Or, The Modern Prometheus
Original 1818 Uncensored Version
Published: 1, January 1818
Author: Mary Shelley
Genres: Gothic, Historical, Horror, Literary, Literature, Romance, Science Fiction
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Summary:
Captain Walton's Narrative:
Frankenstein is a framing narrative told in the style of epistolary letters. It tells the story of Captain Robert Walton's fictitious communication with his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. In the eighteenth century, the tale takes place (the letters are dated as "17-"). Robert Walton is a failing writer who embarks on a journey to the North Pole in the hopes of learning more about science.
During the journey, the group notices a dog sled being pulled by a massive figure. A few hours later, the group finds Victor Frankenstein, who is practically frozen and malnourished. Frankenstein has been on the lookout for the colossal guy spotted by Walton's crew. Frankenstein begins to recover from his effort; he recognizes in Walton the same fixation that has ruined him, and as a warning, he tells Walton a narrative of his life's sorrows. The narrated story serves as the backdrop for Frankenstein's story.
Victor Frankenstein's narrative:
Victor begins by recounting his early years. Victor and his younger brothers, Ernest and William, are the sons of Alphonse Frankenstein and the former Caroline Beaufort and were born in Naples, Italy, into a rich Genevan family. Victor has had a great desire to comprehend the world since he was a child. He is infatuated with alchemical notions, even though as he grows older, he knows that such beliefs are much out of date. Victor's parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, the orphaned daughter of an expropriated Italian aristocrat when he is five years old, and Victor eventually marries her. Justine Moritz, Victor's nanny, is subsequently adopted by Victor's parents.
Victor's mother dies of scarlet fever just weeks before he goes to the University of Ingolstadt in Germany and he buries himself in his research to cope. He succeeds in chemistry and other disciplines at university, and he develops a secret way to give non-living things life. Victor attempts the development of a humanoid, but due to the difficulty in reproducing the minute elements of the human body, the Creature is tall, around 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, and proportionally enormous.
Despite Victor's choice of attractive characteristics, the Creature seems to be ugly when animated, with watery white eyes and yellow skin that barely hides the muscles and blood vessels beneath. Victor departs, disgusted with his job. He finds his boyhood buddy, Henry Clerval, while walking the streets the next day and takes him back to his flat, terrified of Henry's response if he sees the creature. The Creature, on the other hand, is gone when Victor returns to his laboratory.
Victor becomes unwell as a result of the ordeal and is nursed back to health by Henry. After a four-month recuperation period, he receives a letter from his father informing him of his brother William's murder. Victor finds the Creature at the crime site when he arrives in Geneva and believes his invention is to blame. After William's locket, which included a small portrait of Caroline, is discovered in her pocket, Justine Moritz, William's nanny, is convicted of the murder.
If Victor attempts to clear Justine's name, no one will believe him, and she will be hung. Victor escapes into the mountains, ravaged by grief and remorse. While hiking through the Mer de Glace on Mont Blanc, he is contacted by the Creature, who begs Victor to listen to his story.
The Creature's narrative:
The Creature, intelligent and articulate, recounts his early days as a lone survivor in the woods. People were scared of and despised him because of his looks, leading him to fear and hide from them. He got fond of the impoverished family who lived there while living in an abandoned structure attached to a cottage and secretly gathered firewood for them, removed snow from their walk and performed other things to aid them. The Creature learned to talk by listening to them and taught himself to read after locating a forgotten bag of books in the woods while living secretly close to the cottage for months.
He knew his look was terrible when he saw his reflection in a pool, and it terrified him as much as it horrified regular humans. He got increasingly connected to the family as he learned more about their predicament, and he ultimately approached them in the hopes of becoming their friend, entering the house while only the blind father was present. The two conversed, but when the others returned, the rest of them were terrified. The Creature departed the house after being attacked by the blind man's son. Fearing that he might return the next day, the family abandoned their house.
