Book Review of Frankenstein by Marry Shelly

For my dissertation I will be comparing the books Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and finally 1984 by George Orwell. All three books I believe share a common theme which will be the subject of my dissertation. They all hold many themes but the main ones I will be looking at are the perils of playing god, abuse of power, and lastly manipulation and control.

After having rescued Victor Frankenstein from his grueling descent into the Arctic to track the monster that is plaguing him, Robert Walton, a seafarer, becomes privy to the story of Frankenstein’s monster. As the story is relayed to him, Walton begins to share the incredible tale through several letters to his sister, Margaret Saville. While in the midst of one such letter, Walton is interrupted by a disturbance resulting in his own visualization of the monster, making a significant impact on him, as prior to the encounter, the monster was only a fictitious apparition. The encounter between Walton and Frankenstein’s monster is utterly understated by its introduction into Walton’s letter. Although the story of the monster had only indirect inflictions upon Walton as it was conveyed to

Victor starts to sew body parts together and creates a monster and names him Frankenstein, an 8 foot tall monster that is able to learn. Throughout the film Victor mistreats the Monster and Victor acted like he was god, and Frankenstein became too strong and knowledgeable and tried to kill Victor, prior to that Victor wanted Frankenstein to be a slave for him.

Henry Clerval- Victor’s childhood friend; seemingly the opposite of Victor; cares about humanity and morality; killed by the monster;

Frankenstein’s first appearance in the novel is when he is brought on board by Robert Walton after Frankenstein was stranded on the ice. Frankenstein tells his story of how he creates the monster, including in great detail how the monster murdered his brother William, subsequently caused the death of his maid/family friend Justine, murdered his friend Henry Clerval, and killed Victor’s wife Elizabeth. As

The 1931 film, Frankenstein, which was directed by James Whale changed the mad-scientist/horror movie scene permanently. Although it is almost a century old, people are still reenacting it and discussing it. This film is about a young man named Henry Frankenstein. Henry has an obsession with creating life. Fritz, Henry’s assistant, helped collect body parts from recently deceased corpses. The two men got to work, binding the parts together, to create a whole human body. Using electricity from a thunderstorm, they managed to bring the body to life. The assistant was messing around in the lab and switched the brain they were using with a deceased criminal’s brain. Little did they know that the person they created with science would become a psycho killer.

Mary Shelley used this poem to show the freedom of one's future and the change(s) that will come with it. The poem also mentions one little thing such as a dream or a “wandering thought” can ruin a bigger idea. In the story, it was recently addressed that before the poem, “If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free”. This passage can be implying that the non-essential things in life are the things that poison us or make us change. The poem’s purpose in this part of the book is to amplify the speaker's last words of the paragraph that state, “...we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that word may convey to us.”. It makes the message of “things will change” very clear to the

Victor Frankenstein becomes interested in creating a new type of human. So he wants to create this person he decides that he needs to do research on how to create the person. So after he studied how to do the procedure, he proceeds to get human remains from various grave sites. Then he proceeds to create the person that soon becomes known as the “monster”. Once the monster is created he realizes that the monster has many problems.

Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, is a novel about a creature that is produced by Victor Frankenstein, as a result of his desire to discover the secret of life. Dr. Frankenstein founded this secret by animating dead flesh and stitching human corpses together to create a superhuman. As a reader, one realizes the consequences of Victor’s discoveries through series of unfortunate events that occur in the novel. The story begins with four letters which help introduce the story from Walton’s perspective as he meets Victor and learns the truth and tragedy behind Dr. Frankenstein. However, throughout the novel, letters are sent from Elizabeth and Alphonse, which further develop the story.

