Frankenstein is the main character in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s gothic novel also known as Modern Prometheus. She is influenced by ideas and a dream from a summer holiday in Switzerland. During the summer holiday, she and her companions had shared and read German ghost stories, and then one of them, Bryan Lord suggested that they have a competition to see who would come up with the best horror story (Mary 15). One of them had suggested that corpses could also be re-animated, this brought to Shelley’s mind the idea of galvanism. During one of the nights she had a dream of a scientist creating life, the creature was horrific to her. It was that dream of hers that she developed into a story and later with the help of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley; she expands it to a novel.
The story has been classified as the earliest examples of fiction in science because the main character focuses on modern laboratory experiments and creates life through applying galvanism. The novel takes the form narrative with multiple story tellers and listeners. It also has some gothic elements and romanticism of the late 18th and mid-19th century (Stephen 108). The novel was gothic in the expression of the monster and his actions, romantic elements in how Victor would resort to nature to give him peace (Stephen 110). The name Frankenstein has been used by many quite often to refer to the monster in the novel but that is not really the case. Victor Frankenstein is the young student of science of who created the monster.
Chapter one of the novels unfolds with Frankenstein narrating his background and early childhood. He was born to Caroline and Alphonse in Geneva. He had two brothers William and Ernest. The family is fairly wealthy. Their parents adopt an orphan by the name Elizabeth Lavenza into the family. Victor and Elizabeth fall in love and were set to get married in due time. As young children Victor and the brothers are encouraged to explore science and Victor was particularly excited about the natural world. He was fascinated by outdated theories of Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. At 17 years of age, Victor was admitted to the University of Ingolstadt.
It is at the University that Victor is convinced by his professors to pursue sciences. He made rapid progress in his pursuit with specific focus on human anatomy and death and decay. Following this he decides to experiment on creating life. He does this in the secret of his room. He wanted to create a new generation of unique creatures that would be beautiful and wonderful. After several months of hard work, Victor completes his creation and brings the creature to life. He assembled mismatched body parts from cadavers and galvanized the being to life (Chris 133). He however, was horrified by what he had created and fled from it. It did not turn out to be as handsome as he had anticipated despite putting so much effort and time into it. The monster was beautiful when it was asleep, but once it sprang to life, it was monstrous (Paul 883-903). During this time he had neglected his family back in Geneva and he did not have a social life. However what transpires after Victor flees from the monster or what he himself called a wretch makes it even uglier and detestable to Victor.
Victor meets his childhood friend, Henry Clerval as he was fleeing from the monster. The result of the exhaustion of creating life and finally seeing his monster spring to life was Victor’s illness. Henry nurses him back to good health. Henry acted as Victor’s link with society, he reminded him of his family back in Geneva. This monster one would suppose would bring joy and satisfaction to Victor who had undertaken the challenging task with great enthusiasm, but his immediate reward was illness. He then received a letter from Elizabeth who was worried about his illness and requests him to contact the family back in Geneva. He later received yet another letter from his father informing him of his youngest brother’s death and he immediately travelled home. When he arrived, he walked around town and spotted the monster near the spot where his late brother’s body had been found. He was convinced beyond any shadow of doubt that the monster was responsible for his brother’s death. Back at home however, Justine was being accused of the murder and was sentenced to be hanged (Mary 147). The monster had framed her by placing in her clothes a photograph of Caroline which had been in William’s possession. Victor tried to defend her although he refused to open up and prove his argument for fear of what people would think of him if he talked of a monster, and one that he had created for that matter. So His creation not so long after springing to life had already caused death of two people, Victor’s own family members. He had to carry the burden of guilt. This is definitely not what Victor had envisioned of his creation, he had envisioned a generation of wonderful creatures not murderers, the monster was definitely ugly.
One of the days, Victor found himself in a state of despair and frustration and he decided to travel to the summit of Montanvert. It is there that the monster again appeared to Victor and confronted him seeking either redress or revenge. This time, Victor was not just horrified by the monster’s physical strength and grotesque nature but also by its intellect, he verbally expressed and explained himself to Victor, telling him how he had learnt by observing a family that stayed in a cottage near his hovel, how he realized that human beings were afraid of him because of how he looked, he even realized that he was ugly when he saw his image in a pool of water. The monster also realized his other needs and was frustrated by his state of loneliness. The monster revealed that he had sworn revenge against all humans because of the way they mistreated him, he also narrated to Victor how he had killed his brother because of his rage and justified his actions as an act of desperation and isolation. He then demanded that Victor make him a female monster to cater for his needs of acceptance and a relationship. He promised that once Victor is through, he would disappear with the mate away from human beings into the mountains.
Victor had reservations concerning the monster’s requests despite having agreed to it at first. He realized that he might just create a generation of monsters by giving the already existing one a mate to recreate. The task at hand would also require him to travel back to England, his source of misery and delay his marriage to Elizabeth, the only source of happiness, a paradise he had waited to experience. It was only the thoughts of Elizabeth and his father that had prevented him from committing suicide after the death of William and Justine.