The way the Creature was treated angered him, and he lost all hope of ever being accepted by mankind. Despite his hatred for his creator for leaving him, he chose to journey to Geneva in order to locate him since he felt Victor was the only one who could heal him. On the way, he saved a kid who had fallen into a river, but her father shot him in the shoulder, assuming the Creature was out to kill them. The Creature then vowed to exact vengeance on all mankind. He used information from Victor's notebook to fly to Geneva, murder William, and frame Justine for the crime.
Victor is required by the Creature to construct a female partner who is similar to himself. He claims that he has a right to happiness as a living person. If Victor fulfills the Creature's request, he and his companion will vanish into the South American forest, never to be seen again. If Victor refuses, the Creature threatens to murder all of Victor's surviving friends and loved ones until he has totally destroyed him. Victor hesitantly accepts, fearful for his family's safety. The Creature vows to keep an eye on Victor's progress.
Victor Frankenstein's narrative resumes:
Clerval travels with Victor to England, but they split up at Perth, Scotland, at Victor's request. Victor believes the Creature is after him. He is troubled with catastrophic forebodings while working on the female monster on the Orkney Islands. He is afraid that the female may despise the Creature or turn eviler than he is. Even more concerning to him is the possibility that producing the second monster would result in the breeding of a species that will wreak havoc on humanity. After seeing the Creation, who had followed Victor, peering through a window, he rips apart the incomplete female creature.
The Creature rushes through the door to face Victor and threatens him into working again, but Victor is certain that because the Creature is evil, his mate would be bad as well, and the couple will endanger mankind by giving birth to a new species that looks just like them. "I will be with you on your wedding night," the Creature says as he walks away. Victor takes this as a death threat, believing that the Creature would murder him once he achieves happiness. Victor goes out to sea to dispose of his instruments, falls asleep in the boat, is unable to return to land due to weather changes, and is blown to the Irish coast.
Victor is imprisoned for Clerval's murder when he arrives in Ireland, as the Creature strangled Clerval and left the body where his creator had arrived. Victor has another mental collapse and awakens in a jail cell. He is later proven to be innocent, and after being released, he comes home with his father, who has restored some of Elizabeth's father's money to her.
Victor is going to marry Elizabeth in Geneva, and he is preparing to battle the Creature to the death, armed with pistols and a knife. Victor asks Elizabeth to stay in her room the night after their wedding while he searches for "the demon." The Creature strangles Elizabeth as Victor investigates the home and grounds. Victor sees the Creature from the window, tauntingly pointing at Elizabeth's body; Victor tries to kill him, but the Creature flees. Victor's father dies a few days later, weakened by age and the death of Elizabeth.
Victor follows the Creature through Europe, then north into Russia, seeking vengeance, but the Creature is always one step ahead of him. Victor eventually reaches a point when he is within a mile of the Creature, but he falls from weariness and hypothermia before he can discover his target, allowing the Creature to flee. The ice around Victor's sled eventually breaks apart, and the resulting ice floe approaches Walton's ship.
Captain Walton's conclusion:
Captain Walton picks up where Victor left off and continues the story. The ship becomes caught in pack ice a few days after the Creature disappears, and several crewmen perish in the cold before the rest of Walton's crew insists on heading south once it is released. Victor gets enraged when he hears the crew's demands and, despite his state, delivers a forceful speech to them.
He reminds them why they opted to join the mission, and that a great enterprise like theirs is defined by struggle and risk, not ease. He exhorts them to be men rather than cowards. Even though the speech had an impact on the crew, it is insufficient to persuade them to alter their views, and when the ship is released, Walton sadly decides to return to the South. Victor, despite his weakened position, declares that he will continue on his own. He is unwavering in his belief that the Creature must perish.
Victor dies soon after, encouraging Walton to seek "pleasure in calm and eschew ambition" in his final words. Walton encounters the Creature aboard his ship, where he is mourning Victor's death. Victor's death, the Creature informs Walton, has not provided him peace; rather, his misdeeds have left him much more wretched than Victor was. Walton watches as the Creature drifts away on an ice raft, never to be seen again, vowing to kill himself so that no one else would ever know of his presence.
Rating: 100/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.
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Frankenstein (1931):
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