Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Pathetic fallacy is a literary device in which an author ascribes human emotion to nature; it is a form of personification. In Frankenstein, Shelley often uses nature to mirror both Frankenstein and the creature’s feelings or to foreshadow events about to take place, and this usage sometimes takes the form of pathetic fallacy.

For example, as Frankenstein returns to Geneva following William’s death, a storm gains strength. Frankenstein considers this “noble war” in the sky to be William’s “dirge,” projecting his grief onto nature. This association of water with negative emotions extends to the creature; he awakens on a night when “the rain patter[s] dismally against the panes” (42), as though the weather itself were gloomy. Elsewhere, it is not the weather but the landscape itself that Shelley personifies. Frankenstein, feeling cut off from humanity and distraught with grief, first reencounters the creature on a “desolate” mountain. Later, the creature describes how, in his first days of life, he walked through a snowy forest, the “uniform white” of which was “disconsolate” (90). These examples of pathetic fallacy drive home the loneliness and anguish felt by Frankenstein and the creature. They also subtly telegraph the characters’ self-absorption, as each is so preoccupied with their own suffering that they see it reflected in everything around them.