The story opens and ends with the letters of an explorer named Robert Walton, who is searching for the source of magnetism in the northern polar regions. There he finds and rescues Dr. Victor Frankenstein from certain death in the icy ocean. While he is recovering, Frankenstein tells Walton the story of his life. Set within Frankenstein’s narrative and Walton’s letters is the first-person story told by the creature Frankenstein created. Frankenstein, a young man from a happy family in Geneva, Switzerland, becomes obsessed with the idea of bestowing life on inanimate matter. He studies chemistry and new theories of electricity at a German university. With this knowledge and with body parts from corpses, Frankenstein creates a large manlike being and brings it to life with an electric spark. Finding the creature grotesquely ugly when it is animated, Frankenstein runs away from it. The creature quickly disappears. For months afterward, Frankenstein suffers from what he calls a “nervous fever” in which hallucinations of the creature torment him. After his recovery, Frankenstein learns that his young brother William has been murdered near the family home in Switzerland. A young woman who lived with the Frankenstein family is unjustly accused and hanged for the child’s murder. On his trip home, Frankenstein sees the creature and realizes that he killed the child. Frankenstein seeks solitude high in the Alps, and

Frankenstein has promised his monster that he will make him a wife, another monster to be his companion. He travels to England with his friend Henry Clerval, then continues on alone to Scotland. He rents a small hut, in which he begins his work on the second monster. As he works on the creature, he muses over how excited he had been when he created he first monster, but this time he is filled with horror. Frankenstein is afraid that the two monsters will be able to procreate and will unleash a race of monsters on mankind. When the monster shows up to check on Frankenstein's progress, he destroys the female monster. The monster is enraged by this, and promises Frankenstein that he will be there on his wedding night to exact revenge. The monster leaves and Frankenstein destroys all evidence of his work. He the goes to Ireland, where he is immediately arrested as the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Frankenstein soon finds out that the person who was murdered is his friend Henry Clerval. It is clear to Frankenstein that this is the work of the monster and he becomes feverish and sick. After two months in jail, fighting illness, he recovers and his father comes to see him. Frankenstein is acquitted of the murder, as he was in scotland at the time it occurred. He then travels home to Geneva with his

Exposition: Robert Walton is the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole. He writes letters back to Margaret, his sister in England, telling her of his journey. The ship gets stuck in ice, and then they happen upon Victor Frankenstein, who was on a dog sled. He begins to tell Walton of his past, and Walton takes notes on his story to include in letters back to Margaret. Victor grew up in Geneva, Switzerland and was the oldest child of Alphonse and Caroline Beaufort. He came from a wealthy family who adopt Elizabeth into their family. He was interesting in learning, only to find out he had been studying outdated text when he went to the University of Ingolstadt.

In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley tells the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creation of what is thought to be a monster. As the story progresses the true monster is revealed not to be his creation but Victor himself. Frankenstein is about a young man who become infactuated with have all the knowlegde from birth to death. During this time he decides to try to create life itself and succeds. Victor becomes so disgusted with want he ahs done and abandons Creature and leaves him to figure out life on his own.

Having bypassed the female birthing process completely, Frankenstein robbed graves and mausoleums in search of large -easy to work with- body parts to create his monster. After shocking his monster with electricity, the Creature comes alive, and horrified, Victor retreats from his lab in fear. The Creature is now left abandoned to figure out the world on his own. He learns the differences between hot and cold, light and dark, and how hunger works, all on his own. Upon mastering these basics, he emerges from the forest he has hid in upon a village, only to be shunned and chased away by a mob of villagers, back into the forest.

The Frankenstein despairs of the horror and he escape to Switzerland in the home while leaving a monster. But a man of excellent caliber survives for a tough body, also acquires the way and the language which is "work of a god" (Godlike science) beyond hills and fields and becomes eloquent. He arrives at an origin of Frankenstein who got away far, however the monster who is detested from man because of the ugliness that he was persecuted and suffers from the existence of lonely inside oneself requests to make a person of male's monster who can be his companion to Frankenstein. He promises never to appear in the public when a monster grants this wish, but Frankenstein who feared monster's further increase refuses this (Frankenstein complex). The monster who despaired of First Cause barrel man who was killing Frankenstein's friend and wife one after another for revenge. A monster was chased and he had come to the Arctic Ocean, but Frankenstein seized with hate obstructed away and so he was picked by Walton's ship up.