Victor took a holiday in the mountains to try and ease his grief for his brother. While he is alone one day, crossing a glacier, the creature approaches him. The creature then tells Victor what has happened to him he describes running away from Igolstadt after he was assaulted by the towns’ people, and how he hid away in forests where he discovered fire. He discovers a small shed where he spends some time as he is sheltered from the rain; there is a small peep hole where he can look in to a family house this is where he learns to speak as there is a foreigner in the house who the family is teaching to speak their language.
The creature asks Victor to create another creature for him to be his companion. Victor agrees but later after he has started he destroys the second creature so the creature tells him he will be there on Victor’s wedding night.
On his return to Geneva Victor marries Elizabeth. He fears what the creature said to him and that he will kill him. To be careful he sends Elizabeth away to wait for him. While he waits for the creature, he hears Elizabeth scream and Victor realizes that the creature had been hinting at killing his new wife. Victor returns home and his father dies of sorrow shortly after. Victor says that he will devote the rest of his life to finding the creature and getting his revenge.
Victor tracks the creature northwards and it becomes icy. Victor almost catches up with the creature, but the ice breaks and Victor cannot reach the creature.
Victor dies shortly after he finishes telling his story. Walton then tells the remainder of the story in letters written to his sister. When Walton returns, several days later, to the room in which the body lies he is shocked to see the creature weeping over Victor. The creature tells Walton about his suffering. He then says that now his creator has died he can end his own torment. The creature then walks off for the northernmost ice to die.
In chapter 5 Shelly describes how the monster comes to life and how Frankenstein has a nervous breakdown. He had spent two years working on the creature and it turned out to be an abomination in his eyes. Shelly tries to terrify the reader by using some very strong emotive words “with an anxiety that almost lead to agony”, she makes the creature look as grotesque as possible “His yellow skin barely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” she also writes “his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same as the dun white sockets.” Victor never refers to the creature as a human; he refers to it as a “wretch”, “monster”, “creature” and “demonical corpse”, this helps to show how Victor rejects the creature as soon as he has brought it to life just because of the way it looks, this is how the creature is treated by society through out the rest of the novel, he is seen as a monster and is rejected by society. These make the creature seem repulsive and grotesque, the thoughts of this creature would have terrified readers when it was first published but I do not think that it has the same effect on readers today. Far worse things are viewed in many places for example on the internet, television or in newspapers although something which had an appearance like the creature would probably still be rejected by society today and would still be considered horrifying.
She tries to create an eerie and depressing atmosphere it seems to be a generally dark setting so what Frankenstein’s doing seems more horrifying “it was a dreary night in November” and “it was already one in the morning the rain pattered dismally against the panes” this seems to reflect victors mood and it also makes the reader think of an awful bleak night which brings the reader in to the story, this make it more real for the reader. The description of light within the room creates an eerie atmosphere “There is a glimmer of half extinguished light” this image of darkness helps to create the eerie atmosphere. The overall mood and atmosphere of the chapter is bleak and depressing, Phrases like “Morning, dismal and wet” and “black and comfortless sky” give it a dark feeling.
Although, there is a contrast in the atmosphere when Victor meets up with his friend Clerval, Shelly describes him feeling “calm and serene joy” he seems to become happy and forgets about his trouble with the monster, this is important because it shows Victor that friendship is more important then his work. He didn’t see this before and became obsessed and self absorbed with creating the monster, he hardly communicated with his friends or his family the whole time that he was creating the monster. Shelly is demonstrating how important friendship is, this is also relevant today.
Another thing that can terrify the reader is that both Victor and the creature can be seen as godlike, Victor created life, which is seen as a godly act and the creature seems to be very exceptionally strong and powerful, this could be seen as terrifying especially for people in the 18th centaury as people in that time were a lot more religious then people are today. Victor is playing at being god and science could be seen as having gone to far this is a major theme of the book.
The phrase “convulsive motion agitated its limbs” is when the monster first moves and gives the passage a sense of tension as the reader does not know what the monster is going to do next. Victor’s reaction on creating the monster is to run out of the room as he cannot face up to what he has done. He tries to sleep but “is unable to compose his mind” showing that he is uneasy. He has a nightmare which also shocks the reader by using language connected with death such as “corpse”, “grave-worms” and “shroud”. As he wakes up Mary Shelley describes Victor with similar words to the creature “every limb became convulsed”. This hints that maybe the creature is not the monster and Victor is. He only considers his own feelings, never the monsters. From then on he is prejudiced against the monster and calls it his enemy. He fears facing it “I did not dare return to the apartment”.
Mary Shelly never goes in to detail about how the creature is brought back to life although she does refer obliquely to the use of electricity she wrote “I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing”.
I think the book has been so popular for nearly 190 years because it covers many issues such as the morality of brining people back to life this is the main idea behind the novel; the idea of creating and bringing people back to life is a very interesting topic which I think attracts readers to the book. I also think that audiences in 1818 will have reacted a lot differently to the book than people today. This is because the monster was made to look grotesque which would have shocked people as they would not be used to seeing repulsive things such as the creature. The creature is an outcast I think this would be true for today as well as in 1818, as people can be very cruel to a person that’s thought to be abnormal, so even if the creature was brought back to life today I think it would still be treated very similarly by its creator and the public, another reason I think the book is not is as not as terrifying for readers today because of religion, when the book was written the majority of people were a lot more religious then people are today so they would be horrified that Victor took God’s role in creating the monster. The creature is seen as evil by Victor Frankenstein, although I don’t think the creature is actually good or evil when it is first created. Society teaches the creature to hate, because he is misunderstood he is also attacked and mistreated and the creature becomes evil.
Victor and the creature seem to be very alike as they both have a thirst for knowledge, for example the creature learns from the family by constantly watching them and Frankenstein becomes obsessed with brining a dead body back to life. They both seem to have an obsession to fulfill what they want to do, for example Victor creating the creature and the creature trying to destroy everyone that Victor loves. They both seem to destroy their own lives by fulfilling these obsessions. There are some religious comparisons in Frankenstein where Victor can be seen as God, creating life and the creature can be seen as the devil (Lucifer), this is confirmed when the creature states that “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel,” this refers to “paradise lost” where Lucifer rebels against god and is cast down into hell, this image of god and Adam is an important motif through out the book. The full title of the novel is Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, Shelly is telling us that there is a comparison between Victor and Prometheus (who created man from clay with fire, and was punished by Gods for daring to create life).
I think the main message of the book is that you should not try to act as a God and create life, as it will lead to disaster as it did for Frankenstein. Personally I feel sorry for the creature that was treated so badly by society as it could have led a reasonable life if it only was taught to love instead of to hate by its creator and society. Another message in the book is about the dangers of obsession as Frankenstein wants to eliminate disease but he becomes so obsessed in doing so he creates a monster and it ruins his life and every one he loves lives as well. I think that Frankenstein was more evil then the actual creature was as he created life which is morally wrong, he can also be considered evil because he does not take responsibility for the creature, I think the creature is the victim of the story as he has many human qualities such as he experiences sorrowfulness and has the ability to learn. He only wants to be accepted this never happens which helps teach the creature to hate society. Frankenstein is responsible for the deaths of his friends and family because let his scientific curiosity take over his common sense, he created the creature and did not take responsibility for it. It is also relevant to today because of the advances in science such as cloning, where scientists are able to replicate life, it emphasizes the need for scientists to be careful and also act responsibly.
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