Explore the purposes of the frame narrative technique in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

One purpose of the frame narrative, or 'story within a story', employed by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein is to mirror the examination of the dark internalised consciousness. The outer layer of the frame narrative would be the letters of Captain Walton to his sister (a 'normal' member of society and thus representative of the outside of the narrative), which concern his discussions with Victor Frankenstein. As the frame narrative moves inwards, Frankenstein takes up the story for Walton's benefit, before the dark heart of the process is revealed to be the creature, who tells his story to Frankenstein. The creature, a product of the lonely and mentally-internalising Frankenstein, is the dark fantasy of traditional Gothic consciousness; an artificially constructed being who can talk and think for itself. Captain Walton, who is isolated around the Gothic setting of the North Pole, is the fascinated listener who has not yet undertaken an inward journey to the extent that Frankenstein has with his experiments. Frankenstein himself, naturally, enforces the process between one who is beginning that journey and the creation of one who has fulfilled its course.