Krishna
Frankenstein is such a classic story that everyone is aware of it. It is an idiom used in everyday language, with the same status as Xerox or Kleenex or Big Brother.
Most people have heard that though the name Frankenstein evokes the memory of the monster, it is the scientist who created it who is (Viktor) Frankenstein, not the monster. (Haven’t they?)
However, most people associate Frankenstein with the greenish monster that roams around town with a bolt sticking out of his head and with a few major conspicuous stitches on his forehead. This is the myth perpetrated by the comic versions of the story and sustained, minus the bolt, in the historically inaccurate movie called Van Helsing. (Hercules from Disney probably shares the prize with this one for the most historically inaccurate movie ever made!) But I digress.
But there are several surprises in the book. The monster is not shown as having an elongated forehead but rather ape like features. It is described as being huge and very, very agile, able to move at astonishing speeds and also able to withstand really low temperatures with ease. It is described as having superhuman strength and, unexpectedly, having a grayish pallor like “a mummy”.
The author is itself interesting, having eloped with Percy Shelly when she was just sixteen. To top it all, he was at the time a married man, and as soon as his wife died several years later, they got married. She wrote this story as a kind of a competition, where everyone in her circle (all literary and poetic characters) were asked to write a horror story.
The story itself is narrated by Captain Robert Walton, in a series of letters to his sister. He rescues one Viktor Frankenstein, who originally resided in Geneva. When Viktor hears of Robert’s interest in science and its pursuit as a passion, he warns him of the pitfalls of following it blindly, and tells his own story (incomplete at that point), which involves creation of the now infamous monster.
The story has no “Igor” or any assistant to Frankenstein. So “Igor, I need some lightning!” to the hunchback Igor as shown in cartoons is a mix up of several classic stories again.
As far as the story goes, it is interesting in its own right, and should be read with a clean mind, without the accumulated baggage of preconceived notions. . Viktor, who has two brothers, is brought up in a family which adopts Elizabeth Lorenza, who is considered ‘betrothed’ to him from childhood. His closest friend is Henry Clerval. Victor leaves Geneva to go to the University of Ingerstodt (spelling?) to learn science, and is so passionate about the origin of life that he single mindedly pursues ‘creating life’ from various parts of cadavers collected. He finally succeeds in creating a hideous thing, and manages to give life to it. Shocked and repulsed by what he has created, he runs out of the private room where he has created it, and wanders in regret. When he returns, he finds the monster gone and washes his hands off the whole sorry episode! His happiness doubles when his friend Clerval joins him in Ingetstodt.
Later, he gets a letter from his father stating that his kid brother, William, has been murdered and he rushes home to console his father (his mother is no more) and Elizabeth. Even before he reaches his village, he gets strong hints that the monster may have killed his broher. He cannot save an innocent servant girl from the blame, though, and she gets killed.
He goes in search of the monster and it catches up with him on top of the Alps, in an isolated spot. The monster narrates how he is tormented, how he learnt to speak, and how he accidentally killed the boy. The monster gives an ultimatum to Frankenstein: “I am lonely and now I see that I cannot mix with your race; make me a female monster, just my kind, and I will leave you forever. If not, I will destroy everything you value.”
Trapped in a Faustian bargain, Frankenstein decides to fulfill the monster’s wish and starts building a female monster. However, in the last minute, he realizes that if the monster does not keep its word, now he will have two monsters roaming all over the country wreaking even more destruction and backs out of his commitment. This enrages the monster, who takes revenge by killing those near and dear to Viktor one by one. Viktor, overcome with anger, trails the monster to catch and kill it. The story ends with the consequences of these.
The story should be approached like the fairy tale it is. It has way too many holes to think of it as a coherent story. For example, the monster learns to speak by evesdropping on on the conversation of a family, yet, within months, he is able to talk in really poetic, flawless Engligh. He seems to have the ability of a fifty pound Gorilla, yet, made from human parts. Viktor repeatedly leaves his family and betrothed for years on end without as much as an explanation on where he goes and what he does, without inviting even the slightest reproach from anyone. (Even in the male dominated
Victorian times I wonder if this is possible)
Overlooking these flaws will help you enjoy the book. The epic battle between the maker and the creature is well told; the story from the monster’s point of view is moving. His struggle to get accepted and his repeated rejection by society is well told. His gradual conversion through bitterness to a menace to society, his revenge by killing Viktor’s family members and his final epic battle with Viktor himself is told well.
His decision to leave the world when Viktor is no more – and thus the raison de etre of his life is no more – is interesting.
The language is old style but once you get over that, the narration is fluid, and the story is satisfying in the end.
I would grant it a 7/10
— Krishna