I.

Frankenstein
II. Frankenstein is a novel written by the English Author Mary Shelley
(1797-1851) that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist
who creates a hideous sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific
experiment. Shelley started writing the novel when she was 18, and the
first edition was published anonymously in London, January 1, 1818
when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition in the
year 1823.
III. Praises about the book
 Frankenstein mainly shows how people tend to run away from
mistakes that they have done without seeing the possible
consequences that may happen due to their actions.
 It is a wonderful novel, written in a finely honed nineteenth
century style.
 It is a very great novel that shows that running from your
mistakes will only result into more chaos.
IV. Setting
The story of Frankenstein mainly begins in the country of
Switzerland, the country where Mary Shelley was staying when
she began to writing. However the story ranges widely in Europe
and across the globe.
V. Characters
Victor Frankenstein-He is the main character, a man driven by
ambition and scientific curiosity. His quest for absolute
knowledge and power will eventually end in his own ruin.
Elizabeth Lavenza-Victor's bride. Elizabeth is presented as being
angelically good and incomparably beauty: she represents ideal
womanhood and its promises of love and comfort.
Caroline-Victor's mother; a paradigm of motherly concern and
generosity. Her death provides the catalyst for Victor's desire to
transcend death. It is her last wish that Victor and Elizabeth be
married.
Alphonse-Victor's father; yet another shining example of kindness
and selflessness. His happiness depends on the happiness of his
children. If they fail, he does as well; thus, their deaths prefigure
his own.
William-The youngest son of the Frankenstein family. His death at
the hands of the monster renders him a symbol of lost and
violated innocence.
Henry Clerval-Victor's best friend since childhood. Fascinated
with the history of mankind, he is Victor's intellectual opposite.
He, too, will be murdered by the monster; he is perhaps a symbol
of the destruction of Victor's own goodness and potential.
Justine-Though a servant in the Frankenstein household, she is
more like a sister to Victor and Elizabeth. She is executed for
William's murder, and thus becomes yet another martyr to lost
virtue and innocence.
 The Creature / The Monster-The work of Frankenstein's hands,
the creature is his double, his persecutor, and his victim. The lives
of him and his creator are inextricably entwined.
Robert Walton-The reader's representative in the novel, he is the
person to whom Victor relates his story. He has much in common
with Victor: ambition, drive, and the desire for glory.
VI. Point of View
The story Frankenstein is narrated in the frst person point view
by different characters at different points in the novel.
VII. Summary

An English explorer, Robert Walton, is attempting an expedition to the

North Pole. While on this expedition, Walton corresponds by letter to his
sister. Walton and his crew find a very weary man traveling by dogsled in
the midst of the ice floes. The man is about to die, and they decide to take
him on board. Robert Walton starts talking to him once the enigmatic
traveler has recovered somewhat from his weakness. The two strike a
relationship. The guy is lonely, and he's not going to talk about why he's
traveling through the Arctic alone for a long time. He decides to tell him his
long-hidden story after becoming more relaxed with Walton.

The speaker is Victor Frankenstein, whose name is given to the novel.

He's going to be the protagonist for the novel's bulk. Victor was born into a
prosperous Swiss family and lived a quiet, idyllic childhood. His parents
were kind, wonderful people; they are portrayed as sparkling symbols of
the human spirit's goodness. His father, Alphonse, fell in love with his wife,
Caroline, with the death of her father, his dear friend. Alphonse took his
care of the young orphan and they fell in love with the passing of time. He
provides great style for his wife. Caroline is profoundly altruistic, out of
respect for her own good fortune. She also visits the poor who live in the
Italian countryside in her region. One day, she chances on a family home
that has a beautiful daughter of foster. Her name is Mary Lavenza. While
sweet, the poverty of the foster parents of Elizabeth makes it a financial
burden to look after her. Caroline falls in love with the beautiful girl in sight
and takes her into the family of Frankenstein. She is close to Victor's age
and becomes the centerpiece of his childhood. Elizabeth is the most
respected friend of Victor. As cousins, as brothers and sisters, and in the
future as husbands and wives, their parents encourage the children to be
near in every possible manner.

