Frankenstein (Shelley) practice questions and exam guide

Justine Moritz's relationship to the Frankenstein family is:

1. A wealthy neighbor
2. A beloved servant who was taken in by Caroline
3. A blood cousin
4. Victor's secret lover

Answer: B — A beloved servant who was taken in by Caroline

A/C/D) Wrong. B) Correct — Caroline rescues her from her mother's mistreatment and the family treats her almost as kin.

The subtitle 'The Modern Prometheus' draws a parallel between Victor and:

1. Zeus
2. Prometheus, who stole fire and was punished
3. Hercules
4. Odysseus

Answer: B — Prometheus, who stole fire and was punished

A) Punisher. B) Correct — Prometheus took creative power from the gods and suffered for it; Victor does the same. C/D) Different myths.

Isolation is a destructive force for which figure?

1. The Creature only
2. Victor only
3. Walton only
4. All three: Walton, Victor, and the Creature

Answer: D — All three: Walton, Victor, and the Creature

A/B/C) Each is partial. D) Correct — Shelley layers isolation across all three narrators, who reach toward, and fail to grasp, companionship.

The Creature's vow after the destruction is:

1. Kill Victor
2. Be with him on his wedding-night
3. Leave forever
4. Burn Geneva

Answer: B — Be with him on his wedding-night

A) Victor misreads B) as A). B) Correct — the Creature speaks the line; Victor assumes it threatens his own life, not Elizabeth's. C/D) Wrong.

Shelley's prose engages Romantic poetry directly when:

1. Henry quotes Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'
2. Walton recites Byron
3. The Creature memorizes Keats
4. Victor reads Shelley

Answer: A — Henry quotes Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'

A) Correct — Henry's quotation of Wordsworth ties his sensibility to first-generation Romanticism. B/C/D) Wrong attributions.

What does the Creature do upon discovering Victor's corpse?

1. Laughs in triumph
2. Mourns him and vows self-destruction
3. Hides the body
4. Steals his papers

Answer: B — Mourns him and vows self-destruction

A) Counter to the text. B) Correct — the Creature weeps, expresses remorse, and announces he will burn himself on a pyre at the pole. C/D) Not the text.

Among the most famous lines from the 1931 film, 'It's alive!' is:

1. Verbatim from Shelley
2. Drawn from the 1818 preface
3. Cinematic invention conflated with the novel by audiences
4. Spoken by Walton

Answer: C — Cinematic invention conflated with the novel by audiences

A/C/D) Wrong. C) Correct — the line is the film's, not Shelley's, but it now colors readings of the novel.

What charge is Victor briefly held on in Ireland?

1. Vagrancy
2. Smuggling
3. Theft
4. The murder of Henry Clerval

Answer: D — The murder of Henry Clerval

A/C/B) Not the charge. D) Correct — local authorities link him to a body washed ashore; he is jailed before being cleared.

The novel critiques Victor most severely for:

1. Studying alchemy
2. Failing to take responsibility for his creation
3. Marrying Elizabeth
4. Going to Ingolstadt

Answer: B — Failing to take responsibility for his creation

A) Early misstep but not the central failure. B) Correct — Shelley repeatedly frames the abandonment, not the creation, as the moral disaster. C/D) Wrong.

Light and fire imagery work in the novel as a sign of:

1. Pure progress
2. Knowledge that warms and burns, illuminates and destroys
3. Industrial pollution
4. Religious revelation only

Answer: B — Knowledge that warms and burns, illuminates and destroys

A/C/D) Reductive. B) Correct — Shelley keeps the imagery double-edged, paralleling the Prometheus myth.

In what mountain setting does Victor first speak with his creation after years apart?

1. A glacier near Chamonix on the Mer de Glace
2. The summit of Mont Blanc
3. The Matterhorn
4. A pass over the Jura mountains

Answer: A — A glacier near Chamonix on the Mer de Glace

A) Correct — they meet on the Mer de Glace; the sublime ice serves as Romantic backdrop. B) Mentioned but not the meeting place. C/D) Wrong.

Where does the novel end geographically?

1. Alps
2. Arctic ice
3. Geneva
4. Ingolstadt

Answer: B — Arctic ice

A) Middle of novel. B) Correct — Victor dies on Walton's ship pursuing the Creature into Arctic ice; the Creature departs on an ice floe to immolate himself. C/D) Earlier settings.

Is the Creature mute or unintelligent?

No. He is eloquent + philosophically articulate — speaks several languages, debates ethics with Victor. The mute Karloff version is a film creation.

Who is Henry Clerval?

Victor's lifelong best friend. Studies oriental languages. Murdered by the Creature in Ireland.

Why does the Creature have no name?

His namelessness emphasizes Victor's failure of paternal care + the social denial of his humanity. He is defined only by what he is not.

Why is Frankenstein considered a key Romantic text?

Engages with imagination, nature's sublimity, individual genius, social injustice, and limits of reason — central Romantic concerns.

Who is the Creature (often called 'the monster')?

Victor's creation. Sentient, articulate, initially benevolent; turns vengeful after universal rejection. Never named.

Victor's reaction at the moment of animation?

Horror + revulsion. Flees the laboratory immediately, abandoning his creation.