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The creature created by Victor Frankenstein in the book has never been given a true name, and is only referred to as "The Monster", "The Creature" and "Frankenstein's Monster," or what Victor Frankenstein called his creation more commonly, "The Fiend."
The novel opens with Captain Walton on a ship sailing north of the Arctic Circle. Walton's ship becomes ice-bound, and as he contemplates his isolation and paralysis, he spots a figure traveling across the ice on a dog sledge. This is Victor Frankenstein's creature. Soon after he sees Victor Frankenstein himself and invites him onto his boat. The narrative of Walton is a frame narrative that allows for the story of Victor to be related. At the same time, Walton's predicament is symbolically appropriate for Victor's tale of displaced passion and brutalism.
Victor takes over telling the story here. Curious and intelligent from a young age, he leaves his beloved family in Geneva, Switzerland to study science in Germany. In a moment of inspiration, Victor discovers the means by which inanimate matter can be imbued with life. (When the book was written, science had a very imperfect understanding of the difference between living and dead matter.) With great drive and fervor, he sets about constructing a creature — perhaps intended as a companion — from various materials, including cadavers.
He intends the creature to be beautiful, but when the creature awakens, Victor is disgusted. It has yellow eyes, rough stitching, and large size. Victor finds this revolting and although the creature expressed him no harm (in fact it grins at him), Victor runs out of the room in terror whereupon the creature disappears. Overwork causes Victor to take ill for several months. After recovering, he receives a letter from home informing him of the murder of his youngest brother William. He departs for Switzerland at once. Near Geneva, Victor sees the creature and is convinced it killed William. Upon arriving home he finds Justine, the family's beloved maid, framed for the murder. She is convicted and executed. To recover from the ordeal, Victor goes hiking into the mountains. He meets his creation atop a glacier.
The creature is strikingly eloquent, and describes his feelings first of confusion, then rejection and hate. He explains how he learned to talk by studying a family through a crack in the wall. He performs in secret many kind deeds for this family, but in the end, they drive him away when they see his appearance. He gets the same response from any human who sees him. The creature confesses that it was indeed he who killed William and framed Justine, and that he did so out of revenge. But now, the creature only wants one thing; he begs Victor to create a female companion for him.
At first, Victor agrees, but later, he tears up the half-made companion in disgust. In retribution, the creature kills Henry, Victor's best friend. On Victor's wedding night, the creature kills his wife. Victor now becomes the hunter: he pursues the creature into the arctic ice, though in vain. Near exhaustion, he is stranded when an iceberg breaks away, carrying him out into the ocean. At that moment, Captain Walton's ship arrives and he is rescued.
Walton assumes the narration again, describing a temporary recovery in Victor's health, allowing him to relate his extraordinary story. However Victor's health soon fails, and he dies. Finally, the creature boards the ship and finds Victor dead, and greatly laments what he has done to his maker. He vows to commit suicide, and leaves.
During the snowy summer of 1816, the " Year Without A Summer," the world was locked in in a long cold volcanic winterA volcanic winter is the reduction in temperature caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the sun, usually after a volcanic eruption (hence the name). The explosion of Krakatoa in 1883 precipitated just such a condition; the next fo responsible for the deaths of millions, caused by the eruption of Tambora in 1815Events January 3 Austria, Britain, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia. January 8 War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans February 3 The first commercial cheese factory is founded in Switzerland February 6 New Jersey g. In this terrible year, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley ( August 4, 1792 July 8, 1822) was an English Romantic poet. He is now most famous for poems such as " Ozymandias", " Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", and "The Masque of Anarchy"; for his association with contemporaries John Kea visited Lord ByronElisabeth Vigee-Lebrun George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron ( January 22, 1788 April 19, 1824) was the most widely read English language poet of his day. His best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan''. The latter wa in SwitzerlandThe Swiss Confederation or Switzerland is a landlocked federal state in central Europe, with neighbours Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The country has a strong tradition of political and military neutrality, but also of international c. After reading an anthology of German ghost stories, Byron challenged the Shelleys and his personal physician John William Polidori to each compose a story of their own. Of the four, only Polidori completed a story. Mary conceived an idea, and this was the germ of Frankenstein.
It is worth noting that Byron managed to write a fragment based on the vampire legends he heard while travelling the Balkans. Polidori used this fragment to create the novel The Vampyre ( 1819), which is the origin of all subsequent vampire literature. Thus, the Frankenstein and vampire themes were created from that single circumstance.
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