The Grammardog Guide to

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

All quizzes use sentences from the novel.

Includes over 250 multiple choice questions.
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FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley – Grammar and Style

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Exercise 1 - Parts of Speech ....5

25 multiple choice questions

Exercise 2 - Proofreading: Spelling, Capitalization, ....7

Punctuation
12 multiple choice questions

Exercise 3 - Proofreading: Spelling, Capitalization, ....8

Punctuation
12 multiple choice questions

Exercise 4 - Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences ....9

25 multiple choice questions

Exercise 5 - Complements . . . . 11
25 multiple choice questions on direct objects,
predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives,
indirect objects, and objects of prepositions

Exercise 6 - Phrases . . . . 13
24 multiple choice questions on prepositional,
appositive, gerund, infinitive, and participial phrases

Exercise 7 - Verbals: Gerunds, Infinitives, and Participles . . . . 15

24 multiple choice questions

Exercise 8 - Clauses . . . . 17
25 multiple choice questions
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley – Grammar and Style

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Exercise 9 - Style: Figurative Language . . . . 19

24 multiple choice questions on metaphor,
simile, personification, and onomatopoeia

Exercise 10 - Style: Poetic Devices . . . . 21

25 multiple choice questions on assonance,
consonance, alliteration, repetition, and rhyme

Exercise 11 - Style: Sensory Imagery . . . . 23

25 multiple choice questions

Exercise 12 - Style: Allusions . . . . 25

20 multiple choice questions on literary,
religious, historical, mythological allusions

Exercise 13 - Style: Literary Analysis – Selected Passage 1 . . . . 27

6 multiple choice questions

Exercise 14 - Style: Literary Analysis – Selected Passage 2 . . . . 29

6 multiple choice questions

Exercise 15 - Style: Literary Analysis – Selected Passage 3 . . . . 31

6 multiple choice questions

Exercise 16 - Style: Literary Analysis – Selected Passage 4 . . . . 33

6 multiple choice questions

Answer Key - Answers to Exercises 1-16 . . . . 35

Glossary - Grammar Terms . . . . 37

Glossary - Literary Terms . . . . 47

SAMPLE EXERCISES - FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

EXERCISE 5 COMPLEMENTS

Identify the complements in the following sentences. Label the underlined words:
d.o. = direct object i.o. = indirect object p.n. = predicate nominative p.a. = predicate adjective
o.p. = object of preposition

_____1. This breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which I am
advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.

_____2. I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and
may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that require only this
voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever.

_____3. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years.

EXERCISE 6 PHRASES

Identify the phrases in the following sentences. Label the underlined words:
par = participle ger = gerund infin = infinitive appos = appositive prep = preposition

_____1. I am already far north of London; and as I walk in the streets of

Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks,
which braces my nerves, and fills me with delight.

_____2. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs – a dress which I
have already adopted; for there is a great difference between walking
the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours . . .

_____3. One or two stiff gales, and the springing of a leak, are accidents which
experienced navigators scarcely remember to record; and I shall be well
content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.

EXERCISE 9 STYLE: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Identify the figurative language in the following sentences. Label the underlined words:
p = personification s = simile m = metaphor h = hyperbole

_____1. My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every
enticement that wealth placed in my path.

_____2. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the
gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

_____3. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him.
SAMPLE EXERCISES - FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

EXERCISE 12 STYLE: ALLUSIONS

Identify the type of allusion used in the following sentences. Label the underlined words:
a. historical b. mythological c. religious d. literary

_____1. I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation;
I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of
Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

_____2. I am going to unexplored regions, to “the land of mist and snow;” but I shall
kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety, or if I should come
back to you as worn and woeful as the “Ancient Mariner.”

_____3. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them; but it would be unfair to her to
keep her in poverty and want, when Providence afforded her such powerful
protection.

EXERCISE 13 STYLE: LITERARY ANALYSIS – SELECTED PASSAGE 1

Read the following passage the first time through for meaning. (From Chapter 4)

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first
enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break
through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator
and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim
the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I
thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although
I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour.
My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement.
Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day
or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had
dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless
eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil,
as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate
the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a
resistless, and almost frantic, impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation
but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance that only made me feel with renewed
acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.
I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets
of the human frame.

Read the passage a second time, marking figurative language, sensory imagery, poetic
devices, and any other patterns of diction and rhetoric, then answer the questions below.

1 No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first

2 enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break
SAMPLE EXERCISES - FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

3 through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator

4 and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim

5 the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I

6 thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although

7 I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.

8 These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour.

9 My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement.

10 Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day

11 or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had

12 dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless

13 eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil,

14 as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate

15 the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a

16 resistless, and almost frantic, impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation

17 but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance that only made me feel with renewed

18 acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.

19 I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets

20 of the human frame.

____1. Line 1 contains an example of . . .

a. metaphor b. simile c. personification

____2. Lines 2 and 3 contain an example of . . .

a. metaphor b. simile c. personification

____3. Line 12 contains an example of . . .

a. metaphor b. simile c. personification
SAMPLE EXERCISES - FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

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The Grammardog Guide to
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley