Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Detailed summary

Opening Letters

Frankenstein begins with Robert Walton’s letters from St. Petersburgh, Russia, to his sister in England. He encourages her by sharing share his enthusiasm about his journey to the North Pole as part of his expedition. His last letter tells the shocking and surprising story of his momentary encounter with a huge giant like being similar to a man, fleeing across the ice which seems to be threatening to the enclosing ship. The next day he happened to see a sledge (vehicle carries loads pulled by dogs) which carries the desolated and feeble Victor Frankenstein, who is really searching for this monster like creature. Walton takes Frankenstein out. When he introduces himself and his purpose behind his expedition to Frankenstein, he instructs Walton to  take care of  himself and to leave off his mad pursuit. He asks him to listen to his past life story. 

 

Victor’s Story, Part I 

Born in Naples, Italy, to a wealthy Swiss family, Victor Frankenstein is the only child of his amiable parents. When he is five, his mother brings home an orphaned girl named Elizabeth to be Victor’s “sister.” In Victor’s happy childhood in Geneva, he and Elizabeth grow having enjoyed their parents’ love, and they are joined by more siblings. Victor develops a deep friendship with Henry Clerval, a fellow student. Where Clerval studies the psychology of morality, “the moral relations of things,” Victor conceives a passion to discover the physical secrets of the world. 

At seventeen, as he is to leave for the University at Ingolstadt (German University), Elizabeth suffers from scarlet fever. Nursed by Victor’s mother, she recovers, but his mother dies. On her deathbed, she begs Elizabeth and Victor to wed. After some delay, Victor departs for Ingolstadt, where his chemistry professor deeply encourages him in the study of science that Victor determines to discover the secret of life, perhaps even how to create life itself. He pursues his studies in the chemistry lab and in dissecting rooms (a room in medical school where anatomical dissection is performed) and morgues (mortuary), gathering the material for his experiment to make a creature from discarded corpses, perhaps one “like himself.” Cut off from contact with all others, ignoring letters from friends and family, he exhausts himself by working overnight. Finally, on a dark and dreary November night, Victor succeeds in animating a creature. Deprived of all strength and energy, he falls asleep, then awakened from a nightmare to find the creature staring at him. He flees in horror at what he has done. 

 

The next day Clerval arrives and Victor’s appearance and condition shock him. Victor did not reveal Clerval what he has done. He believes he can keep his secret for ever, on his return to his room he discovers that the creature has fled.He becomes extremely worried and out of the severe emotional trauma he falls ill for several months, during which Clerval nurses him by taking him away from the lab and into the mountains on long walks. 

 

Victor receives from his father a letter relating the death of Victor’s younger brother William, strangled by someone while out walking. A necklace with a miniature likeness of Victor’s mother was missing when the corpse was found. On his frantic (fearful) return journey, in the mountains near Geneva, Victor sees the monster and thinks that the monster might have killed William. At home Victor learns that everyone believes Justine, a family servant, to be guilty, for the necklace missing from the corpse was found on her. Victor believes that the servant  is innocent, and  he knows who is the real  killer, but does not speak up. Justine gives a forced confession and is convicted for capital punishment. Excessive feeling of  remorse at the deaths of William and Justine, convinced of his own guilt, Victor seeks solitude. Elizabeth and his father notice Victor’s behavioural changes and think that his brother’s death may be affected him poignantly .He leaves the house to walk the Swiss Alps, journeying to the village of Chamonix (a snow valley in France). In a painful retreat through the mountains, he meets the monster crossing an ice field. To Victor’s shocked expressions of outrage the monster replies calmly, asking Frankenstein to listen with patience to his tale.  

 

 

The Monster’s Story

After fleeing from the laboratory on that day of his birth, the monster discovers himself cold, unfed, and alone in the mountains outside Ingolstadt. The monster becomes completely helpless and miserable without having any kind of external support. He desperately searches for food and shelter and then he finally finds a hovel (small shed) adjoined to a cottage. He observes the cottage’s inhabitants: an old man, a young man and woman. When he learns that the cottagers are not so happy and satisfied as he believes they should be cheerful and fortunate, he gathers firewood at night for them in order to lessen their labours and help in general. Meanwhile, in the course of several seasons, he studies them, learns their names (Felix and Agatha and their father), and begins to study their language. 

