WRITER’S CRAFT

1. Each chapter of the text begins with an epigraph that sets the thematic tone for that section of the book. Each of these epigraphs is actually an allusion to John Milten’s Paradise Lost. Choose one of these epigraphs. What is the connection between Elizabeth’s story and the epigraph that the author has chosen to begin the chapter? What themes does the epigraph helps to establish? What tone does it set?
2. When Elizabeth is describing a tree being hit by lightning to Justine, she notes that “To me, [this experience] was the great and terrible power of nature. It was like seeing God” (this page). What does this reveal about Elizabeth’s view of God’s power? How is the power of God linked to nature, and why might this experience be one she calls “glorious,” when Justine sees it as “terrifying” (this page)?
3. Upon returning to the Frankenstein estate after her experience in Ingolstadt, Elizabeth realizes it “was all boastful artifice hiding the truth: The house was dying” (this page). What does she mean when she says this? How might the house be a metaphor for the Frankenstein family? What has changed about the way Elizabeth sees this home and the people in it from the beginning of the story to now?
4. When Elizabeth arrives at the island off the coast of Scotland, she describes feeling “exposed and unprotected.” She believes this could explain the “military aggression of this tiny island country: they could never feel the edges of their land, so they pushed forever outward” (this page). How might this island represent Elizabeth in this moment? How might it also represent Victor, who has escaped to this island? How might it represent the monster?
5. Compare the first epigraph from Part One, “How Can I Live Without Thee?” (this page), with the first one for Part Three, “Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light” (this page). What has shifted in Elizabeth’s perspective since the beginning of the text? How does this compare to the progression of the original Frankenstein story?
6. What is the effect of shifting the telling of this story from Victor Frankenstein’s perspective to Elizabeth Lavenza’s? What is gained? What is lost?
7. In Kiersten White’s Author’s Note, she shares that “it isn’t the answers in stories that are interesting—it is the questions” (this page). What questions are readers left with at the conclusion of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein?

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading Literature: Speaking Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration S.L. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1-3

EXTENDED WRITING PROMPTS

Follow-up questions to consider, posed by Kiersten White’s Author’s Note: