Frankenstein Summary and Analysis

Author: Mary Shelley

Setting, Plot, and Characters: The story opens with a series of letter from Robert Walton to his sister in England. Eventually, Walton and his crew come across Victor Frankenstein. Once they nurse him back to health, Frankenstein begins to tell his story. He talks about his blissful childhood and singular friend, Henry Clerval. Victor is constantly talking about how perfect his life is and it becomes even more perfect when his parents adopt Elizabeth, then a young girl, to be his future wife. Although Victor enjoys teaching himself, he finally gets to an age where he can go off to college at Ingolstadt. Frankenstein uses his newfound knowledge in order to collect the necessary supplies to create human life. He succeeds in beginning a new life and once he is no longer blinded by his toils, he realizes that he really created a monster and immediately runs away. Clerval comes to join Victor at school and ends up having to care for him after a mental break.

    Soon after, Victor receives word that his younger brother, William was murdered and returns to Geneva. Frankenstein deduces that it was the monster that he created that killed his brother. His neighbor, Justine, is accused of the murder and because Victor fails to come forward she is executed. Frankenstein finds and confronts the monster who explains his entire life since his conception and tells Frankenstein that all he wants is a female companion. Once Victor reluctantly agrees, he goes off on a lengthy trip with Clerval to gather information and generally waste time. After he begins creating the female, though, Frankenstein has second thoughts and destroys his project. The monster, enraged, threatens to “be at his wedding night”.

    Later on, Victor goes on a boat ride and washes up on shore, finding himself accused of Henry’s murder. He spends a few months in prison until his father comes to get him. Upon returning, Victor marries his cousin/sister/family friend Elizabeth with gumption. On their honeymoon, the monster also kills Elizabeth. Victor chases him to the North Pole where he met Walton. Walton finishes the story by sharing that both Frankenstein and the monster die. 

Analysis: Shelley has a very thorough voice. Each character talks in the same way, with a lot of overly long descriptions of any given situation. Her point of view seems very limited. She doesn’t really seem to show any sort of feeling towards the characters, which is very evident of the Victorian era style of writing. The imagery is very detailed, but Shelley’s style of writing is more focused on emotional imagery.

Cool Quotes:

“Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me.” (32)

This is a perfect example of both Frankenstein’s extreme narcissism and perceived perfect childhood. He seems to think that he has innumerable qualities that everyone should love him for and basically thinks he can do no wrong. From this quote, it’s easily to see that Victor thinks very highly of himself and the people in his inner circle.

“He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless, and alone” (170)

In this quote, the monster is comparing himself to Adam and Frankenstein to God. Although Victor was capable of creating life, he did not realize the consequences. This contributes to a big motif of the book: science. Shelley seems to be questioning whether science has surpassed morality and uses the monster as an example. 

THEME: The inaccurate judgment of character based on society’s prejudices contributes toward alienation and unnatural instability.

Many aspects of the work come together to support the theme. The voice and POV are so drab because Shelley sees herself as being above the society that judges a character. Symbols such as windows, which act as physical barriers between metaphysical things such as ideals and moral systems. Shelley focuses so much on emotion because all of the aspects of her theme are emotion-based - from judgement to prejudice to alienation.