Mont Blanc is an important location within Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mont Blanc is the tallest peak in Western Europe, reaching 15,771 feet (or 4,807 meters) in height (Britannica). This peak is within the Alps Mountain range, with Mont Blanc located directly on the border of Italy and France. Shelley uses this peak to display the Romantic ideal of the sublime. When something is described as sublime, it is in reference to a natural scene being awe inspiring, but also intimidating or inducing fear. Mont Blanc surely should instill a sense of fear, as it is one of the most fatal mountains in the world, with an average of 100 climbers dying on the mountain per year (Wallace). The way Victor speaks of the Alps is akin to the way a Romantic poet would write about them. In expressing his initial feeling of viewing the mountains Victor says, “It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul… The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnizing my mind,” (Mary Shelley 75). Victor would go on to describe Mont Blanc in specific as having an “awful majesty” (Mary Shelley 76). The language that Victor uses in discussing Mont Blanc, specifically in the reference to the sublime, can be seen as a reference to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni,” written in 1816 (Percy Shelley). Both Frankenstein and Shelley express similar thoughts when confronted with the sight of Mont Blanc, stating that its imposing grandeur instills a feeling of solitude and self reflection on the viewer. This poem’s focus on the solitude of the human within this natural scene creates a greater tie between the necessity of solitude and the sublime. Thus, Mary Shelley creates this same tie by using Mont Blanc to be a representative of the concept of the sublime and a place of solitude for both Victor and the Creature.

Mont Blanc is also the setting where Victor and the Creature cross paths throughout the novel. In making Mont Blanc the place where the creator and his creation meet, Shelley only highlights the similarities between the two characters and their inescapable connection. Both Victor and the Creature often seek spaces of solitude and hold a deep reverence for sublime nature. The fact that Mont Blanc is a dangerous, glacial mountain calls on the sublime fear induced by nature, as well as the danger these two characters pose to each other. There is also something to say in that Victor is meeting his creation at the highest peak in Western Europe. Not only was the creature meant to be Victor’s highest achievement in his scientific practice, but it also seems to reference Frankenstein’s stance as a modern Prometheus. Prometheus’s hubris caused him to fly too close to the sun, as Victor’s caused him to attempt to reach the level of a god and create life. Thus, the place where he must be confronted by his hubris is the tallest peak in Western Europe.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia. “Mont Blanc”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 5

Dec. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/place/Mont-Blanc-mountain-Europe.

Accessed 19 November 2021. 

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. Edited by Marilyn Butler, Oxford University

Press, 2008. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni.” Poetry

Foundation, Poetry Foundation,

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45130/mont-blanc-lines-written-in-the-

ale-of-chamouni.

Wallace, Lane. “Why Is Mont Blanc One of the World’s Deadliest Mountains?” The

Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 25 July 2012,

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/why-is-mont-blanc-on

-of-the-worlds-deadliest-mountains/260143/.