Mary Shelley's Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist whose obsession with creating life leads to tragic consequences. After animating a grotesque creature, Victor abandons it, resulting in a cycle of revenge that devastates his life and loved ones. The story explores themes of ambition, responsibility, and the emotional scars of isolation and rejection, ultimately questioning the ethics of scientific pursuit.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist whose obsession with creating life leads to tragic consequences. After animating a grotesque creature, Victor abandons it, resulting in a cycle of revenge that devastates his life and loved ones. The story explores themes of ambition, responsibility, and the emotional scars of isolation and rejection, ultimately questioning the ethics of scientific pursuit.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist whose obsession with creating life leads to tragic consequences. After animating a grotesque creature, Victor abandons it, resulting in a cycle of revenge that devastates his life and loved ones. The story explores themes of ambition, responsibility, and the emotional scars of isolation and rejection, ultimately questioning the ethics of scientific pursuit.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist whose obsession with creating life leads to tragic consequences. After animating a grotesque creature, Victor abandons it, resulting in a cycle of revenge that devastates his life and loved ones. The story explores themes of ambition, responsibility, and the emotional scars of isolation and rejection, ultimately questioning the ethics of scientific pursuit.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the haunting story of a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life. It's a tale about ambition, the consequences of playing with the natural order, and the deep isolation that comes from being misunderstood. But most of all, it's a story about the monstrous effects of unchecked scientific ambition and the emotional cost of neglecting responsibility.
It all begins when Victor Frankenstein, a curious and gifted young man, is growing up in Geneva, Switzerland. From an early age, he was fascinated by science, particularly the works of alchemists and philosophers who explored ideas about life, death and the secrets of the universe. As he grew older, Victor began studying at the University of Ingolstadt, where his curiosity turned into an obsession. He becomes determined to discover the secret of life itself, something that will allow him to create life from inanimate matter. His obsession with this idea is all-consuming, and he isolates himself from his family, friends and society.
After years of hard work, Victor succeeds in his experiment. In the privacy of his laboratory, he brings a creature to life—an enormous being, a mixture of human and otherworldly features. However, Victor is horrified by what he has done. The creature, though alive, is grotesque in his gigantic physical shape. His yellow eyes open, and Victor, filled with dread, realises the scale of his actions. Terrified by the creature's appearance, he runs away from it, abandoning his creation without a second thought.
This act of leaving someone behind starts a terrible chain of events.
Because he was turned down and left alone, the creature has to survive in the harsh world. The creature is innocent and interested at first, trying to figure out what's going on around him. Everyone he meets is afraid, angry or disgusted by how awful he looks, even though he wants to be kind and compassionate. The creature grows bitter, angry and thirsty for revenge against the man who gave him life but wouldn't take responsibility for him when he was alone.
As the creature wanders through the world, he learns to speak and read, discovering literature and philosophy, which deepen his feelings of abandonment and loneliness. One day, the creature finds a family living in a small cottage. Observing them from a distance, he grows fond of them, learning about love, compassion and the beauty of human connection. However, when he tries to approach the family, he is violently rejected, not just for his appearance but for what he represents: a creature born out of an unnatural act. This rejection pushes the creature into a state of rage and despair.
Determined to confront his creator, the creature tracks down Victor
Frankenstein. He demands that Victor create a companion for him, someone who can share in his misery and offer some resemblance of companionship. The creature promises that if Victor agrees, he will leave humanity in peace and never harm anyone again. Reluctantly, Victor agrees to the creature's request and begins working on a female companion. However, as he works, he becomes increasingly tormented by the moral implications of his actions. He fears that creating another creature like the first will lead to even more destruction, especially if the two creatures decide to procreate and spread their kind across the Earth.
In a moment of horror and doubt, Victor destroys the unfinished female
companion, effectively breaking his promise to the creature. This decision triggers a cycle of vengeance. The creature, enraged and heartbroken, swears to make Victor suffer, and begins a deadly pursuit, killing Victor's loved ones, including his younger brother William and his wife Elizabeth. Victor becomes consumed by guilt and grief, realising that his quest for scientific achievement has led to the destruction of everyone he holds dear. He vows to chase the creature to the ends of the Earth, determined to destroy it and put an end to the torment it has caused. The story culminates in the icy, desolate Arctic, where Victor is on the brink of death from exhaustion, illness, and despair. The creature, still alive, confronts Victor one last time. It expresses its own suffering and loneliness, revealing that it only became monstrous because of the way it was treated by society. In its final moments, the creature speaks of its intention to kill itself, to end its existence in a world that has rejected it entirely.
