Description

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Frankenstein is a story written in epistolary form. The story takes place at an unspecified time in the 18th century. Although the creature was described in later work as a composite of whole body parts grafted together from corpses and reanimated by the use of electricity, this description is not consistent with Shelley's work; Both the use of electricity and the makeshift image of Frankenstein's monster were more the result of James Whale's popular 1931 film adaptation of the story. Mary Shelley argued that she derived the Frankenstein name from a dream vision. Since then, this claim has been disputed and debated by scholars who have suggested alternative sources for Shelley's inspiration. The German name Frankenstein means "stone of the Franks" and is associated with several places in Germany, including Frankenstein Castle (Burg Frankenstein) in Darmstadt, Hesse, and Frankenstein Castle in Frankenstein, a Palatinate city.Although Frankenstein is steeped in elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, several people have argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story. In contrast to earlier stories with fantastic elements that resemble those of later science fiction, other people claim that the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "uses modern laboratory experiments" to achieve fantastic results. The novel has had a considerable influence on literature and popular culture and spawned an entire genre of horror stories.