Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Gothic Tale of Science, Ambition, and Responsibility
The Frame Story
The novel begins with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister from the Arctic. His ship becomes trapped in ice, and the crew spots a figure pursuing another across the frozen wasteland on dog sleds. They rescue the pursuer—Victor Frankenstein—who is near death from exhaustion and exposure. As Frankenstein recovers, he tells Walton his extraordinary and tragic story, warning him about the dangers of unchecked ambition.
Victor’s Early Life
Victor Frankenstein grows up in Geneva in a loving, wealthy family. He’s deeply devoted to his adopted sister Elizabeth, who becomes his childhood companion and eventual fiancée. His best friend is Henry Clerval, a romantic poet type who contrasts with Victor’s scientific obsessions.
As a young man, Victor becomes fascinated with natural philosophy and chemistry. He’s particularly drawn to the ideas of alchemists like Cornelius Agrippa, though his university professors dismiss these as outdated nonsense. At the University of Ingolstadt, Victor throws himself into studying anatomy, chemistry, and the decay of corpses, becoming obsessed with understanding the secret of life itself.
The Creation
After years of secret research, Victor discovers the method for creating life from dead matter. Working alone in his laboratory, using body parts gathered from charnel houses and dissecting rooms, he assembles a creature of enormous size—about eight feet tall. Through his scientific process (which Shelley deliberately keeps vague), he animates this patchwork being.
But the moment his creature opens its yellow eyes and takes its first breath, Victor is horrified by what he’s done. Instead of the beautiful being he envisioned, he sees a hideous monster with watery eyes, black hair, and yellowed skin that barely conceals the muscles and arteries beneath. Terrified by his creation, Victor abandons the creature and flees his laboratory.
The Creature’s First Actions
Victor falls ill from the shock and is nursed back to health by Henry Clerval. When he finally returns to his laboratory, the creature is gone. Victor receives word that his youngest brother William has been murdered in Geneva. He returns home and glimpses his creature lurking near the scene of the crime, instantly knowing who the real killer is.
However, the family’s servant Justine is accused of the murder based on circumstantial evidence—William’s locket was found in her possession. Despite Victor’s knowledge of her innocence, he cannot reveal the truth without sounding insane. Justine is executed, leaving Victor consumed with guilt over two deaths caused by his creation.
The Creature’s Demand
Tormented by guilt, Victor retreats to the mountains. There, his creature confronts him and tells his story. After Victor abandoned him, the creature wandered alone, learning about the world through observation. He discovered books—including “Paradise Lost,” “Plutarch’s Lives,” and “The Sorrows of Young Werther”—which educated him about human nature, morality, and his own wretched condition.
The creature’s most painful lesson came from secretly observing the De Lacey family, cottagers who showed kindness to each other but rejected him with horror when he tried to approach them. This rejection turned the creature’s initial innocence into bitter hatred for his creator and all humanity.
The creature makes a demand: Victor must create a female companion for him. He argues that he’s miserable because he’s alone and that with a companion of his own kind, he’ll retreat from human society and harm no one. Victor initially refuses, but the creature threatens to make Victor’s life a misery and to destroy everyone he loves if his demand isn’t met.
Victor’s Dilemma
Reluctantly, Victor agrees and travels to England with Clerval to research his task. On a remote Scottish island, he begins creating a female creature. But as the work progresses, Victor becomes tormented by doubts. What if the two creatures hate each other? What if they produce a race of monsters? What if the female proves even more malicious than the male?
In a moment of horror and moral panic, Victor destroys the half-finished female creature. The monster, who has been watching, vows revenge: “I shall be with you on your wedding night.”
The Monster’s Revenge
The creature makes good on his threats. He murders Henry Clerval, framing Victor for the crime. Victor is imprisoned but eventually cleared. He returns to Geneva to marry Elizabeth, hoping that love and normalcy might restore his peace.
But on their wedding night, the creature fulfills his promise. While Victor patrols the house with a gun, expecting an attack on himself, the monster murders Elizabeth in their bedroom. Victor’s father, overcome with grief at Elizabeth’s death, dies shortly after.
Having lost everyone he loved, Victor dedicates his life to hunting down and destroying his creation. This pursuit leads him to the Arctic, where Walton’s ship rescues him.
The Ending
Victor dies aboard Walton’s ship, exhausted by his obsession with revenge. But the story isn’t over. The creature appears at Victor’s deathbed, mourning his creator. He tells Walton that with Victor dead, his own torment is complete. He intends to travel to the North Pole and destroy himself in a funeral pyre, ending his miserable existence.
The creature departs into the Arctic darkness, and Walton, warned by Victor’s story about the dangers of unchecked ambition, abandons his own dangerous quest to reach the North Pole and orders his ship to return home.
Major Themes
The Dangers of Unchecked Scientific Ambition: Victor’s desire to unlock life’s secrets leads to catastrophe. Shelley warns about pursuing knowledge without considering moral consequences.
Responsibility and Abandonment: Victor creates life but immediately abandons his “child.” The creature’s evil actions stem largely from Victor’s failure to nurture or guide him.
Nature vs. Nurture: The creature isn’t born evil—he becomes malicious through rejection and isolation. Shelley suggests that society’s treatment of outcasts can create monsters.
Isolation and Loneliness: Both Victor and his creature suffer from self-imposed isolation. Victor’s secretive obsessions cut him off from loved ones, while the creature’s appearance makes him an outcast.
The Sublime and Gothic Horror: The novel uses dramatic landscapes (mountains, arctic wastes) and supernatural elements to explore psychological terror and existential dread.
Playing God: Victor usurps the divine role of creating life, with disastrous consequences that suggest some boundaries shouldn’t be crossed.
Why It Matters
Frankenstein is considered the first science fiction novel, written when Mary Shelley was only 18. It emerged from scientific developments of her time—experiments with electricity and galvanism that suggested life might be artificially created.
The novel’s themes remain startlingly relevant in our age of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. Questions about scientific responsibility, the ethics of creation, and what we owe to our “creations” continue to resonate.
Shelley’s complex narrative structure—stories within stories—and her sympathetic portrayal of the “monster” challenged readers’ expectations. The creature is articulate, educated, and capable of both love and hatred, making him more tragic than simply evil.
The story has become a foundational myth of modern culture, influencing countless works and giving us the archetypal “mad scientist” figure and the cautionary tale of science gone wrong.
Originally published in 1818, “Frankenstein” remains one of the most adapted and referenced works in popular culture, its central questions about creation, responsibility, and what makes us human as relevant today as they were two centuries ago.