Victor's childhood years have passed with astounding speed. Two more
sons, William and Ernest, were born into the family. At this time, the elder
decided to stop their constant journey: the family finally settled in Geneva.
Although Victor is a lonely man, he has a dear friend: Henry Clerval, from
whom he is inseparable. The two have completely different ambitions:
Victor has developed a passion for science, while Henry longs to study the
history of human struggle and effort. Eventually, the parents of Victor
decide that it is time for him to begin his university studies in Ingolstadt.
The mother of Victor passes away before his departure. She informs Victor
and Elizabeth on her deathbed that the two of them are committed to her
greatest wish. Victor leaves for college, still mourning for his mother and
disturbed by the separation from his loved ones.

While life goes on in Geneva. Elizabeth always learns to be polite

because Caroline was so kind. She extends housing and love to a young girl
named Justine, whose mother dislikes her and wants to get rid of her when
she is old enough to know her mind. While Justine is a servant in the
Frankenstein household, she is treated as a sister by Elizabeth, Ernest and
William.

Victor's enthusiasm for science is growing exponentially at Ingolstadt.

He falls into the hands of Waldeman, a professor of chemistry, who inspires
passion and the desire for success and distinction in the field of natural
philosophy in him. So starts the mania that results in the ruin of the soul of
Victor. Victor remains in his laboratory day and night. He develops a
consuming interest in the principle of life. This curiosity grows into an
irrational obsession, and Victor is committed to creating a human from the
parts of the dead. He is visiting cemeteries and houses of charneling. He
doesn't tell anyone about this job, and years go by without his home visit.
Eventually, his work is finished: one night, the creature's yellow eyes are
finally open to Victor's gaze.

Henry joins Victor at school, and both of them are beginning to study
languages and poetry. Victor has no intention to ever return to the
philosophy of nature that once governed his life. Whenever he thinks about
the monster he made, he feels ill. Victor and Clerval spend together
learning and playing every possible moment; two years have passed.

Then, Elizabeth's letter arrives with tragic news. The younger brother of
Victor, Henry, was killed in the countryside near the estate of Frankenstein.
During his way back to Geneva, an unnamable terror grips Victor. After
arrival at his village, in the midst of a lightning storm, he staggers through
the countryside, devastated with sorrow at his brother's loss. Immediately
he sees a figure, far too enormous to be a man's body, illuminated in a flash
of lightning: he recognizes it immediately as his grotesque creation. He
knows at that moment that the creature is the murderer of his brother.

While talking to his father the next morning, Victor discovers that
Justine was charged with the murder of William. At the time of his death,
William was carrying an antique locket; the morning after the murder, this
bauble was discovered in Justine's coat. Victor realizes that she's been
framed, but he can't get himself to say so: his tale will be rejected as a
madman's rant. The family does not believe Justine is guilty. In particular,
Elizabeth is heartbroken at her cherished friend's wrongful imprisonment.
Even though at her trial Elizabeth speaks eloquently of the goodness of
Justine, she is found guilty and condemned to death. Justine graciously
embraces her destiny. The Frankenstein family remains in a state of
stupefied grief after the double tragedy.

While on a lonely hike in the mountains, Victor comes face-to-face with

the creature, who goes on to tell what has become of him since he fled the
laboratory of Victor. The beast hunted for refuge in an abandoned hovel
after roaming great distances and enduring extreme cold and hunger. His
refuge was attached to the cottage of an impoverished French family: the
creature learned language by studying them, as well as extensive
knowledge of mankind's ways. The reading of three books recovered from
a satchel in the snow helped him greatly in this: Milton's Paradise Lost,
Goethe's Werter Sorrows, and a volume of Plutarch's Lives. Because of his
minimal but impressive education, the creature talks with great eloquence
and cultivation.

