Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

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Description edit see section history

A monster assembled by an eccentric scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator.

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Summary edit see section history

In a series of letters, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister back in England the progress of his dangerous mission. Successful early on, the mission is soon interrupted by seas full of impassable ice. Trapped, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by dog-drawn sledge across the ice and is weakened by the cold. Walton takes him aboard ship, helps nurse him back to health, and hears the fantastic tale of the monster that Frankenstein created.

Victor first describes his early life in Geneva. At the end of a blissful childhood spent in the company of Elizabeth Lavenza (his cousin in the 1818 edition, his adopted sister in the 1831 edition) and friend Henry Clerval, Victor enters the university of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy and chemistry. There, he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of life and, after several years of research, becomes convinced that he has found it.

Armed with the knowledge he has long been seeking, Victor spends months feverishly fashioning a creature out of old body parts. One climactic night, in the secrecy of his apartment, he brings his creation to life. When he looks at the monstrosity that he has created, however, the sight horrifies him. After a fitful night of sleep, interrupted by the specter of the monster looming over him, he runs into the streets, eventually wandering in remorse. Victor runs into Henry, who has come to study at the university, and he takes his friend back to his apartment. Though the monster is gone, Victor falls into a feverish illness.

Sickened by his horrific deed, Victor prepares to return to Geneva, to his family, and to health. Just before departing Ingolstadt, however, he receives a letter from his father informing him that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Grief-stricken, Victor hurries home. While passing through the woods where William was strangled, he catches sight of the monster and becomes convinced that the monster is his brother’s murderer. Arriving in Geneva, Victor finds that Justine Moritz, a kind, gentle girl who had been adopted by the Frankenstein household, has been accused. She is tried, condemned, and executed, despite her assertions of innocence. Victor grows despondent, guilty with the knowledge that the monster he has created bears responsibility for the death of two innocent loved ones.

Hoping to ease his grief, Victor takes a vacation to the mountains. While he is alone one day, crossing an enormous glacier, the monster approaches him. The monster admits to the murder of William but begs for understanding. Lonely, shunned, and forlorn, he says that he struck out at William in a desperate attempt to injure Victor, his cruel creator. The monster begs Victor to create a mate for him, a monster equally grotesque to serve as his sole companion.

Victor refuses at first, horrified by the prospect of creating a second monster. The monster is eloquent and persuasive, however, and he eventually convinces Victor. After returning to Geneva, Victor heads for England, accompanied by Henry, to gather information for the creation of a female monster. Leaving Henry in Scotland, he secludes himself on a desolate island in the Orkneys and works reluctantly at repeating his first success. One night, struck by doubts about the morality of his actions, Victor glances out the window to see the monster glaring in at him with a frightening grin. Horrified by the possible consequences of his work, Victor destroys his new creation. The monster, enraged, vows revenge, swearing that he will be with Victor on Victor’s wedding night.

Later that night, Victor takes a boat out onto a lake and dumps the remains of the second creature in the water. The wind picks up and prevents him from returning to the island. In the morning, he finds himself ashore near an unknown town. Upon landing, he is arrested and informed that he will be tried for a murder discovered the previous night. Victor denies any knowledge of the murder, but when shown the body, he is shocked to behold his friend Henry Clerval, with the mark of the monster’s fingers on his neck. Victor falls ill, raving and feverish, and is kept in prison until his recovery, after which he is acquitted of the crime.

Shortly after returning to Geneva with his father, Victor marries Elizabeth. He fears the monster’s warning and suspects that he will be murdered on his wedding night. To be cautious, he sends Elizabeth away to wait for him. While he awaits the monster, he hears Elizabeth scream and realizes that the monster had been hinting at killing his new bride, not himself. Victor returns home to his father, who dies of grief a short time later. Victor vows to devote the rest of his life to finding the monster and exacting his revenge, and he soon departs to begin his quest.

Victor tracks the monster ever northward into the ice. In a dogsled chase, Victor almost catches up with the monster, but the sea beneath them swells and the ice breaks, leaving an unbridgeable gap between them. At this point, Walton encounters Victor, and the narrative catches up to the time of Walton’s fourth letter to his sister.

Walton tells the remainder of the story in another series of letters to his sister. Victor, already ill when the two men meet, worsens and dies shortly thereafter. When Walton returns, several days later, to the room in which the body lies, he is startled to see the monster weeping over Victor. The monster tells Walton of his immense solitude, suffering, hatred, and remorse. He asserts that now that his creator has died, he too can end his suffering. The monster then departs for the northernmost ice to die.

