Spoilers!Frankenstein is the first book written by Mary Shelley (daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, friend of Lord Byron), and her most famous. First published in 1818, she later revised it for its second printing in 1823, adding a preface that cleared up conjecture as to what she was writing about, changing the relationship of Elizabeth to the family (in the original, she is Victor Frankenstein's cousin, in the second she has no blood relation but was adopted by the family) to remove any suggestion of incest, and she also removed any hint that Frankenstein created the creature out of vice.If you're not familiar with the story as Shelley wrote it, Frankenstein is about a young Swiss man, Dr Victor Frankenstein, who is a student of the natural sciences. He becomes absorbed by the idea of creating a living being and spends two years collecting body parts from the deceased and feverishly working in his laboratory. But when he instils it with life and it wakes and looks upon its creator, Victor is horrified and flees from his creation.He spends months in illness, nursed by his best friend Henry Clavel, before returning to his father's home in Geneva, Switzerland, where his two brothers, Earnest and William, and his adopted sister Elizabeth live (his mother has already passed away). Before leaving Ingolstadt in Germany, where he was living and studying at the university, he receives a letter from his father telling him that his little brother William has been murdered. On his arrival to his home town, he sees his creature in the dark wilderness, and becomes convinced it murdered William. A servant girl, Justine, is accused and hanged for the crime, and Victor goes traipsing off into the wilderness with his depression. He encounters the creature, who begs him to listen to his story, and we learn what has passed with the monster since Victor created and abandoned it. It is a heart-breaking story, and goes some way to explaining the monster's mind.The monster's main purpose in telling Victor his story is to beg him to create a companion for him, a woman of his own species. Victor at first agrees, going to Britain with Henry and collecting new body parts. But he destroys the being before bringing it to life, and in retribution the monster kills Henry. Victor is accused, and spends some months in an Irish gaol before being released. Upon returning home to Geneva with his father, he marries Elizabeth, who the creature strangles to death on their wedding night. His father dies from the shock of all these tragedies, and Victor chases after the monster, determined to end it once and for all. The chase takes them to the northern Alps, and continues across the ice in sleds, before Victor is rescued from an accident and taken on board a ship that has been trapped in the ice. He tells the Captain his story, who writes it all down to send to his sister back home, before he weakens and dies. The monster returns and pledges his own suicide by fire, since there is no more reason for him to live.I did enjoy this, though it's not an easy read in the sense that the writing style is, for want of a better word, awkward, often clumsy. When I think about it, it's accurate enough for a story retold by one man (Captain Waldon), as told from memory by another (Victor), who in turn retells other people's stories (namely, the monster's). In such a case, details are bound to get lost in the retelling, though of course the dialogue is accurately remembered. But it does make it hard going at times: I kept getting pulled up short by glaring omissions, or confusing jumps. As someone in my bookclub put it, the story is good, the book not so great.Frankenstein could easily be described as timeless, since there's little that anchors it firmly in the period in which it is set (1700s), and you can read all sorts of relevant themes into it. Shelley apparently wrote it as a warning to scientists and against the Industrial Revolution in general, reminding them that they are not God and of the dangers of over-reaching themselves. I would take it a step further, and say it is a warning against not taking responsibility for your actions, especially those of science in delving into new and strange areas (like nuclear weapons, cloning etc.). Right up to the end, Victor thinks he is blameless:During these last days, I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty, but there was another paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention, because they included a greater proportion of happiness and misery. (p.235) So although he can acknowledge that he was responsible for the creature, he does not see any connection between his neglect of the monster and the way the monster turned out. In other words, if he had stayed by the creature's side, taught him ethics, morals etc., he would have preserved the lives of his own loved ones and the greater populace in general.The nameless creature was abandoned by Victor because it was ugly. That's it: he was f'ugly:I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room. (p.51-2) Talk about shallow. The creature, left to his own devices, with no language and no knowledge but that Victor is his creator, yearns to be loved and wanted. Stumbling through the countryside, he discovers fire, discovers berries and things to eat, but is persecuted and beaten by any humans he comes across. He tries so hard, and while he does not make the best decisions, he has the mind of a child in a giant's body, and with his unusual circumstances should hardly be judged along the same lines as anyone else. Victor creates a monster by seeing only a monster, without taking the time to learn its true nature, as does everyone else. They could not look beyond appearances. Even today, we would probably react in the same way: that doesn't make it any less our fault for creating a being with so many faults. In this case, it is