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Overview
The epic battle between man and monster reaches its greatest pitch in the famous story of FRANKENSTEIN. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor himself to the very brink. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship …and horror.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781503149700 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 11/16/2014 |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.41(d) |
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VOLUME I
LETTER 1
To Mrs. Saville, England St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday; and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London; and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves, and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that require onlythis voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death, and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But, supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven; for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good uncle Thomas's library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions, entranced my soul, and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure, and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day, and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventure might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud, when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and intreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness so valuable did he consider my services.
And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stage-coach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs—a dress which I have already adopted; for there is a great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St Petersburgh and Archangel.
I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.
Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your love and kindness.
Your affectionate brother, R. Walton
From the Paperback edition.
Table of Contents
Preface.
Monsters, Visionaries, and Mary Shelley.
Aesthetic Adventures.
Edmund Burke, “On the Sublime and the Beautiful,” from A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful.
Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Men.
William Gilpin, from Picturesque Travel.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 1798.
Mary Wollstonecraft, Jemima's Story from Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman.
Mary Godwin (Shelley), journal entries.
Percy Shelley, from Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude.
Mary Shelley, from History of a Six Weeks' Tour.
Percy Shelley, Mont Blanc.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Canto 3 from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage III.
George Gordon, George Gordon, Lord Byron, A Fragment.
Richard Brinsley Peake, from Frankenstein, A Romantic Drama.
Mary Shelley, from a letter to E. J. Trelawny.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, “Enjoy Your Baby,” from Baby and Child Care.
Milton's Satan and Romantic Imaginations.
The King James Bible, Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3.
John Milton, from Paradise Lost.
William Godwin, from “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Prometheus.”
John Keats, To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent.
John Keats, Marginalia to Paradise Lost.
William Hazlitt, “On Shakespeare and Milton,” from Lectures on the English Poets.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Preface Prometheus Unbound.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, from A Defence of Poetry.
Thomas De Quincey, “What Do We Mean by Literature?”
What the Reviews Said.
John Wilson Croker, Quarterly Review, January 1818.
Walter Scott, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, March 1818.
Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, March 1818.
Belle Assemblàe, March 1818.
The British Critic, April 1818.
Gentleman's Magazine, April 1818.
Monthly Review, April 1818.
The Literary Panorama and National Register, June 1818.
Knight's Quarterly Magazine, August 1824.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, March 1823.
London Morning Post, July 1823.
George Canning, remarks in the House of Commons, March 1824.
Knight's Quarterly Magazine, August 1824.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Anthenfum, November 1832.
Further Reading and Viewing.
What People are Saying About This
Out of that vampire-laden fug of gruesomeness known as the English Gothic Romance, only the forbidding acrid name of Frankenstein remains in general usage... Mary Shelley had courage, she was inspired. Frankenstein has entertained, delighted and harrowed generations of readers to this day.
Reading Group Guide
INTRODUCTION
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein begat another monster—the frequently cartooned, green-skinned Frankenstein of popular culture who roams the streets on Halloween in the company of mummies and skeletons. In the novel, the monster is nameless, and Victor Frankenstein is the creature's creator, an earnestly romantic, idealistic, and well-educated young gentleman whose studies in "natural philosophy" (p. 40) and chemistry evolve from "a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature" (p. 41). However, it is a tribute to the power of Shelley's work—a masterpiece—that it has spawned a parody, no matter how skewed, much as Frankenstein's creation parodies the divine creation of Adam.
There is some logic, too, in the popular tendency to conflate the monster and his creator under the name of "Frankenstein." As the novel progresses, Frankenstein and his monster vie for the role of protagonist. We are predisposed to identify with Frankenstein, whose character is admired by his virtuous friends and family and even by the ship captain who rescues him, deranged by his quest for vengeance, from the ice floe. He is a human being, after all. However, despite his philanthropic ambition to "banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death" (p. 42), Frankenstein becomes enmeshed in a loathsome pursuit that causes him to destroy his own health and shun his "fellow-creatures as if...guilty of a crime" (p. 57). His irresponsibility causes the death of those he loves most, and he falls under the control of his own creation.
The monster exhibits a similar kind of duality, arousing sympathy as well as horror in all who hear his tale. He demands our compassion to the extent that we recognize ourselves in his existential loneliness. Rejected by his creator and utterly alone, he learns what he can of human nature by eavesdropping on a family of cottage dwellers, and he educates himself by reading a few carefully selected titles that have fortuitously fallen across his path, among them Paradise Lost. "Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?" (p. 131), he asks himself. Like Milton's Satan, who almost inadvertently becomes the compelling protagonist of Paradise Lost, the monster has much to recommend him.
Despite his criminal acts, the monster's self-consciousness and his ability to educate himself raise the question of what it means to be human. It is difficult to think of the monster as anything less than human in his plea for understanding from Frankenstein: "Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? they spurn and hate me" (p. 103). When his anonymous acts of kindness toward the cottage dwellers are repaid with baseless hatred, we have to wonder whether it is the world he inhabits, as opposed to something innate, that causes him to commit atrocities. Nonetheless, he retains a conscience and an intense longing for another kind of existence.
By their own accounts, both Frankenstein and the monster begin with benevolent intentions and become murderers. The monster may seem more sympathetic because he is by nature an outsider, whereas Frankenstein deliberately removes himself from human society. When Frankenstein first becomes engrossed in his efforts to create life, collecting materials from the dissecting room and slaughterhouse, he breaks his ties with friends and family, becoming increasingly isolated. His father reprimands him for this, prompting Frankenstein to ask himself what his single-minded quest for knowledge has cost him, and whether or not it is morally justifiable. Looking back, he concludes that it is not, contrary to his belief at the time: "if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed" (p. 56). Passages such as this one suggest the possibility that Shelley is writing about the potentially disastrous consequences of not only human ambition, but also a specific kind of masculine ambition. The point of view here may be that of a nineteenth-century woman offering a feminist critique of history.
Far more than the simple ghost story a teenaged Shelley set out to write, Frankenstein borrows elements of Gothic horror, anticipates science fiction, and asks enduring questions about human nature and the relationship between God and man. Modern man is the monster, estranged from his creator—sometimes believing his own origins to be meaningless and accidental, and full of rage at the conditions of his existence. Modern man is also Frankenstein, likewise estranged from his creator—usurping the powers of God and irresponsibly tinkering with nature, full of benign purpose and malignant results.Frankenstein is both a criticism of humanity, especially of the human notions of technical progress, science, and enlightenment, and a deeply humanistic work full of sympathy for the human condition.
ABOUT MARY SHELLEY
Mary Shelley was born in London in 1797, the daughter of two well-known writers and radical political thinkers. Her mother, the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, died ten days after Shelley was born. Shelley grew up worshiping her father, William Godwin (to whom Frankenstein is dedicated). Emotionally distant, he nonetheless oversaw her education and held high expectations for her intellectual development and literary ambition. It was through her father that Mary met the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, then a young married man who admired Godwin's work and frequently visited their home. Mary was sixteen and Shelley was still married (and his wife pregnant) when they eloped to the continent to escape Godwin's wrath, taking with them Claire Clairmont, Mary's stepsister.
Much of Mary Shelley's life was marked by tumult and tragedy, giving her ample material for the themes of abandonment and loss that pervade Frankenstein. A daughter was born prematurely in 1815 and died a few days later. In 1816, when Mary, Percy, and Claire were neighbors of the poet Lord Byron in Switzerland, Byron proposed that for entertainment the assembled company, which included Byron's personal physician, each write "a ghost story." Mary began to writeFrankenstein. That same year, her half-sister, Fanny Imlay, committed suicide. A few months later, Percy's wife, Harriet, drowned. In December 1816, Mary and Percy were married in London. They had four children altogether, only one of whom survived childhood, before Percy Shelley drowned at sea in 1822.
During her lifetime, Mary Shelley wrote several novels, including Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826). She collected Percy Shelley's posthumous poetry and wrote biographical essays as well as numerous articles and stories for magazines. She died in London in 1851, at age fifty-three.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
FOR FURTHER REFLECTION
RELATED TITLES
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
In this tragic version of the Greek myth, Prometheus is a complex, heroic figure who suffers unjustly for defying Zeus by giving fire and other gifts to humans.
Karel Capek, R. U. R.: Rossum's Universal Robots (1920)
The word robot, from the Czech word for forced labor, entered the language in this popular and influential play about humanlike machines that ultimately cause more problems than they solve.
John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)
This monumental epic poem, which recounts Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the origin of Satan, is an endlessly rich exploration of the relationship between God and humans.
Harry Mulisch, The Procedure (2001)
Echoing the rabbi in the legend of the golem (as well as Victor Frankenstein), a Dutch biologist successfully develops life from inorganic matter—and suffers the consequences—in this novel investigating the nature of creation, love, and time.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound (1820)
In this lyrical drama, an allegorical continuation of Aeschylus's Prometheus cycle that takes on cosmic proportions, a Romantic Prometheus typifying an idealized humanity is wedded to Nature.