Frankenstein Doodle (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCXCVIII

This is another marker doodle copied from a whiteboard illustration that I used in teaching Frankenstein. Here, we have Frankenstein looking up at the mountains before he meets with the creature on the glacier. Ice is a recurring theme in the book where nature closely mimics the human action. Linking the monster with ice may be a reference to Milton's Satan who has his dominions amidst pyramids of ice in the northern reaches of Heaven (c.f. Tennyson's The Last Tournament where the Red Knight's bandits make their last head like Satan in the North). Nature and natural sympathies are the bread and butter of the Romantics, but I have been surprised this time by how overt a role Nature plays in Frankenstein. I didn't remember the descriptions of the Swiss mountains or the Rhine being so lengthy and vivid. In keeping with that, the lion's share of my doodles for this book have focused on impressionistic images of the setting rather than close-ups of the characters.

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