SparkNotes Editors. (2007). SparkNote on Frankenstein. Retrieved February 2, 2012, from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/

Characters edit see section history

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Victor Frankenstein: The creator of the monster. He is sick due to stress of creating the monster for most of the book.
Frankenstein's Creature: The wretched creation of Victor Frankenstein; abandoned at the very beginnings of life, he is left to suffer in a world that is horrified and repulsed by him. He wants revenge on Frankenstein for abandoning him.
Robert Walton: An Arctic seafarer whose letters open and close the novel. He records Victor Frankenstein's story in letters to his sister, Margaret, as it is relayed to him by Victor.
Alphonse Frankenstein: Father of Victor Frankenstein. Spent much of he life as a Genevese politician, devoting himself to public matters well through his prime. He married and fathered a family late in the decline of his life.
Elizabeth Lavenza: In the 1818 edition of the novel, Elizabeth is the niece of Alphonse Frankenstein (cousin to Victor). In the 1831 edition, Victor's mother Caroline rescues Elizabeth from a cottage in Italy. In both editions she is orphaned and the Frankenstein family adopts her.
Henry Clerval: Victor's best friend and most treasured and trusted companion.
William Frankenstein: Victor Frankenstein's youngest brother.
Ernest Frankenstein: Younger brother of Victor Frankenstein.
Justine Moritz: A beloved servant in the Frankenstein household
Caroline Beaufort: Daughter of Beaufort; wife of Alphonse Frankenstein.
Beaufort: Dear friend of Alphonse Frankenstein; father to Caroline Beaufort. Originally a very wealthy and successful merchant, Beaufort fell upon hard times and was reduced to wretchedness.
M. Waldman: Professor of chemistry who sparks Victor's interest in science.
M. Krempe: Professor of natural philosophy, who scorns Victor's past studies.
Mr. Kirwin: An Irish Magistrate Victor Frankenstein encounters in his travels.
De Lacey: A peasant introduced in the monster's story; father to Felix and Agatha.
Felix: A peasant introduced in the monster's story; son to De Lacey, brother to Agatha and love interest of Safie.
Agatha: A peasant introduced in the monster's story; daughter to De Lacey and sister to Felix
Safie: A peasant introduced in the monster's story; love interest of Felix.
Margaret: Sister of Robert Walton, Mrs. Saville.
Daniel Nugent: good interesting book
Albertus Magnus: Add a description of this character.
Cornelius Agrippa
Paracelsus
Mrs. Saville

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Quotes edit see section history

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“But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am quite alone.”
The monster
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.”
The monster
“Of what strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling; but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death - a state which I feared yet did not understand.”
The monster
“<T>he hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes.”
De Lacey
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.”
“But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.”
“The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom, and would not forego their hold.”
Victor Frankenstein
“Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me.”
Victor Frankenstein
“'Man,' I cried, 'How ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom. Cease; you know not what it is you say.'”
Victor Frankenstein
“Thus strangely our souls are constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin.”
Victor Frankenstein
“I was their plaything, and their idol, and something better - their child”
Victor Frankenstein
“The ancient teachers of the science", said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; ... have indeed performed miracles.”
M. Waldmann
“I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.”
Victor Frankenstein
“<I> found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and garden of roses, - in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome.”
Victor Frankenstein
“Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession in events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul of both hope and fear.”
Victor Frankenstein.
“Alas! why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that word may convey to us.”
Victor Frankenstein
“By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the daemon who cased this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict.”
Victor Frankenstein
“Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.”
The monster
“I beheld the wretch the miserable monster I had created.”
Victor Frankenstein
“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around, and I have no relation or friend upon earth.”
The monster
“My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude. I am required not only to raise the spirit of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.”
“His soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination.... The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour.”
Victor Frankenstein
“The human frame could no longer support the agonizing suffering that I endured...”
Victor Frankenstein
“Great God! why did I not then expire?”
Victor Frankenstein
“To you, first entering on life, to whom care is new, and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt, and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and carried about with me an eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps, and, when I most murmured, would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties.”
Victor Frankenstein
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”
Victor Frankenstein

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

Bavaria, early 19th century.

Geneva: Frankenstein's hometown
Ingolstadt: Where the creature is born
England: Home of philosophers Frankenstein wishes to consult
Switzerland
Paris
London
France
Scotland
Italy
Orkney Island, Scotland, UK: Frankenstein's retreat to work on his promised creation
Chamonix: in the alps by Mount Blanc

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First Sentence edit see section history

