Frankenstein (1818) | Mary Shelley

Next year it will be 200 years since the story of Frankenstein was first published. Not sure how was the horror fiction landscape back then, but it must have been a scare-inducing read. I can’t shake the thought on how fast the monster was able to learn. How come he wasn’t like a baby if he had just came to being. And then that would have taken years and years to develop language, emotions and a conscience. Anyway, it serves its purpose as a thriller. I’m not quite sure how to feel pity for the monster. Because he went around murdering people out of revenge.

The book is basically written in the form of a narration by Victor Frankenstein to a group of explorers. He tells of his childhood, growing up, his family. Then goes to a different place to study Natural Philosophy. There he meets other scientists. He creates a “monster” born from different parts. It is not mentioned how the creature came to have life. Distraught at what he had done, he becomes ill then recovers. The creature goes into the wild. Victor returns home swiftly having learned that his brother was murdered. Here more miseries unfold. He realizes it was the creature who murdered his brother. However, a neighboring girl was suspected, tried and executed. At one of his travels at a mountain side, the creature approaches him. Then the monster narrates his story to him and makes a request: Create a female companion for him. Victor hears him out, still torn and but agrees. He goes to England with a friend, but in the middle of constructing a female companion for the monster, he realizes at what could happen. He stops. The monster confronts him. They argue. The monster threatens that he be careful on his wedding night. The monster murders Victor’s friend, then Victor’s newly-wedded wife, Elizabeth. Victor sets out to hunt the monster. This is where he meets up with the explorers. He dies of hypothermia never having met the monster again. The monster goes to Victor’s dead body and argues what happened with the explorers. He leaves unfulfilled even with the death of Victor. 

Revenge is unfulfilling.

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