The Story Genome
The Story Genome is Narratologium's equivalent of Morphologium's Mesh Autopsy. Instead of author, date, and genre summaries, we dissect the internal mechanics: voice, temporal anachrony, conflict vectors, and documented influences.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1818) · ~74,800 words
Concentric Framed Epistolary & Tripartite First-Person (Walton → Frankenstein → Creature)
Focalization: Internal Variable (shifts across three subjective, self-justifying consciousnesses)
Complex Retrospective Nested Flashback with Proleptic Foreshadowing
“The genius of Shelley's architecture lies in its concentric Chinese-box focalization: the monster's metadiegetic speech is situated at the exact mathematical center of the novel, forcing the reader to listen through two layers of hostile narratorial framing (Walton and Frankenstein).”
Concentric Frame Layers (Diegesis)
Primary Conflict Vectors
Victor achieves biological genesis but immediately flees the aesthetic and moral duty of care.
The Creature absorbs human language and ethics via Milton's Paradise Lost, yet is violently rejected based entirely on facial appearance.
Both Walton and Victor sever familial domesticity in pursuit of northern exploratory transcendence.
Causal Event Arc & Tension Trajectory
Walton writes to his sister from St. Petersburg dreaming of discovering the Northwest Passage.
Walton's crew rescues the emaciated Victor pursuing a giant sledge across frozen seas.
Victor narrates his youth, Agrippa fascinations, and solitary vitalist breakthrough at Ingolstadt.
The Spark of Being: Victor animates the creature and immediately flees in disgust.
William is murdered; Justine is framed and executed through societal legal blindness.
Glacier Confrontation: The Creature assumes the voice, recounting his De Lacey sanctuary and agony.
Victor begins and then destroys the female mate on the remote Orkney Islands.
Creature slays Elizabeth on wedding night; lifelong Arctic pursuit ensues.
Victor dies aboard the ship; Creature laments over his corpse and departs into darkness.
Documented Influences & Structural Precursors
The Creature directly reads Milton's text as a historical document, self-identifying alternately as Adam (the created innocent) and Satan (the envious rebel).
Walton explicitly cites Coleridge's Mariner in Letter II; Victor acts as the haunted wanderer cursed to narrate his transgression to prevent another.
Both divide human psyche into rational respectable scientist and externalized physical embodiment of repressed drive via biochemical/anatomical experimentation.
Polyphonic multi-documentary epistolary construction enclosing an encroaching Gothic monster that crosses borders.
Multi-Specimen Genome Comparator
Compare two narrative genomes side-by-side to expose shared architectures, differing diegetic depths, and divergence in conflict resolution.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley · 1818
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886