Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley
Publishing Date: 1818 (current revision published 1831)
Setting Genre: Realism, Set in Europe, Science Fiction
Narrative Genre: Horror, Slasher,
Themes: Mad Science, Man's Hubris
Subjective Length: 3-5 days
Overall 8/10. Not only a classic, but a fairly easy read as classics go. This work is seminal to the roots of science fiction and established tropes that would define the genre for over a century. The horror of mankind's own doing would inform science fiction in general and be a mainstay of robotic science fiction in particular until Asimov's famous three laws. In Shelley's work, we have a man arrogant enough to tread on forbidden ground in the name of curiosity and discovery; a theme to come to its fruition in the works of H.P. Lovecraft a century later. The notion of this type of self-important scientist would spread beyond its genre of birth, finding fertile ground as far afield as the character of Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion (later adapted as My Fair Lady). All this to say, Frankenstein is a work of pressing importance to the histories of both horror and science fiction.
Controversial Themes:
Incest: While, in the 1831 revision, Victor and Elizabeth were only adoptive siblings; they were cousins in the first publication, and continue to call each other "cousin" in the revised version. They were raised as siblings, and yet maintain a romantic relationship encouraged by the adults in their lives.
Enlightenment Philosophy: The creature espouses the enlightenment philosophy of Rousseau, claiming that he was made morally good, but was corrupted by interaction with humanity.
Body Horror: The creature, in each appearance, is described in vivid and disturbing terms. These are not typically highly descriptive terms, but rather, highly evocative ones.
**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**
The story begins with a framing device, in which we see a captain seeking to find hidden knowledge in the arctic. He finds a man nearly dead on the ice, and induces him to share his story. The man, Victor Frankenstein, complies, hoping to urge his new-found friend away from arrogance at seeking after things too grandiose for man.
He relates the details of his early life, introducing the characters of his adoptive sister, Elizabeth, and their childhood friend, Henry Clerval; and moves on to describe his archaic early education in medicine.
He then relates his going to university, and the negative reactions he finds in those who learn of his attachment to ancient writers of alchemical works. In the combination of his early and his formal schooling, he determines to pursue modern science with its practicalities without abandoning the heart of ancient alchemy, with all its lofty goals.
He finds, in two years study, the secret to restoring life to dead tissue. He here interrupts his own narrative to interact with the framing device and insist that he will not share this secret with the ship's captain. He assembles the grisly parts needed and brings his creation to life when, horrified by the squirming mass he sees, he flees his laboratory. When he must return to it later, he is relieved to find the creature gone.
Time passes, and while preparing to return home from the university, he learns that his youngest brother has been murdered. He returns and sees the form of the thing he made in the shadows, and knows that the thing he made was the killer. Nevertheless, he has no plausible evidence to offer to protect the family's maid, and she is tried and executed for the boy's death.
The creature then approaches its maker, and relates its life. It speaks of misty and not understood sensations until it came to rest in the woods. It then made its way to a small homestead where it watched the family that lived there. It was there that the creature learned of humanity, and learned language. After learning to read, it looked over the notes in the pocket of its stolen coat, and learned the details of its origin, and who made it. It spent its nights helping quietly with the family's chores, and then, finally, decided to introduce itself to the blind patriarch of the family while the others were out. It seems to succeed somewhat in inducing the old man to sympathy, but the return of the rest of the family, and their violent reactions to the creature's appearance force it back into the woods and into hiding.
Then, it turned on mankind. It came to Frankenstein's home village, and upon learning the boy was related to Frankenstein, the creature killed the boy, and as a spite on mankind in general, it framed the housekeeper for the death.
It then, in speaking to Victor, demanded a mate. It played on the doctor's sympathies and guilted its creator into not leaving it alone in the world. Victor, after much inner turmoil, went north to consult new research in biology and to re-establish the work he hated and had regretted since he first made the creature.
On seeing the creature in the window of his new lobarotary, Victor is struck with the potential for harm in his latest work, and destroys the female creature he'd been making. The creature, seeing this, goes off in a rage, killing Henry Clavel, who'd come along to see England.
Victor returns home, determined to kill the creature if he sees it again. He marries Elizabeth, and, on going out to try to face the creature, hears her scream. He returns to see her murdered on the bed. Emotionally broken, he set out on the creature's trail, tracking it to the arctic where he met with the ship that rescued him.
After relating this, Victor dies of exposure. The captain then finds the creature he'd only heard of in the story in the cabin with the body. It seeks one more time to justify its behavior before declaring that there is no purpose left to prolonged existence, and that, its enemy dead, it would go north to lie on a funeral pyre to die.
The story deals strongly with themes of parenthood. Victor is, on some level, motivated in his research by the death of his mother; and the creature ascribes its own depraved behavior to abandonment by Victor. The horror Victor feels at creating a female companion to the creature reaches its apex at realizing that if the two could procreate, his actions could condemn the human race to annihilation.
In another theme, the creature associates itself with the portrayal of Satan depicted in Milton's Paradise Lost: a foul being cast aside by its creator. The book opens with the quote: "Did I request Thee, Maker, from my clay // To mould me man, Did I solicit Thee // From darkness to promote me?" from the tenth section of Paradise Lost. The creature even asserts at one point: "Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred."
This book goes into not only dark areas of narrative, but into shadowy areas of morality. It leaves the reader wondering what mankind, as creators of this monster, owed to it. Can we say that its actions were unjustified, or even condemn them as disproportionate? Was this creature a form of man, sinful and claiming innocence; or was it some new species, unfallen until we acted the tempter towards it? Whatever the answers, this is a book that asks questions that can shape subtle shades of philosophy; and leave a reader changed for the experience. Happy reading, all.
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