A STUDY ON POPULAR FORMULA OF MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN

Abstract

This study aims to discover and analyze the formula of gothic horror genre that can be found in the book of Frankenstein, a story about a scientist who discovers reanimating a dead body. The popularity of this novel has been continuously adapted into many literary works such as movie, stage and television production, especially the image of the monster that has been appropriated widely to entertain and to market customer goods to the public. The newest movie entitled I Frankenstein tells us about the further story about the monster’s life after Victor died, get a good ratting from the audience. From this movie actually shows us that until now the story about reanimating a dead body is still popular. I use qualitative data, focusing the research on the literary pieces Frankenstein, social condition in 18-19th century and the reader. This study uses Formula theory to analyze popular literature. Cawelti said that every works should have the essential standardization and it should have a characteristic or uniqueness to make a work popular and easy to understand and also the reader can be differentiated with another work. In this thesis, I analyze what formula according to Cawelti which have a uniqueness that probably makes this novel becomes popular. This theory helps me in analyzing how the relation between the formula and the culture in 18-19th century about scientific experiment which makes this novel as the escapism and wish fulfillment. After analyzing the formula of the story, I can find interrelated hypothesis about dialectic between formulaic literature and the culture that the capacity of Formulas enable the audience to explore in fantasy the boundary between permitted and the forbidden and to experience in a carefully controlled way the possibility of stepping across this boundary. Through this novel, Mary tells us that science can go ix too far, people didn’t think about morality using a dead body in their experiment to know how God creates human and how God gives them life and death decisions. Mary also wants to tell us, that actions have consequences and don’t play God. That we are only human being who has weakness and sometimes doing mistakes, not a God.