the lack of nurture - i.e. it's environment - that created the ture monster, not nature. It's not that I seek to justify the murders the creature committed. But the creature wasn't born evil, he was turned evil by humans. Grrr. I just didn't like Victor and wish he had been more accountable for being so irresponsible. Yes, he was young, enthusiastic, and thought he could take God's place:A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. (p.47)This is the meaning behind the subtitle: the Modern Prometheus. Prometheus was a Titan whom Zeus punished eternally for creating men out of clay, and bringing fire from the heavens and gifting it to humans. Zeus chained him to a rock and every day a bird would peck out his liver, only to have it grow back so the next day a bird could do it again. Nice. So is the loss of Victor's family, his best friend, and his bright future his punishment?Another reason why I don't like Victor Frankenstein is that he is so selfish, arrogant, self-centred, self-indulgent, melodramatic and egotistical. Aside from wanting to bring dead body parts to life so that he could be worshipped like a God, the fate of Justine, for example, brings out his true character:Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor victim [Justine:], who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not as I did, such deep and bitter agony. (p.87)Yes, not even poor innocent Justine, sent to the gallows for a crime wholly Victor's fault, suffered as much as he. He could have stepped in and confessed, but did not want people to think him mad. Add "proud" to the list of his sins if you please. Later, he marries Elizabeth, despite the monster's threat that he will come to him on his marriage-day. It's always about him, he doesn't notice the pattern of the monster murdering his family and friends in order to make him feel this misery, and so realise it's his bride the monster will target: no, it's all about him, Victor. He marries Elizabeth, making her just as miserable as he is, and took her to a secluded place where he intended to go head-to-head with the monster, only to find Elizabeth strangled to death in the bedroom. He puts people in danger, then whines about how miserable and wretched he feels when they die, yet doesn't seem to regret anything.This is just my take on the book, and like true art, it can be read in a number of ways. It's definitely a good idea to read the book to know the story, though, because the movies that have been made about Frankenstein since the 1920s are way off the mark. Though I would imagine studying the popular culture side of the story would be just as fascinating as studying the book itself. A note about this edition: This is a handsome book, with nice thickish yellowish old-style paper and print, it looks exactly like how it was originally published. But there are no notes or appendices or introduction, so if you're studying this book you might want to get a different edition. It's also the revised edition, not the original 1818 one, though the revised one is more common now.
If you have not read the book, then you do not know Frankenstein or his monster. Certainly, there is a creature in our modern mythology which bears that name, but he bears strikingly little resemblance to the original.It is the opposite with Dracula, where, if you have seen the films, you know the story. Indeed, there is a striking similarity between nearly all the Dracula films, the same story being told over and over again: Harker, bug-eating Renfield, doting Mina, the seduction of Lucy, Dr. Van Helsing, the sea voyage from Varna, the great decaying estate--it's all there, in both book and cultural myth. Even the lines tend to recur, as almost every retelling has some version of the famed "I never drink--wine."But think of Frankenstein's story, the moments that define it: the mountain castle, the corpse-thieving, the hunch-backed assistant, the silently shambling monster, the pitchfork-wielding mob, the burning windmill--none of these things appear in the original story. The first puzzlement comes when the story begins on a swift ship in the arctic, told in letters between the captain and his beloved sister.The structure of the story as it follows is, in many ways, not ideal. It is not streamlined, focused, or particularly believable. It seems that every picturesque cabin in the woods is inhabited by fallen nobility, that every criminal trial is undertaken on false pretenses to destroy some innocent person, that an eight-foot-tall monstrosity can live in your woodshed for a year without being noticed, and that that same monstrosity can learn to be fluent and even eloquent in both speaking and reading an unknown language merely by watching its use.The style itself is ponderous and florid, as Shelley ever is, which is fine when she has some interesting idea to communicate, but bothersome when she finds herself vacillating--which is often, since our hero, the good doctor, is constantly sitting about, thinking about what he might do next, and usually, avoiding actually doing anything. I understand the deep conflict within him, but it might have been more effective to actually see him act on some of his momentary urges before switching instead of letting it all play out in his head.But then, it's hard to think of him as the hero, anyways, since his activities tend to be so destructive to everyone around him. Sure, he is aware of this tendency--hyper-aware, really--and constantly blames himself, but he doesn't come across as especially sympathetic.The monster, on the other hand, is truly naive and hopeless, unable to change his fate though he often tries to do so, while the doctor tends to avoid doing anything that might improve the situation. There is a very Greek sense of tragedy at hand, in that we have a man who, though combined action and inaction, drives himself inevitably to utter ruin. As Edith Hamilton defines it, tragedy is a terrible event befalling someone who has such deep capacity for emotion that they are able to recognize and feel every awful moment, and Dr. Frankenstein certainly has this capacity. In fact, he seems to have an overabundance of such feeling, to the point that he spends most of his time wallowing and declaring his woe--which is not always endearing.But the tragedy remains the most interesting and engaging part of the book, overcoming the sometimes repetitive details of the story. It is an entwined tragedy, a double tragedy between the man and his creation, and it's never quite clear who is at fault, who is the villain, and who is the wretch. The roles are often traded from moment to moment, and there is no simple answer to wrap up the conflict.Of course, the classic reading of this is an exploration of the relationship between man and his universe (often personified by 'god'). As human beings, we see our lives as a narrative, ourselves as the hero, and we look for villains to blame for our short-comings. the way Shelley lets this story play out between these two entangled lives, each justifying himself and blaming the other for every hardship forces the reader to look at how he does the same thing in every day of his own life.Looking at the tale as it is presented, it is easy to read Dr. Frankenstein as the figure of 'god', the creator and authority, the author of life. We see the monster's pain and suffering and on one hand, it is all the result of his being created in the first place, and of his creator not planning well enough. But beyond that, there are also the actions and choices the monster makes that make him a monster--his own will.But I began to look at it in the opposite way: the doctor creates a monster for which he can blame all of his problems, a force which dictates every moment of his life, which causes all of his pains, which haunts him, powerful and unseen, at every moment. Frankenstein has created a god. He has made a force which can lord over him, a god which resembles man, only more powerful, indestructible, inescapable, terrible. In the end, who is the real 'modern Prometheus'?For almost the entire book, the only person who ever sees the monster is the doctor himself, and since the doctor is present for all of the killings, it isn't hard to interpret this story as the self-justification of a madman: the doctor, himself, could be doing all of the killings, causing all of the malice, and then explaining it away as the acts of a horrific creature that only he can see, that only he can speak to.However, I am not willing to carry this 'unreliable narrator' reading to its bitter end, since the story itself does not quite support it--but the fact that the monster can almost be read this way intensifies to the degree to which it is a story of two intertwined egos, each one blaming the other, like so many toxic relationships between people, or even between one half of a troubled mind and the other.But for all that the core idea of the story is strong and thought-provoking, it is still long-winded, unfocused, and repetitive. It is certainly impressive for the first novel of a nineteen-year-old, and demonstrates splendid imagination, but it does not benefit from her literary affectations. However, her style is still thoughtful and refined, unlike the halting half-measures of Stoker's small-minded Dracula, there is a great expanse here, a wide vista which well-reflects the Victorian artist's obsession with the horror of 'the sublime'.
What do You think about Frankenstein (2003)?
في بدايات القرن التاسع عشركانت الكهرباء وقتها اختراعا طازجاوحدثا يلقي الرهبة في القلوبلقد كان معظم الناس يتصور أنها تحمل قدرات خارقةولذلك لم يكن من الصعب تخيل أنها يمكنها إعادة الحياة إلى الموتىفقد كانوا يرونها اختراعا شيطانيا يثير غضب الربوأثناء جلسة جمعت بين بعض الشعراء والكتاب في قصر الشاعر لورد بايرناقترح المضيف أن يؤلف كل واحد منهم قصة رعب مختلفةلتزجية الوقتومن هنا جاءت إحدى أشهر قصص الرعب الكلاسيكية على مر العصور:::::::::::الحكاية عن شاب مخترع يدعى فيكتور فرانكنشتاينقام بتجميع أجزاء من جثث الموتى وباستخدام الصواعق الكهربية سواها كائنا حيايتنفس ويعيش ويحزن ويفرح ويحلمولما انتهى منه خالقه لم ير فيه سوى مسخا بشعا فتركه وحيدا وهجرهمسخ ضخم ملامحه جامدة تملأ القطب وجهه وجسده وكأنه دمية كل جزء فيها مخيط إلى الآخريملؤه الخجل لهيئته الغريبة المنفرةيحمل عذاباته ويمضييتوارى في أي مكان مهجور لا يعرف طريقه النور بعيدا عن أعين البشر الفضولية والقاسية[image error]
—Huda Yahya
...and so I was born! A man, and not a man; a life, and an un-life. Hair and lips of lustrous black, skin of parchment yellow, watery eyes of dun-colored white. The stature of a giant. A horror among men! And so my creator fled me, horrified of his creation. And so I fled my place of birth, to seek lessons amongst the human kind. My lonesome lessons learnt: man is a loving and noble creature; learning is pathway to beauty, to kindness, to fellowship. And this I also learnt: to witness what differs, to meet what may be noble under the skin but ugly above it... is to then reject that other, to cast him out! Man is a brutal and heartless creature. And as I was rejected, I do so reject: turn from me and you shall find my cold hands, seeking some bitter warmth... O wretched creature am I!My tale is told by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in the loveliest and most vivid of flowing prose. A wise writer is this Mary Shelley - and at such a young age! The narrative is as three nesting Russian dolls, a thin one to contain them all, a second of weightier proportions, and a third one within - its gentle and broken heart. That inner story, the smallest, is of my youth - a life of fear, but also of learning, of growing into myself, of witnessing the beauty around me. Of spying upon the family De Lacey - their unknown son. Their own tale is one of bravery and gentleness, of humanity at its weakest and strongest, of survival. But mine is of friendship spurned, kindness returned with terror, a stark rejection, and then a house in flames. And with that burning house burned all the love within this scarcely beating un-heart... all that love, burnt clean away, never to return! The middle story is of my creator, Victor Frankenstein: spoiled child, spoiled man, dreamer, visionary, coward; the foolish instrument of his own despair. A curse upon him, and a blessing, and a curse again! The outer layer is a story of wintry landscapes, an exploration of the icy reaches and the final doom of my creator. It is as well a tale of longing: for justice and for revenge, of course... but also for a companion, for a brother who can never be found. Alas, Captain Walton, a sensitive and lonely soul... I could have been your own brother, such was the depth of our shared yearnings... O wretched are those who walk the earth alone!My father and mother both: Victor Frankenstein. Curse the man who rejects his offspring! Curse the man who seeks to forget his own creation! I was the fruit of his mind and of his labors, born rotten, and thus cast away. The tale of my maker is the tale of a parent suddenly fearful of his young, terrified of what he has wrought. It is a tale of responsibility rejected. The record of his actions are of criminal neglect, of shameful weakness, of a man who lives so much in his thoughts that the world around him crumbles, and the people in that world become abused. My wretched self most of all! And yet I am more than his cast-out son. I am the Frankenstein's shadow self: capable of the sublime, yet enacting the abominable. What is dear to him shall be mine to destroy. His precious ideals shall be the instrument of his destruction. As he would embrace his youngest brother, his dearest friend, his beloved wife... so shall I! And as his shadow self, I will follow him as he will follow me, I will lead him to his destiny, on a terrible trail he has forged himself. I shall spare him, and all others, only the faintest pity... O wretched are those who cross my path!My story is not simply one of thoughtless cruelty or hideous revenge. It is also one of beauty, and of ugliness. Behold the many descriptions of the natural world, the myriad and vivid wonders of nature, of mountain and forest and lake and ocean. There is true beauty. It is a fact upon which we three - Victor Frankenstein and Captain Walton and I - are truly of one mind. In nature there is true transcendence! But alas, it is not simply nature that is judged as beauty, or as ugliness. Inspect the story closely. Note the good fortune of the child Elizabeth, raised in squalor and then lifted into comfort. Why was she so chosen? Because of her fortunate beauty, her golden hair... so different from the children around her, who remained in poverty. A typical act for the human species: forever embracing the fair and turning away from what their eyes call foul. Terrible human nature, that judges the surface alone. Study Victor's reactions to his professors, both steeped in wisdom: one kindly and elegant in appearance, the other misshapen and coarse... his fondness for the former and his displeasure with the latter. See Victor's uncaring and hysterical flight from his own child - myself! Watch his descent into illness at the mere idea of such ugliness. Witness the family De Lacey, and their rejection of one who sought only to ease their burdens, to bring their kindness back upon them - a being who only craved love! Myself! Again and again, the pleasant surface is favored over the ill-formed; the unknown depths to remain unknowable. Foolish humans - victims of their conceits, forever enchanted by what they call beauty. Foul and petty humans - they are villains of their own making. A curse upon them! And so rejected and abandoned, I shall bring ugliness back to their doorstep. I become nemesis; and shall live forever as your deadly child, a perilous inheritance, a nightmare of your own creation... O wretched are you all!
—mark monday
It's been fifty years since I had read Frankenstein, and, now—after a recent second reading—I am pleased to see that the adolescent pleasures I remembered so vividly have been revived. Once again I was thrilled by the first glimpse of the immense figure of the monster, driving his sled across the arctic ice, and I marveled at the artful use of narrative frame within frame, each subsequent frame leading us closer the the heart of the novel's creation, until we hear the alienated yet articulate voice of the creature himself. In addition, I admired the equally artful way the novel moves backward through the same frames until we again reach the arctic landscape that is the scene of the novel's climax and commencement.This time through, I was particularly struck with how Mary must have been influenced by the novels of her father. The relentless hounding of one man by another who feels his life has been poisoned by that man's irresponsible curiosity is a theme taken straight out of Godwin's "Caleb Williams," and the cautionary account of a monomaniac who gradually deprives himself of the satisfactions of family, friends and love in pursuit of an intellectual ideal is reminiscent of the alchemist of "St. Leon". Her prose also shows her father's mark in her ability to make delicate philosophical distinctions and express abstract ideas, but she is a much better writer than he: her sentences are more elegant and disciplined, and her descriptive details more aptly chosen and her scenes more effectively realized.The conclusion of the novel seems to me to be in some way hasty and incomplete, but perhaps that is because the concept of "Frankenstein" is itself so revolutionary and innovative that no conclusion could have seemed altogether satisfactory. At any rate, this fine novel has given birth to a host of descendants, and—unlike Victor Frankenstein—is a worthy parent of its many diverse creations.
—Bill Kerwin
