Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) Standard-print passages are quotations from Shelley s text; Bracketed italics is plot summary edited and adapted from www.sparknotes.com [Frankenstein is an epistolary novel, told as a series of letters. Robert Walton, captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, writes them to his sister back in London. Walton s ship gets stuck in Arctic ice, and Walton sees a man chasing a giant across the ice. The man, Victor Frankenstein, collapses and is rescued, and he tells Walton his strange story. [Victor says that he had an ideal childhood in Switzerland with his friend Clerval and adopted sister Elizabeth; his father was loving but intellectually distant. As a young man Victor entered the University of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy what we today call science. He was obsessed with finding the secret of life, and spent months building a man out of human body parts he d stolen from graveyards. Then, one night, it happened:] It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room. I threw myself on my bed in my clothes.i was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs.
[Victor wandered all night until, then collapsed from guilt and horror. He got a letter from his father saying that his youngest brother, William, was murdered, and hurried home to find that a servant girl was accused and executed for the crime, despite her innocence. Victor was overcome with guilt: he violated Nature by creating the creature, and it killed two innocent people which means, of course, that Victor was responsible. But still he told no one about the creature. Hoping to find peace, Victor went hiking in the Alps, and decided to cross a gigantic glacier.] The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and marked by deep rifts. I spent nearly two hours in crossing it.[then Victor sat down to admire the mountains and glacier:] Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.i perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach, and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt. "Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust!... "I expected this reception," said the demon. "All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends." "Abhorred monster! fiend that thou art! the tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! you reproach me with your creation; come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed." My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. He easily eluded me, and said: "Be calm! I entreat you to hear me, before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."
[The creature told how he first felt heat and cold, hunger and thirst, weariness and energy; how he first heard the lovely songs of birds but was frustrated because he could not make those sounds; and, especially, how he tried to interact with people, only to be attacked or fled from. One day he happened upon a peasant family, the DeLaceys. Hiding in a woodshed attached to the DeLacey shack, the creature saw the love family members showed for each other, and was moved by the words he heard them speak to each other. He learned to speak and think by listening to them read Milton and Shakespeare. He began to do secret good deeds for this poor family gathering food and leaving it at their door, for instance. Then one day, just as he was beginning to think of himself as human, he first saw his reflection in a pond.] I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. [One day the oldest DeLacey, kindly and blind, was alone, and the creature spoke with him. The old man welcomed him; but the other DeLaceys panicked when they arrived home, and drove the creature away. The creature finally realized the extent of his alienation from humankind.] I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?... No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? [So, the monster says, he turned to violence, murdering any who were close to Victor in order to force Victor to find and acknowledge him. Finally the creature decided that his only chance for happiness is for Victor to create for him a mate.] I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create.if you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again: I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself, and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food. [Victor refuses at first, but finally agrees, and heads for England to create a female monster. One night, struck by doubts about this plan, Victor glances out the window to see the monster glaring in at him with a frightening grin. Horrified by the possibility that he might create a super-race that would destroy humanity, Victor tears the female creature to shreds. The monster, enraged, vows revenge:] I will be with you on your wedding night!
[Later that night, Victor takes a boat out onto a lake and dumps the pieces of the female 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 spend his life finding the monster and exacting his revenge, and tracks the monster northward, where he speaks to villagers in a tiny frozen town:] A gigantic monster had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols, putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage through fear of his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land. [On a dogsled, Victor almost catches up with the monster, but 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 rest 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.] Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe; gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my approach he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome yet appalling hideousness. [The monster tells Walton that, even through his fury at Frankenstein, he loved and pitied him, and that he feels profound guilt at having made his life miserable. He says he will build a gigantic bonfire on the ice and climb into its flames to die, then leaps out of the window.]
