Week One: Frankenstein

For this week we were asked to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I have not read any of the origins of Frankenstein until we were ask to read this version this week. My background on Frankenstein that I have acquired over the years is made up of many different versions that I have seen in movies or have been told. The different versions go from one extreme to another for an example one Frankenstein was not smart and could not talk well. The town’s people found out about the doctor stealing body parts. In the end the town’s people tried to burn down the castle to kill the monster but the doctor ends up being stuck in the castle. Frankenstein ends up saving the doctors life.  For the opposite

type of Frankenstein, which was used in the movie Van Helsing. This Frankenstein was smart and sassy and you got to see more of a character development throughout the movie.  There is more to this Frankenstein besides being made up of dead body parts.

I found that the Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was extremely different from what I expected. One thing that threw me off was the doctor “Victor Frankenstein” was actually not an adult in his 30s to 40s when he made the monster. In this version he was actually roughly a sophomore in college at the University of Ingolstadt in Germany, which puts him roughly around 19 to 20 years old. Another part of the story I found unique about this version was after the creature was made. Victor was repulsed by his work, and he flees, which in turned saddened by the rejection, the creature disappears.

The next section that I wanted to talk about is very sad and heart wrenching. Victor feels grief and guilt, because he thinks that his monster killed his brother William and set up Justine to take the blame. Victor ends up going into the mountains and the monster

locates him. At this point the monster can talk which throws off Victor and the monster tells him his story. After the monster was rejected by Victor. He fled into the woods and ended up finding a cottage where he learned to speak by listening to the people in the cottage talking and learned to read after finding some discarded books. The monster sees himself in a reflection in a pool and realizes how scary you looks. Even though he is scary looking he then tries to approach the cottage to become their friend but he ends up scaring off the people in the cottage. In a fit of rage he burn down the cottage.  The Monster then demands that Victor create a female companion like himself. He argues that as a living being, he has a right to happiness. The Creature promises he and his mate will vanish into the wilderness, never to reappear, if Victor grants his request. I find that this section sad because if Victor never rejected the monster that he created. Then the monster would not have all this pent-up anger and would have better morals and ethics.  Also the monster wouldn’t have killed or injured people he came cross.

After that the story gets messier and intense. I found this version of Frankenstein to be really fun to read enjoyable. It’s really different from other things of Frankenstein that I know. Overall the book is gut wrenching and a great read.