Victor then took a two year tour with his friend, Henry. He had not disclosed the reason for his tour to either the friend or his father. They parted ways in Scotland where Victor moved to an island in Orkneys to work on a female monster and break loose from the bounds of the monster and his looming presence so he thought. As Victor progressed with his work he continued to struggle with what would be the possible outcome of his work, a tag of war went on in his mind. He was not sure of what would happen with two monsters in existence, the thought of his freedom was fascinating but he was not sure the first monster would keep his words of staying away from humans; he was not certain whether there would be more havoc or peace. One night with the monster watching him through a window, Victor destroyed the project he had almost completed and the monster swore to take revenge on the eve of his marriage to Elizabeth.
The following night Victor decided to discard the remains of the female monster into the waters of Atlanta and on his return, he was accused of the murder of his friend, Henry Clerval. The monster had been strategic enough to leave the corpse of Henry at Ireland where Victor would land. Upon seeing the body, it was clear to him that the monster had done it again. He fell into convulsions and was ill for two months. He was very miserable and found himself in prison upon recovery. He was later found innocent of Henry’s murder after which he was released and he travelled back home with his father who had come to visit him when he was ill and in prison and had stayed till the trial. Elizabeth wrote a letter questioning him and he reassured her of his love and commitment to her. He again asserted that Elizabeth was his only source of happiness and marrying her would be his experience of paradise. He was at that moment reminded of the monster’s threat to his wedding and resolved to put up a strong fight against the monster even if it meant that one of them, the creator or the creation would be extinguished. He thought even if he died fighting the monster he would still be free from the misery, he had been subjected to.
When Victor and his father arrived home, they straight away began to plan for the wedding but his worry about the monster continued to grow. He promised to reveal the secret to Elizabeth but only after the wedding. On the night before the wedding, when Elizabeth was asleep, Victor braced himself for the war he had been looking forward to. He looked for the monster inside the house. Though He had expected the monster, it was unknown to him that the monster intended to kill Elizabeth and not him. So as he continued his search, the monster attacked and killed Elizabeth (Mary 160). He went to inform his father of the bad news, it was unbearable for him, losing almost all his children under mysterious circumstances, Alphonse died a few days later. Victor lost both ends of the war, he never got to marry Elizabeth and he never got to fight against the monster. He never experienced paradise- what should have ended up in jubilance and celebration, ended in mourning. Instead of the freedom and joy he had awaited- to marry Elizabeth and reveal the secret that like poison was slowly destroying him, he only got more misery. He was only a day away from paradise but it all fell apart in a night.
Victor left Geneva and the sick memories it held for him. He devoted his life to the pursuit of the monster to carry out his own revenge against him, a quest he never achieved as well. He was rescued in North Pole by Walton and his crew an exhausted, pale and ill man. He narrated his tale to the Captain who believed him and persuaded them to continue with the pursuit of the monster (Mary 180). Walton in his letters to his sister revealed that though he and his men were excited at the thought of pursuing the gigantic figure but they had to retreat. Victor died a few days after the crew decided to head back home. He died a miserable man. The monster came to mourn his death in the ship, he confessed to Captain Walton the regret he felt for causing pain to his creator. He admitted that his actions had only alienated him further and he felt more miserable, just as Victor had felt. He said that he was ready to die and promised to kill itself so that other humans would not be aware of his existence.
In summary what had been an exciting intrigue to explore science and apply the same to explore nature led to an ugly turn of events. Victor had set out to imitate nature and creation when he created the wretch or the monster, but this proved the difficulty and almost impossibility of imitating nature in its exactness and perfect beauty. Victor loved nature and in many instances in the story, when he was almost going insane because of depression, nature helped restore his sanity. Nature is natural and cannot be therefore imitated or recreated because in Victor’s attempt to do so, he ends up producing the exact opposite of nature; monstrosity and a strained relationship between human beings and his creation. While in the novel, a peaceful relationship with nature has been portrayed to readers. An innovation that Victor intended to be beautiful and wonderful ends up being ugly and a cause of misery to him. He and his family suffered the consequences and he was hardest hit since he had to bear the guilt as his family members destroyed one after another, until he was the only one left. His physical body could not stand the torture and slowly wasted away. This many scholars attributed to the psychological trauma and torture he suffered in terms of guilt and how he had constantly felt like the monster had been following and monitoring him and would strike at him any time.
Works cited.
Baldick, Chris G. In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. OUP, 1990.
Bann, Stephen. Frankenstein, creation and monstrosity. Reaktion books, 1994.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: 1818. Intervisual Books, 2010.
Sherwin, Paul. "Frankenstein: Creation as Catastrophe." Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (1981): 883-903.
