Whenever humans saw him, they either ran away or attacked the monster. This upset him, because he did not wish to harm them. Eventually, he found a small ‘hovel’ (small hut) on a farm. It was here he stayed for a long time. He learnt the names of the people who lived on the farm, and also their history, that they were sent out of France by the government because they were planning to free someone from prison. The monster slowly picked up their language of these people and also how to read from old books they threw out. He helped the family by cutting wood for them at night in the winter at night, and generally became quite attracted to the family. After a year and a bit, the monster decided he would confront the family.
This went well at first because firstly he met the old man. This was an advantage to the monster because the old man was blind and couldn’t judge him by his looks. However, when the rest of the family came home they were horrified by the monsters appearance and attacked him. The monster was very upset by this and ran out of the house.
He ran out into the forest, and returned the following morning to discover the family rushing to leave the place from the monster. He was so angered by this that he trashed the farm, destroying everything and burning it all. The monster then set his sights on returning to Geneva. He spent about half a year travelling but eventually got there.
When he got there he discovered Frankenstein’s younger brother, William. The monster grabbed the boy, and he started shouting so he tried to silence him by choking him and ended up killing him. The monster found a pendant round the boy’s neck, and out it round a girl who was sleeping nearby, and then ran. It is here the monster concludes his story.
He then presents Frankenstein with a proposal. He demands that Frankenstein creates another monster for him to be with, of the opposite sex. Eventually, Frankenstein agrees to do it.
Frankenstein puts this off for a long time, but when him and his friend Clerval go to England on a holiday, he sees his opportunity. He goes to a remote island off the coast of Scotland, and begins to start his work.
Frankenstein puts more detail into this creation than he did with the last one because at the time he was so excited about his discovery he was rushing it. Eventually, when he has nearly finished, he sees the monster up against the window of his hut. It is here he does something he will regret for the rest of his life.
Frankenstein gets so angry at the monster that he rips up the body of the monster he is making rite in front of the original one, to his great dismay. The monster then says to Frankenstein ‘I shall be with you on your wedding night’, and then leaves. Frankenstein is haunted by this thought, but nevertheless he puts all the body parts in a basket and drops them into the ocean. It is late, so he then falls asleep.
He wakes up to find himself miles from land and hungry. He thought that he was a goner, until he saw land in the distance. When he got there many people greeted him but it was not a warm welcome.
He has ended up in Ireland, and being charged with the murder of his friend Henry Clerval. On seeing the dead body of his friend, Frankenstein falls very ill. He stays in a prison cell for 6 months, and to his relief, is visited by his father. When Frankenstein gets better he is cleared from the murder and makes his way back to Geneva.
It is here he focuses on his marriage to Elizabeth, all the while worrying about what the monster said to him, ‘I will be with you on your wedding night’.
After the wedding ceremony, Frankenstein and Elizabeth sailed down a river together and into a lake, where they stayed the night. As the day turned to night, Frankenstein became increasingly worried. He sent Elizabeth to her room to be safe, but this proved a fatal mistake as moments later he hears screaming coming from her bedroom.
He enters to discover Elizabeth dead and the monster grinning through the open window. Frankenstein draws his pistol and fires but the monster easily eludes him and dives into the lake. Frankenstein then returns to Geneva with great haste.
He gets to Geneva and tells his father the news. He does not take it well, and a few days later he dies of grief. This throws Frankenstein into depression. After a month he tries to shake this and goes to a judge to ask him to use his authority to help track the monster down. The judge is not convinced though, and Frankenstein storms out of the court.
Frankenstein eventually finds himself at the graveyard where his family were buried. As he spoke to their graves, he heard an enormous laugh echo around the graveyard. He then heard the monster speak, and chased after him. This is what happens for many months ahead.
Frankenstein chases the monster hundreds of miles, along the river Rhone, over the black sea and into Russia. If the monster thought he was getting too far away from Frankenstein, he would leave notes for him to know which direction to go in, to egg him on. Frankenstein comes near to death many times, but his will for vengeance keeps him going.
The monster leaves him a note one day saying he is heading for the Arctic. Frankenstein goes on an everlasting search to find him, no matter where it takes him. When he gets there he hires a sled and dogs to aid him in his search. These speeds up his search a lot.
On his way, he encounters a small cottage with people in, saying a huge monster had stolen their food and sledge and had taken off onto a frozen sea, which lead to no land. Frankenstein despairs, but continues.
He had travelled 3 weeks with no sign of the monster, until one day after getting over a large ice mountain, he sees the tiniest speck on the horizon, which he made out to be a monster on his sled. This boosted Frankenstein’s morale and after two more days he made out to be only a mile away from the monster. As he thought he was getting close, he feels an earthquake underneath him and the ice shatters, leaving him and his dogs stranded.
He remained like this for hours, and many of his dogs were dying. Just as he was nearly dead himself, he noticed Walton’s ship, and broke bits off his sled to make oars and paddle his bit of ice towards it. It was there he was taken aboard. He says he regrets this decision because it turns out the ship is going the opposite direction in the way he wanted. He ends his epic tale by telling Walton that if he dies then he must avenge his death by killing the monster for him.
