Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

*contains spoilers*


More can be understood about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when one considers the full title of the novel: Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus. Victor Frankenstein travels to the university of Ingolstadt in pursuit of knowledge, and he somehow stumbles upon the power to give life through his pioneering science – a power reserved only for the gods – and he shall be punished for it. Indeed, Shelley is attempting more than just the ghost story that she, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron resolved each to write as a sort of competition on a June night in Switzerland. Mary Shelley had, by the time of writing, lost three of the four children to which she gave birth, and this in no small way contributes to the sense of loss, melancholy and the ponderings on the nature of giving life within the novel.


Frankenstein’s monster is at first a creation of curiosity and innovation, though its creation soon becomes a deep regret for Frankenstein – not least because of its size and its coarse and revolting ugliness. This beast with the mind of a child is abandoned, and from here on, Victor Frankenstein selfishly reintegrates back into the realm of typical society after having locked himself away for so long in dedication to his pioneering science. This abandonment and display of selfishness on the part of Frankenstein can itself be seen to be monstrous in the eyes of the reader, and had it not have occurred, the thought remains throughout that the monster would not have been, well, such a monster. Furthermore, as Frankenstein relents and promises his monster a wife to keep him company, this project is aborted and the monster promises that “I shall be with you on your wedding night”. Frankenstein mistakes this for a threat on his own life, and is taken once more for the fool as his wife and childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth, is brutally murdered by the monster.


The monster shows itself, on many occasions, to be something peculiarly astute and eloquent – far outstripping Frankenstein of any quiet or calm consideration. As the monster seeks refuge in a wood, it learns to house, feed and speak for itself, and also learns love, compassion and devotion whilst observing from afar a family in their hut – and even familiarises itself with Milton’s Paradise Lost. It is Frankenstein’s disgust at the monster that qualifies the monster as such. As the monster is further shunned and abandoned, the impressive power and insight with which it dispatches its victims only further torments Victor, as Victor sinks into depressive reveries of guilt, shame and fear. An example of the skill with which the monster exacts revenge on Frankenstein can be seen with the elimination of the innocent Henry Clerval, whose only real fault can be that he is a beloved friend of Victor’s. The fact that all of the monster’s victims are innocent only reinforces the selfishness of Frankenstein in the eye of the reader, as he can barely fathom that his wilful lack of responsibility regarding his creation will lead only more of his innocent acquaintance to their tombs.


As the novel shifts between the initial epistolary narration of Robert Walton’s informative letters to his sister and the first person narration from the perspectives of both Frankenstein and his monster, the novel can itself be seen as a sort of monster stitched together from many constituent parts. But what a beautiful monster.

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