Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, 3, RWTH Aachen University (Institut für Anglistik), course: Proseminar Gothic Literature, language: English, abstract: This term paper deals with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's concept of the "noble savage" and the use of this concept by Mary Shelley as a main theme in her famous novel Frankenstein. In the first chapter of this paper, I will focus on the noble savage myth and explain what exactly is meant by the term. I will also explain Rousseau's theories of a state of nature as found in his work A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Further, I will shortly confront Rousseau's theories with a quite opposite world view, namely that offered by Thomas Hobbes in his works Leviathan and De Cive.