Frankenstein, Albatross, Monster 12+

📙 When Coleridge's poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is first quoted in Mary Shelley's novel, Walton, in his letter, wants to ensure his sister that although he is "going to unexplored regions, to 'the land of mist and snow'", he "shall kill no albatross". The albatross motif connects Walton to Frankenstein and the Monster on the acoustic level, and this connection appears on the textual level when Frankenstein, right after giving life to the monster, quotes Coleridge's poem: "[...] he knows a frightful fiend / Doth close behind him tread." The "fiend" that Frankenstein dreads is obviously the monster; the consequences of the sin he has committed - like the Mariner who killed the Albatross. Mary Shelley thought it important to know that this quote is from "Coleridge's Ancient Mariner" as she referred to it in a footnote. Which means that the whole poem, and not only these lines, may be the context of Frankenstein. In the poem the dead are alive which is important for two reasons. On the one hand, we know that Frankenstein uses dead bodies to make his monster.