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Frankenstein Book Review and Summary
Shelley, M. W. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, London: Penguin Classics, 1992 (originally published in 1818)
Frankenstein Review and Summary
Frankenstein is a foray into the genre of Gothic-horror fiction and largely focuses on the ethical issues of advancing technology. It explores the relationship between human beings and God at an allegorical level. This book was written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the wife of a famous English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley and published in 1818. She was born in 1797 and died in 1851.
In this book, Shelley used various elements of literature to bring out themes that largely focused on the impact that industrialization had on moral and societal values. She commented about persecution of people based on their physical appearance and their failure to take responsibility for their actions. Importantly, she talked about playing God and the impact of such an action. Evidently, these themes are still relevant today where fiction can be based on modern conflicts and society. This book is written in a series of narratives in the first person. The language used is representative of English typical in the 19th century. However, it is easy to understand and its prose is free-flowing. The story has a plot that is masterfully build and has two major characters that are well sketched.
Frankenstein starts with letters of Captain Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Walton Saville, telling her about how he saw a monstrous figure one day fleeing across the ice and about Victor Frankenstein. Walton takes a ship to explore the North Pole and as he is on his way into the Arctic Ocean, the ship gets trapped in ice. He and the crew watching around them see a monstrous figure walking across the ice. Later they see Victor lying on the ice near the ship, suffering from hypothermia and starvation and rescue him. As he recovers, Victor narrates a story to Walton about his life’s miseries.
Victor is brought up in a Swiss family is loving and gentle. He builds close relationships with his dear friend, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth Lavenza who has been adopted by his parents from a poor family because she is beautiful. As a young boy, Victor becomes obsessed with reading literature and scientific theories that focus on achieving natural wonders, especially those that describe what gives human beings their life spark. He attends college at University of Ingolstadt where he excels in chemistry and other sciences. He combines scavenged body parts, makes a human creature that is about eight feet tall and gives it life. He thinks that the creature would turn out to be beautiful but it turns out to be ugly. Disgusted by the ugliness of this creature, Victor runs away from it. This experience makes him exhausted and ill over many months. The monster starts looking around for friendship but human beings reject him. After several encounters of harsh treatment from people, the monster becomes afraid and spends time near a cottage, observing a family that leaves there. He subsequently learns that he is very different from humans, which makes him very lonely. He decides to seek friendship with this family but he is rejected. This leads him to seek vengeance. He moves to Geneva, finds a boy in woods and seeks to kidnap him and make him his companion. The boy is Victor’s brother and thus, he decides to kill him to get back to his creator. He removes a necklace on the child’s body and plants it on a beautiful girl, who is later executed for crime.
Victor’s father informs him about his brother’s death and thus, he goes back to Geneva to be with his family. He then sees the monster in the woods where his brother was murdered. The monster tells him about his brief life, about the unkind treatment he has received from humans. Victor is ravaged by guilt for creating this monster and goes on isolation into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him and demands that he creates a female companion since all humans have rejected him for disfiguration. Victor regretfully accepts this challenge but changes his mind before completion and destroys it. The monster vows to revenge on victor by destroying his wedding but kills Clerval by the time Victor comes back. Victor marries the adopted girl, Elizabeth, and prepares to kill the monster. Before taking any move, the monster kills Elizabeth and the grief of her death kills victor’s father. Victor vows to pursue the monster and kill him and that is how he ends up near the place where Walton’s ship is trapped. As Walton and his crew plan to go back home, Victor dies and the monster appears in the room where he was placed, mourning for the loss of his creator. The monster briefs Walton about his reasons for vengeance and his plans to burns himself to death than to live. He moves out of the ship and disappears in the waves, never to be seen again.
Clearly, the major theme in this story is the persecution of the monster based on physical appearance. It reflects the writer’s desire to address the false emphasis of the society on outside beauty. One of the situations where this connection is evident is when Victor’s parents adopt Elizabeth because she is beautiful. Such actions leave Victor with no sense of inner beauty. After creating the monster, he runs away from it because it is ugly. He exclaims, “But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (26) He does not consider its inner beauty. Victor’s reaction to reject the monster brings out the theme of failure to take responsibility for one’s actions. The writer, however, allows the reader to make own judgment about the society by bringing out the struggle that the monster goes through, thereby developing sympathy for him. He is denied love due to his physical disfiguration. It is on this basis that he decides to take revenge. He says “I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy” (80). This makes the reader to value inside appearance and brings out the mistake that Victor is making.
Generally, the ability for the writer to put the reader into the monster’s head and description of society’s opinion of beauty makes the story interesting and helps to drive her point home that it is not good to judge a person or a thing by its outside appearance; the inside counts more. Given that this book is a classic piece of literature, mistakes are rare in the original version in Shelley’s original 1818 release. Weaknesses often appear when reading other versions that leave important details. However, all versions date back to the original version that was published in 1818 and Frankenstein is generally an excellent read.
