Story summary
Frankenstein summary
A young scientist brings a being to life and then runs from it, and the lonely creature he abandons sets out to make him understand what that cost.
Frankenstein opens in the Arctic, where Captain Robert Walton is writing to his sister about his voyage toward the North Pole. His crew rescues a half-frozen stranger, Victor Frankenstein, who tells Walton his life story as a warning. Most of the book is Victor's account of his Geneva childhood, his years at the University of Ingolstadt, and the creature he made there.
It is a classic tale of ambition and responsibility, and it lets the Creature speak for himself, too. It will suit readers who like Gothic stories, moral dilemmas, and the question of what we owe to what we create.
Main characters
The plot
Spoilers from here on, including the ending.
Walton and the stranger on the ice
Walton's ship is icebound when his crew glimpses a gigantic figure on a dog sledge. The next morning they find a second sledge and a thin, frostbitten man. Victor is brought aboard and warmed, and when Walton says he would give anything for knowledge and glory, Victor weeps and resolves to tell his story.
Geneva and Ingolstadt
Victor grows up happily in Geneva with his parents, his foster sister Elizabeth and his friend Henry Clerval, fascinated by alchemists and by a storm that shatters an oak. His mother dies of scarlet fever, wishing for his marriage to Elizabeth, and Victor swears that science must conquer death. At Ingolstadt, Professor Waldman inspires him, and after two years of solitary study he brings a giant being to life on a dreary night in November. Horrified, he flees.
William, Justine and the glacier
Henry nurses Victor through a long illness. Then comes a letter with a black seal: William has been murdered. Victor sees the Creature on the cliffs of Mont Saleve during a storm, but he stays silent as Justine, found with William's locket, is tried and executed. In the Alps, the Creature finds him on the Mer de Glace and asks to be heard.
The Creature's tale
The Creature tells of waking alone, learning light and fire, being stoned by villagers, and secretly helping a cottage family, the De Laceys, while learning to speak. Blind old De Lacey welcomes him, but Felix drives him out. In despair he burns the cottage, is shot after rescuing a girl, and vows war on mankind. He meets William, kills him, and frames Justine. He demands that Victor make a female companion.
The second creature
Victor reluctantly agrees, and travels with Henry to England and Scotland, then goes alone to a desolate island in the Orkneys. Seeing the Creature watching at the window, he fears a race of devils and tears the half-made companion apart. The Creature swears to be with him on his wedding night.
Wedding night and pursuit
Victor is blown to Ireland, where he is shown Henry's strangled body and arrested. After months of fever, he is acquitted and goes home to marry Elizabeth. On their wedding night at Evian she is killed, and Victor's father dies of grief. Victor swears an oath at their graves to pursue the Creature to the end.
The end in the Arctic
The tale returns to Walton's ship. Victor advises Walton to seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, then dies. The Creature enters the cabin, weeps over his creator's body, and says he will build his own funeral pyre at the North Pole. He leaps onto an ice raft and is carried into the darkness.
Themes
- Responsibility for what we create
- Victor builds a living being and then leaves it alone. The Creature's anger grows from that abandonment, and the story asks who is truly to blame.
- Ambition and its cost
- Both Walton and Victor chase knowledge and glory. Victor's final advice to Walton is to avoid ambition, even the apparently innocent kind.
- Loneliness and belonging
- The Creature longs for a family and finds one only through a wall. The kindness of the blind De Lacey shows what he could have been, had anyone looked past his face.
- Appearances and prejudice
- Villagers, Felix and Victor all judge the Creature by his looks. Only the old man who cannot see him gives him a fair hearing.
Questions about Frankenstein
- How does Frankenstein end?
- Victor dies on Walton's ship after telling his story. The Creature weeps over his body, says he will burn himself on a funeral pyre at the North Pole, and disappears across the ice.
- Who is the monster in Frankenstein?
- The story invites the question. The Creature commits murders, but he is shown as lonely and intelligent, abandoned by his creator and attacked by those he meets.
- What is the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth?
- Elizabeth is brought home as a foster sister, and Victor's dying mother hopes they will marry. They do, but the Creature kills Elizabeth on the wedding night.
- Where and when is Frankenstein set?
- The story moves between the Arctic, Geneva and the University of Ingolstadt, then the Alps, England, Scotland, the Orkneys and Ireland. It is set in the late eighteenth century, when electricity and anatomy were new fields of study.
- Why does the Creature want a companion?
- After being rejected by everyone he meets, he demands that Victor build a female being to live with him, and promises they will leave Europe for the wilds of South America.