 

One day another woman arrives on horseback. Felix seems especially happy in her presence. The monster listens as Felix instructs her from a history book. The Monster gradually learns everything such as the human law and government, of rank and wealth, of human greatness and vileness(evil tendency).“Of what a strange nature is knowledge!” the monster exclaims. Above all, he learns of his own lonely deformity. 

 

He later explains to Frankenstein about his different kinds of painful experiences including his isolated and abandoned life. Because his face was not as beautiful as a common man. In fact it was disgusting and horrific. So, he can no longer depend human being to lead his life. The monster also happened to read the books such as John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost and learns more of human virtues and vices.

 

 One day when only the old man is in the Cottage, having kept all his courage the monster enters, introducing himself as a weary traveller. He discovers that the old man is blind, he is not repulsed by him. The monster then tells his tale of misery and loneliness; the old man responds sympathetically. When the others return, horrified at his monstrous appearance, they chase him. Out of seclusion and depression in the forest, the next night he burns down the cottage and flees towards Ingolstadt, plans to make revenge against his creator. He comes across young William Frankenstein out walking. When the boy repulses against the monster’s physical appearance, he kills him. He takes from the boy a locket with the likeness of a woman and when he later meets another young woman asleep in a barn, he places the Locket on her, certain that he can implicate her in the boy’ s murder. He concludes his tale by proposing to Victor that only Victor’s creation of a female companion for the monster will grant him the happiness. Otherwise he shall be a trouble throughout his Victor’s life. 

 

  

 

Victor’s Story, Part II

The monster pleads with Victor to make him a mate, threatening him and his family. Frankenstein agrees, but only on condition that the creatures should flee to the uninhabitable parts of the earth where they will do no harm to humans. Victor returns to his family, more downhearted than ever. His father proposes that the long-hoped marriage Victor and Elizabeth might restore Victor to happiness. Victor wishes instead to travel to England to discover from scientist for the necessary inputs to complete his work. He promises to marry Elizabeth on his return. Victor meets CIerval and they walk in the mountains, then travel by boat down the Rhine River (river in France). In Edinburgh, Scotland, Victor asks Clerval to permit him to travel alone. Because Frankenstein, convinced that the monster has been following him, seeks solitude for his work on a remote island in the Scottish valleys. On a moonlit night he began to create the new form. When he looks up from his work of the new creature, the monster was peering at him through the window. Victor then vows to destroy his new, half-finished creation. The monster threatens him: “I will be with you on your wedding night.” 

 

Frankenstein takes the remains of the new creature and dumps them into the sea from a boat he takes offshore. When he awakens hours later, he has drifted to Ireland. Several people on shore take him to a magistrate to answer for the death of a man found murdered the previous evening. The man, to Victor’s horror, is CIerval. Imprisoned for several months, Frankenstein is freed after the magistrate discovers Victor’s innocence. The magistrate helps him to reach safely to his father in Geneva (Switzerland). On his return he marries Elizabeth, worried all the while about the monster’s threat, “I shall be with you on your wedding night.” He interprets this to mean that the monster will kill her and eventually destroys his life. On the wedding night, however, the monster breaks into their room and kills Elizabeth. After he sees the monster staring through the window and grinning (laughing broadly), Victor vows to seek revenge. He follows the monster across the Alps, across Europe, into Russia and north pole. Finally got tired and meets Robert Walton.   

  

 

 

Closing Letters

One week after his last letter to his sister, during which Frankenstein completes his story, Walton writes again to say that Frankenstein still intends kill the creature. Walton, too, is still determined to accompany him. His final letter to his sister recounts Frankenstein’s death and his dying advice to Walton to give up ambition and seek tranquillity instead. Walton’s grief over his new friend’s death is interrupted by the appearance of the monster he too grieves over the death of his creator. The monster tells Walton how he was unjustly treated by the humanity which had created him. That is why he turned to be an evil force. After expressing all the sufferings and alienation faced by the monster he slowly disappears into the heaps of ice.