Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Genre: Classic Horror
Blurb (on back of book): Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.
MY OPINION: *****
This is my second time reading this book and I truly adored it this time around, despite my hatred for it the first time. I read this book for AP Literature class and ended up loving everything about it, which is an unpopular opinion for the majority of my class. However, I personally enjoyed the plot of this book and found the characters to all be beautifully flawed.
I think the main reason why I didn't like it the first time is because of my complete and utter lack of understanding about anything that was going on. I read it in 2016, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and had no idea what Mary Shelley was trying to say in any paragraph of this book. I definitely did not know what Romanticism was or the concept of nature vs. nurture and the perils of the pursuit of knowledge. Now, as a senior in high school who is personally very interested in history and the classics, I know a lot more about the themes depicted throughout this novel, thus making it a much more engaging and enjoyable read this time around.
A common misconception about this book that we must firstly clear up is that Frankenstein is not the monster. While I thought that that was common knowledge, apparently half my class didn't know it so I thought I should include it in this review. Frankenstein refers to Victor Frankenstein, the scientist who creates "the creature," which is the phrase we will refer to it as for the rest of this review.
An important theme within this book centers on the pursuit of knowledge and the dangers of the consumption of knowledge. I found it interesting to think about how someone can get so lost to the thrills of gaining knowledge and end up losing themselves to the point of creating a monster without thinking about the consequences. Victor, lost in his sudden interest in the sciences, endeavors to create a new form of life and spends months cooped up in his lab working on it without once thinking about the potential bad consequences of such an experiment. I couldn't help but laugh and roll my eyes at Victor's stupidity and lack of logical reasoning as he creates something so monstrous that he ends up casting his own creation out upon completion.
I felt bad for the creature throughout the entire book. He deserved so much better. Yet another important theme is the idea of nature vs. nurture and how the experiences one undergoes truly shapes a person and their resulting actions. If Victor had "raised" the creature the way a parent does a child, I believe the creature wouldn't have done the things that he did, or at least would have been less likely to commit such horrendous crimes.
Another thing I would love to touch upon is the importance of acceptance and the feeling of "belonging" to something, whether it be a group of people or the larger society. The creature is fueled by the hatred and disgust that he undergoes by the people around him to commit crimes without thinking. He is hated by his physical appearance by everyone he meets and slowly falls more and more into the "villain" mindset as more and more people scream, hurt, and show fear and disgust simply because of his "monstrous" appearance. I loved how Shelley touched upon this idea because it is obviously still very relevant to modern day society and unfortunately will still be relevant for at least many more generations.
The last thing I should most definitely include in this review is the importance of nature. This book was written during the height of the Romantic era, which, for those of you who don't know, had a large emphasis on nature and the importance of the relationship between humanity and nature. There is an important of the "sublime" in this era that was highly present throughout the book. While I don't particularly adore reading long laborious passages about nature and storms and trees and the water and the mountains, I did understand why it was incorporated into the book, whereas the younger version of myself most likely spent the whole time complaining about the long blocks about nature.
I absolutely adored the side characters, specifically Clerval. That man deserved so much better. He was so kind and caring about his friends and I loved everything about him.
While I didn't find this "scary" per say, it is a perfect example of a classic horror novel. I read Bram Stoker's Dracula at a young age as well and enjoyed it more than this one at the time but I truly appreciate the horrific aspects of this book. I liked how we got to see the perspectives of the creature, Frankenstein, and the overall narrator, Walton. I enjoyed the inclusion of Walton's character because it gave an extra layer to the narrative that gave it more of that telling-a-ghost-story-around-a-campfire feel, which I enjoyed.
Overall, I adored this book and was glad to have started AP Lit out with this one. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a classic horror novel that truly focuses on the monsters within us all.
Main Character: Victor, the Creature, Walton
Sidekick(s): Friends, family
Villain(s): The Creature, science, cruelness of society, etc
Classic Horror Elements: This book, while a classic, is written as a horror novel.
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