In his article “On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre”, Darko Suvin posits “Science Fiction as the literature of cognitive estrangement.” By this definition and its subsequent explanation I believe that Shelley’s Frankenstein falls short of the parameters set forth by Suvin. Although the novel satisfies both the “cognitive” and the “estrangment” components of the definition, they are only satisfied on the skeletal level. In his article Suvin describes those works as “juvenile” that “introduces into the old empirical context only one easily digestible new technological variable,” which, at this point, Frankenstein does. This new “variable” is Victor’s ability to give life to the non-living (deceased), and nothing else. Although the realization of his power occurs in the context of science, nothing actully scientific is used to dillineate how this power came about or why Victor shoud be the one to have discovered it. When describing how he came about to know and harness this power, Victor simply states that “a sudden light broke in upon me,” leaving the rest to the imaginings of the reader. For the sake of Science Fiction, such an explanation is inadequate because it leaves too much to fancy. That is, if Victor is able to simply have an epiphany of how to animate the dead with life, could he not then have a similar epiphany to discover the genetic makeup of woodland fairies? If a sudden realization is all that is needed in Science Fiction to allow unknown or intangible things to happen within a story, then I think the lines between Fantasy, Fairy-Tale, and Science Fiction are not as clear cut as Suvin claims them to be.