Now it goes back to Walton writing to his sister. Walton tells of how Frankenstein has been behaving and how intelligent he seems, and how he must have been a nice person to know at the peak of his life. Everything seems normal until his next letter a week later.
It says that the ship has got stuck in ice and that he doubts he will every return to England alive, and his sister will never know of his death.
In the next letter things get a whole lot worse. The ship is still stuck in ice, and Walton fears a mutiny from his crew. They resolved that if they get out of the ice, then they would return home, although Walton wasn’t really happy about it. Even worse, Frankenstein’s health had changed for the worse. He is confined to bed and not able to move very much.
The next letter says that the ice has broken and they are returning home south. Frankenstein, however, says that he wants to get out and continue his journey north. He tried to get up, but just collapsed again onto his bed. The medic is called in and says Frankenstein does not have much longer to live. In his last words Frankenstein tells Walton to kill the monster if ever he encounters it. Walton walks out of the room, only to hear a hoarse voice come from it as he leaves. He goes back in to find the monster standing in front of him.
The monster then goes on to explain about how he felt after murdering Clerval, and how remorseful he felt, but then he noticed that Frankenstein was attempting to be happy, which the monster could never be and was filled with jealousy, and killed Elizabeth. He says doing that turned him evil. But, he says he will not kill anymore, because the death of Frankenstein ends his long quest, and that there is no-one else he is willing to harm. He then jumps out of the window and the story ends.
Discussion of Themes
It is clear from this story that Frankenstein is playing God, by trying to create new life from material. He does not realise the consequences of this until it is too late. When he is first creating life he is very excited about it, continuing despite being ill, but by the end of the story he reacts very violently to Walton when he asks him about how he gave life to the monster, saying ‘Are you mad my friend?’ and ‘learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own’. The overall moral of this story is that you should think about the consequences before you do something, because it may come back to get you.
Frankenstein is very ambitious when it comes to creating new life, so much so that he gets obsessed with this and does not think about the repercussions, because he so into what he is doing. Frankenstein is not the only person who is obsessed. Walton also seems obsessed with reaching the North Pole, because even when he is stuck in the ice he wants to keep going north, and in the end it is the crew that threaten a mutiny if he does not accept their offer. In either of these cases, obsession is not good because it compromises other things like the lives of the crew or what the monster may do, but because these people are obsessed then they are focused to only one goal, and not realising the things that may happen from what they are doing.
All the time Frankenstein takes responsibility for what the monster has done, but it is not until it is too late that he actually tries to take action. He always blames himself for what has happened, but he also forgets about it soon after and goes on to do other things, ignoring what has happened in the past and getting on with other things. It is not until near the end where Frankenstein is in the graveyard that he actually takes action by chasing the monster, but by then it is too late because all the people closest to him are dead. The message is that you should take responsibility for your actions before it is too late.
All three main characters in this story are all outsiders, all for separate reasons. The main one being the monster, because he has been cast out by society because of the way he looks and he does not fit in with the world. Frankenstein is some way like when he was in Ireland, and he was cast out because people thought he was a murderer. Walton is in some respects because of the way he went to the North Pole with no-one he knew, and he is not very friendly with his crew. The consequences for the monster were that he was treated very cruelly by the people he encountered and then went on not to trust humans. Frankenstein’s consequences were that he never told anyone about the monster he made so that he had to try and stop it on his own. Walton’s consequences were that he was almost killed because he tried to go to the North Pole on his own, with only a couple of people who he barely knew as company.
Prejudice, judging and discrimination all play a part in this story. Throughout the story the monster is attacked or ran away from, because he looks different. People do this because he looks hideous, but if they got to know him they would know he has a kind heart and does not wish anyone harm, but these people have given him a label that he does not deserve. The only person not who have judged him was the old man who lived on the farm, and that is because he is blind. That is how sad it is that the monster can only be friends with people who cannot see him. This side of story gives the message that someone may look bad on the outside, but that does not necessarily mean that they are bad on the inside.
Upbringing and parenthood are also a major role in the story. Frankenstein says that he had a very happy life when he was a child, and although he doesn’t say this it appears he was rather spoilt. The monster, however, was the extreme opposite of this. He came into the world with no understandings around him, and having to learn everything around him that’s usually taught to the child by its parents, but in the monsters case he had none. This is the first reason why the monster feels angry towards Frankenstein. This shows what difference a good upbringing and a bad upbringing can lead to.
A main part of the monster’s life is acting upon revenge towards Frankenstein. The monster’s first act of revenge was to kill Frankenstein’s younger brother, William. Then all he wanted was for Frankenstein to make him a new monster for him to be with, then he would not bare grudges against him. Frankenstein. However, has other plans, and near the end decides to destroy the body of the second monster. So in a way, Frankenstein ultimately brings on the deaths of Clerval, Elizabeth and his father onto himself. He could have just built the second monster and let them get on with their lives, but decides not to do it, despite knowing what the monster is capable of doing. The monster killing people may make him appear ‘evil’, but he is only doing what he thinks is equal to the pain given to him by Frankenstein. The message of this is that if you know something bad is going to happen from the consequences of what you do then don’t do it.
Conclusion
This story has many morals in it, from the not playing God to being a good parent, but overall displays its points well and gets the message through well. Although I found it to be a bit boring, it shows many good points about life and what to do and what not to do in it.