Victor dies soon after, and the creature disappears into the wilderness, leaving a sense of unresolved tragedy hanging in the air.
At its core, Frankenstein is a story about the dangers of unchecked
ambition, the importance of responsibility, and the consequences of neglecting one’s moral duties. It explores themes of isolation, rejection, and the deep emotional scars left by a lack of empathy and compassion. It also raises important ethical questions about the limits of scientific knowledge and the responsibilities that come with the power to create life. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein continues to be one of the most powerful and thought-provoking stories about the human condition, technology, and the nature of monstrosity.
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Plot summary
The Preface clarifies the starting point of the work. Mostly of the book takes place around Geneva, Switzerland, Shelley spent the summer of 1816. Shelley and her companions challenged one another to create ghost stories one soggy night Of the tales, Frankenstein was the only one finished. The Preface also shows Shelley's intended presentation of "universal virtue" and "domestic affection"—that is, her goal in creating the book.
In a letter to his sister Margaret Saville, Robert Walton, the captain of a
ship headed for the North Pole, notes that his crew members just came upon a guy drifting at sea. Victor Frankenstein, the guy, volunteered to share Walton his story.
With a caring family that even adopted orphans in need—including the
lovely Elizabeth, who eventually becomes Victor's closest friend, confidante, and love—Frankenstein enjoys an idyllic upbringing in Switzerland. Henry Clerval is Victor's amazing and loving best buddy as well. Scarlet fever claims his mother just before Victor turns seventeen and travels to study at the University of Ingolstadt. Victor studies the secrets of life with such fervour in Ingolstadt that he even loses contact with his family as he delves passionately into "natural philosophy." He quickly climbs to the top of his field and then one evening finds the secret of life. Victor uses his expertise towards fantasies of a new and noble race. But he abandons his first monster when it comes out looking so terrible after animating it. Though Victor expects the creature to have vanished permanently, some months later he learns William, his younger brother, has been killed. Victor remains quiet as he worries no one will believe him even though he sees the creature lingering at the murder site and is confident it performed the job. Another adoptee in his family, Justine Moritz, has been unfairly accused of a crime. She is put to death after conviction. Victor is driven insane by guilt.
The Frankensteins take vacation in order to flee their catastrophe. Often
trekking in the mountains, Victor hopes the splendour of the surroundings would help him heal. The creature shows up one day, and despite Victor's curses begs him very eloquently to hear its narrative. The monster talks about his miserable existence, filled of sorrow and rejection based just on his terrible appearance. (The monster also describes how he picked up reading and speaking so naturally.) The monster attributes his anger on mankind's incapacity to see his underlying goodness and consequent complete isolation. It needs Victor, its producer who brought it into this terrible life, to build a female monster to provide it the affection none else will. Victor first objects but then agrees.
Victor's father conveys his hope that Victor wed Elizabeth back in Geneva. Victor advises he first has to go to England. Victor encounters Clerval en route to England. Soon afterward, Victor leaves Clerval at a friend's Scottish house and travels to a far-off island to create his second, female monster. But one night Victor starts to worry that the female monster may be more devastating than the first. Victor spots the first creature seeing him work via a window at the same instant. The terrible sight drives Victor to wipe off the female monster. Declaring retribution, the monster warns Victor it will "be with him on [his] wedding night." Victor casts the remnants of the female monster into the sea. But he is charged with a murder carried out that same evening when he gets back to land. Victor falls and is mentally ill for two months after learning the victim is Clerval. When he awakens his father has come, he is free of the criminal accusations levelled against him.
Returning with his father to Geneva, Victor marries Elizabeth. On his
wedding night, the monster murders Elizabeth instead, though. Soon afterward, Victor's father passes away from loss. Now, all by himself in the world, Victor commits himself entirely to exact retribution against the monster. Following the monster to the Arctic, he is caught on cracking ice and is saved by Walton's crew.
Walton sends again another set of letters to his sister. He tells her he failed to reach the North Pole and about restoring Victor, who passed away shortly following his rescue. In his last letter, Walton writes of his finding of the monster mourning over Victor's body. The monster argues it has suffered more than anybody, while he charges it of lacking regret. The monster gets its retribution and intends to die itself because Victor is dead.