Reading Guide: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 1. Frankenstein is an novel i.e., we read it as a series of. 2. Robert Walton is writing to his, who lives in. 3. Where is Walton trying to go, how is he trying to get there, and why isn t he moving? 4. Walton sees a man chasing a, and rescues the man, whose name turns out to be. 5. Victor says he grew up in with his friend named and his adopted sister named. 6. Victor s father was loving but. 7. Remember: Whom did Mary Shelley know that fit that description? 8. Victor went to the University of to study, and spent months building a man out of stolen from. 9. Victor finished his work in what month, and in what weather? 10. Describe in detail the equipment and process with which the creature was brought to life. FREEWRITE 50 WORDS (separate paper): By now you ve figured out that #10 was a trick question. Why do you think we are told NOTHING about the equipment and process for making a live man out of dead parts? Consider Victor s reasons for not telling us and consider Mary Shelley s reasons. 11. Victor says, How can I describe my at this, or how the whom with such infinite and I had endeavored to form?
12. Victor says of his creature, His limbs were in, and I had selected his features as.! Great! 13. What specifically are we told about the creature at the moment it comes to life: Skin color: Teeth: Eyes: Complexion: Lips: 14. NOW: Circle any of the above which describe what human babies often look like at the moment they are born. 15. Right after bringing the creature to life, Victor ran to and went to. 16. Freewrite 10 words: Anything odd about that to you? 17. Victor dreamed that he saw who doing what? 18. In his dream he did what to this person? 19. After he does that, what happens to this person in his dream? 20. Then, whom does this person turn into, and what does he see crawling around on this person? 21. Freewrite 10 words: In how many ways is that dream, er, icky? 22. What was standing there when Victor woke up, and what did its face and hands do? 23. What did Victor do next?
24. Victor got a letter telling that who has been murdered? 25. Before Victor can arrive home, who is accused, tried, and executed for the murder? 26. Victor knows who the murderer is. Why do you think he does not speak up? 27. Rather than deal with this, where does Victor go next? 28. In this place, Victor faces the creature, who is quite different from the Hollywood monster. Describe how the novel s version of Frankenstein s creature: Moves: Speaks: 29. Judging from the tone of voice each uses, which being is in control of the situation? 30. List four things Victor calls the creature that seek to deny the creature s humanity: 31. What does Victor keep saying he will do to the creature? 32. The Creature points out that this will be difficult why? 33. The Creature says that he will not be to set himself in to Victor; why? 34. The Creature says that he has become a fiend because: 35. The creature proposes that, if Victor will, then he will
36. The Creature says he was frustrated because he could not make beautiful. 37. The Creature says he tried to interact with people, but that what happened? 38. The Creature says he learned about human love by watching a family named. 39. Where did the Creature live during this time? 40. The Creature says he learned to speak and think by doing what? 41. What sorts of things did the Creature do to help this family? 42. What did the Creature see that horrified him, and where did he see it? 43. Why was the Creature finally able to speak casually with an old man? Why did that end? 44. Describing his difference from people, the Creature says: I was more than they, and could subsist upon ; I bore the extremities of and with less injury to my frame; my far exceeded theirs. 45. FREEWRITE 20 words: Are these bad things or are they great things? What, in other words, does The Creature feel inferior about? What is Mary Shelley s point? 46. The Creature says, When I looked around, I saw and heard of like... no had blessed me with and. I had never yet seen a me.
47. The Creature says he turned to violence why? 48. The Creature demands that Victor create a, saying, one as and as myself would not to me. My must be of the same, and have the same. 49. The Creature says that he and this thing will live in and eat. 50. Victor at first agrees, but changes his mind because he is afraid that what will happen? 51. After he changes his mind, what does Victor do to the thing? 52. The Creature promises Victor, I will be with you on your. 53. That night, Victor does what on a boat in a lake? 54. Victor is arrested for whose murder? 55. Who actually has done the murder? 56. Victor returns home to marry. 57. Remember: how are they already acquainted? 58. Who kills Elizabeth? 59. Vowing revenge, Victor tracks the Creature north, and hears that he is armed with what? 60. Frankenstein dies on Walton s ship; the Creature enters. Walton describes the Creature s appearance at the end: in stature, yet uncouth and in its proportions his face was concealed by long locks of hair; but one hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a... Never did I behold a vision so. 61. What emotions does the Creature express at the end? 62. How does the Creature say that he will die?