He developed a deep love for the French noble family and finally made a
friendship overture. Having learned already that his hideous appearance
inspires fear and disgust, he first spoke to the elderly patriarch of the
family: the blindness of this honorable old gentleman made him capable of
recognizing the sincerity and refinement of the monster. But the other
family members returned suddenly, smashing the creature with stones
from the house.

The beast was full of sorrow, and his maker and his own hideousness
were cursed. Therefore, he wanted to revenge himself on Frankenstein,
whose location he had learned from the notebooks of the laboratory. The
creature met William upon his arrival in Geneva, whose untouched boyish
beauty greatly attracted him. In the hopes that the innocent innocence of
the boy would allow him to forgive the monster for his ugliness, the
monster, looking for companionship, begged William to come along.
Instead, William fought and called the creature a number of cruel names;
he strangled him in a vengeful rage when he learned that the boy was
related to Victor. He took it, attracted to the locket's charm, and fled to a
nearby barn.

There, after searching for William all day and all night, he found Justine,
who had fallen into exhausted sleep. Her angelic loveliness rented the heart
of the monster, and he found himself full of longing for her. Then, the
agonizing fear he'd never know love seized him. He tucked the locket into
Justine's dress folds in an attempt to seek vengeance on all womankind
that was hiding.

The monster ends his tale by condemning Victor for his abandonment;
he calls on Victor to create for him a female mate, so that he may no longer
be so completely alone. When Victor fulfills this reasonable request, he
agrees to permanently abandon human society. Although he has a brief
crisis of conscience, to save his remaining loved ones, Victor agrees with
the mission.
 He travels with Clerval to England to learn new research methods to
support him in his hated mission. He retreats to a dark corner of Scotland
once he has acquired the necessary data, promising to return to Henry
when the job is done. When he is unexpectedly seized by terror, Victor is
almost halfway through the work of creation. Apprehensive that more
monsters will be spawned by the beast and his mate, and thus destroy
humanity, he tears the new woman to pieces before the very eyes of the
alien. The creature sends out a cry of pain. He leaves Victor with one
cryptic promise: that on his wedding night he will be with him.

Victor takes a small rowboat out into the middle of a large Scottish lake,
tossing overboard the tattered remains of the new woman. He sinks into an
exhausted state, floating on the open water for a whole day. He is then
arrested and charged with murder when he eventually washes ashore. A
distraught Victor is led into a dingy little room and shows his beloved
Henry's corpse, murdered at the hands of the beast. This leads to a
delirium fever that lasts for months. His father comes home to accompany
him, and Victor is ultimately cleared of all charges.

The family starts planning Elizabeth and Victor's marriage at home in

Geneva. Elizabeth is strangled to death in the conjugal bed on their
wedding night. Victor's father takes him to his bed when he hears the news,
where he dies of grief promptly.

Victor is determined to spend the rest of his life chasing the creature
despite having lost all he has ever known. This is exactly what the monster
wants: Frankenstein is going to be as unhappy and lonely as he is now. The
creator has been pursuing his creation for some time; he had chased him to
the Arctic Circle when he was rescued by Walton. Though he advises the
sea captain against unnecessary ambition and curiosity, he contradictory
encourages the sailors to continue their doomed voyage, even though it
will mean certain death. His reason: for glory and wisdom of man.
Eventually, he can't fight his disease anymore, and he dies peacefully in his
sleep. The character emerges at the moment of his death: he mourns
everything he has done, but insists that, given the magnitude of his pain, he
could not have done otherwise. He then flees, vowing to create a funeral
pyre for himself and throw on the flames his hated form.

VIII. Moral Lesson

The Moral in the stor is that you should always be responsible for
your own actions and never run away from your mistakes no
matter how terrible it is. You should always thnk of the
consequences of something before trying to execute the action.
Death is something that should not be cheated, because part of
every journey is the end meaning that somehow death is part of
life and if you don’t die you have never lived at all.