
years before, I was engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity
had desolated my heart and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another
being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant
than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the
neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all probability was
to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her
creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity,
and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form?
She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be
again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if
they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those
sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated
upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full
of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before
been moved by the sophisms* of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish
threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think
that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at
the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.
I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by the light of the
moon the demon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat
fulfilling the task which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had
loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now came
to mark my progress and claim the fulfilment of my promise.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I
thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling
with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the
creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair
and revenge, withdrew.
I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart never to resume
my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near
me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.
Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea; it was almost
motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A
few fishing vessels alone specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of
voices as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence, although I was hardly conscious of
its extreme profundity, until my ear was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore,
and a person landed close to my house.

sophisms: ancient philosophies