Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein
The scientist
A brilliant young Genevan who builds a living being from lifeless parts, then flees from what he has made and spends the rest of his life paying for it.
Victor Frankenstein grows up happy in Geneva, the eldest son of a respected family, with his foster sister Elizabeth and his friend Henry Clerval. Even as a boy he is drawn to the secret laws of nature, reading Cornelius Agrippa and Albertus Magnus. After a thunderstorm shatters an oak outside his window, he becomes fascinated with electricity and the power of life and death.
Victor is brilliant, ambitious and deeply emotional. He is also fragile under pressure, and he hides from problems instead of facing them. His drive to conquer death begins with his mother's death, and his guilt grows as his choices cost the people he loves. He tells his story to Captain Walton as a warning.
“No... Great God! What have I made?!”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
At Ingolstadt, Victor learns modern chemistry from Professor Waldman and spends two years in solitary study. On a dreary night in November he brings a giant being to life, is horrified by it, and runs away. Illness follows, then the news that his brother William has been murdered. Justine is hanged for the crime, and Victor stays silent.
He meets the Creature on the glacier and reluctantly agrees to build a companion, then destroys the half-finished work. The Creature kills Henry and later Elizabeth on her wedding night, and Victor's father dies of grief. Victor swears to hunt the creature to the ends of the earth. He is rescued in the Arctic by Walton and dies on the ship, advising him to avoid ambition.
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