Rugged Switzerland

Most everyone has seen photographs of the Alps. However, the exposed energy and strength of these mountains and the terrain that surrounds them cannot be captured in a photo. It was not until I saw these peaks that I could truly understand Mary Shelley’s descriptions of her creature and his innate place in this landscape.
After visiting the Jungfrau, Chamonix, and other Swiss cites I can better understand how someone could be inspired to write a novel like Frankenstein. On the days when the rain fell or the fog closed off the world, movements in the distance become menacing. Even on clear days the sight of the desolate rock above the tree line allows for the idea that the only thing that could survive up there would be something supernatural. Humanity does not seem to be enough, our frailties become apparent against such a stark, natural plane.
This setting also inspires the idea that more is possible than any person originally thought. Sitting down around Lake Geneva and looking up at the mountains allows a person to see the beauty of the mountains and be awed by them, but the true Swiss experience comes from walking in the mountains. To walk in the rough terrain, to see the terrifying distance below, as well as the unforgiving heights above is a raw experience when a human can truly feel his/her separation from what is natural. With these views surrounding a person, the idea that strange and shocking things are possible becomes not only acceptable, but knowable.
Having seen the heights and depths of the stark, foreboding landscapes that Mary Shelley described, I can no longer see her words as Romantic techniques. Her creation seems to be an organic part of the landscape, an extension of humanities necessary absence in this region. The Swiss landscape seems to have been created for Mary Shelley’s creature.