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

Table of Contents edit see section history

VOLUME ONE
Letters 1-4
Chapters 1-8

VOLUME TWO
Chapters 1-9

VOLUME THREE
Chapters 1-7

Glossary edit see section history

Acme: The fullest extent, or absolute peak
Aerial: Existing in or resembling the air - lofty and insubstantial
Aiguille: Sharply pointed mountain pinnacle
Apoplexy: Archaic term for the kind of cerebral hemorrhage now commonly called a 'stroke'
Asseveration: Formal declaration of a statement's truth
Assizes: An English system replicated in Ireland, by which periodic criminal courts were held once a year in each country for trial for the most serious crimes
Augury: A prediction or interpretation of events, from the Roman 'augur': a priestly official tasked with interpreting divine will from earthly omens
Cabriole or Cabriolet: A light horse-drawn carriage capable of seating two (including the driver), popular for short urban trips - source of the familiar abbreviation 'cab'
Chaise: Horse-drawn carriage popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries for rapid long distance transport for several passengers
Charnel House: A churchyard vault for storing the skeletal remains exhumed from graves to make way for new burials
Chimerical: Unreal, illusory - from the mythical beast comprised of a lion, a goat, and a serpent
Contemn: To view or treat with contempt
Contumely: An arrogant and scornful manner
Dilatoriness: Quality of being prone to lateness or procrastination
Diligence: A stagecoach capable of carrying a dozen people long distances, consisting of several linked compartments
Disquisition: An elaborate and formal explanation through analysis
Encomiums: Latin term for the formal expression of praise for a victor
Ennui: French term for the introductory portion of an oration, laying out the goals of a formal argument
Expostulate: To argue with the intention of dissuading someone from a course of action
Ground Sea: Nautical term for a heavy, swelling ocean, causing turbulence on and off shore
Haram: A sacred or forbidden area in Islamic society - here possibly substituting for 'harem', the quarters of an Arabic household reserved exclusively for its female members
Incommode: To disturb, or inconvenience
Lassitude: A sense of aimless exhaustion, or indifference
Mahometan or Mohammedan: An archaic term for Muslim
Manes: In ancient Roman mythology 'Manes' were the souls of deceased loved ones, always present to judge or guide the actions of the living, who were bound to honor them with sacrifice
Mien: A person's bearing, revealing inner character
Natural Philosophy: Name given to the general study of the world's mechanics, preceding specialized scientific diciplines such as 'Physics', 'Biology', etc.
Nicer: 'Nice' used in its lesser-used sense, meaning capable of subtle or sensitive discernment
Panegyric: Praise in the form of elaborate and public eulogy
Pertinacity: Persistence
Portmanteau: Form of travelling case that was popular in the 18th century
Precipitate: To throw downwards from a great height
Prognosticate: To predict or foreshadow future events
Salubrious: Wholesome, beneficial to one's health
Sanguinary: Accompanied by, or eager for, bloodshed
Siroc: The ;sirocco' is a hot and dusty wind which, originating in the Sahara, blows at hurricane speeds across North Africa and Southern Europe
Solemnization: To render official with a formal ceremony
Syndic: Term used in some European countries for a local government representative with varying degrees of administrative power
Tartary: An outdated term for a large portion of eastern Europe and northern Asia which, at one time, was united under the rule of Genghis Khan
Timorous: Apprehensive, timid
Vacillating: To waver indecisively between two points
Variegated: Diversely colorful
Viands: Vital provisions

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Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

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Dangerous Knowledge: Frankenstein was written at the height of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, a time when new technologies were emerging, with no regulation on industry. The Romantic movement to which Shelley belonged emerged as a response to the changes the revolution caused in all aspects of society. One of the core beliefs of the Romantics was that the improper use of technology would create more problems than it solved
Sublime Nature: Describe this theme.
Science and Technology
Light and Fire
Abandonment
The Search for the Meaning of Life
Love
Family
Persecution: The creation is persecuted based on his looks.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)

This is book 108 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)

This is book 113 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)

This is book 125 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)

This is book 126 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)

This is book 3 of 10 in Classics Illustrated Deluxe. (publisher series)

This book is in Modern Library Classics. (publisher edition list)

This is book 12 of 19 in Livro B. (publisher edition list)

This is book 20 of 99 in National Public Radio's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy. (authoritative list)

This book is in Heritage Press. (publisher edition list)

This is book 1 of 24 in io9 Science Fiction 101. (community list)

This is book 931 of 1286 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)

This is book 8 of 199 in Newman and Jones 200 Best Horror Novels. (community list)

This is book 92 of 91 in The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, 2004. (authoritative list)

This is book 68 of 113 in Book Smart Reading List. (community list)

This is book 56 of 93 in Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List. (authoritative list)

This book is in 100 Fantabulous Book Challenge. (community list)

This book is in Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition Book Covers. (community list)

This book is in Penguin's Top 100 Classics. (authoritative list)

This is book 171 of 200 in BBC 'Big Read' Top 200 Novels, 2003. (authoritative list)

This is book 56 of 95 in The Art of Manliness' Essential Man’s Library. (authoritative list)

This book is in Folio Society. (publisher edition list)

This is book 14 of 101 in Penguin English Library. (publisher series)

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Authors & Contributors edit see section history

Mary Shelley (Author)

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First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: January 1, 1818
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 280