Frankenstein Summary

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Frankenstein Summary

Frankenstein Chapter 1 Summary

The new guy’s name is Victor Frankenstein. He’s just about on his deathbed from starvation, exhaustion, and illness. Even though he’s half-dead, he still likes to talk, a lot. Instead of just saying, "Hey, my name is Victor. I created a monster, and now I’m trying to kill him because he killed everyone I know," he has to start with the beginning of his childhood: "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born" style. Get ready. He’s got parents. They are named Alphonse and Caroline. Then there is Elizabeth. Elizabeth Lavenza. Mary Shelley couldn’t really make up her mind about how she became part of Victor’s family, but we’re guessing you are probably reading the 1831 edition of this novel, so we’ll say she was adopted from some Italian family by Caroline when Victor was all of five-years-old. Victor’s parents thought it would be a good idea to adopt a girl to be Victor’s future wife. Lucky for Victor, Elizabeth is hot. So Elizabeth comes back to Geneva to live with Victor’s family. Victor is pretty much accepting of this fate. In general, if something is fate, Victor is ready to give in to it. And, as you are about to see, he seems to think an awful lot of things are fate.

Frankenstein Chapter 2 Summary

Unlike Walton, Victor has friends. Two of them. Or at least, he did during his childhood. First, there is Elizabeth. Victor also has a friend named Henry Clerval.
Victor describes his idyllic childhood, but don’t worry: less happy things are coming. Begin use of historical present. As a brooding teenager, Victor develops an interest in science. Especially interesting to him is the old, not to mention discredited, field of alchemy. He talks a lot about some guy named Albertus Magnus, who was a real scientist, by the way. Victor realizes that science is very powerful, but possibly also destructive, when he sees a tree get struck by lightning. Hmm!

Frankenstein Chapter 3 Summary

Elizabeth catches scarlet fever. She would have died if their mother has not nursed her back to health. Elizabeth recovers, but Caroline catches the illness and dies herself. Really bad things begin here. On her deathbed, she tells Victor and Elizabeth she wants them to get married. A few weeks later, Victor goes away to study at a university called Ingolstadt. He’s only seventeen. Once he gets there, he finds a place to live and starts chatting up professors. Some guy named M. Krempe teaches natural philosophy and basically discredits alchemy entirely, to Victor’s dismay. Imagine studying all through high school only to get to college and have your teachers tell you that everything you know is wrong and stupid. Luckily, Victor meets a nice chemistry professor named Waldman and decides to study science. The real kind.

Frankenstein Chapter 4 Summary

Victor becomes a huge nerd. He doesn’t make friends. He doesn’t write home, not even to his hot sister/future wife, Elizabeth. On the plus side, Victor’s studies advance rapidly, which tends to happen when you’re in self-prescribed social exile. Soon, he has mastered everything there possibly is to know in the world.
He becomes obsessed with the way some things are alive and others…aren’t really. He wants to figure out how to make non-living things into living ones. From a psychological perspective, this probably has something to do with the fact that Victor’s mother just died. This is not a healthy alternative to counseling. Victor studies anatomy to learn about how bodies live and die. He decides he wants to make a new race of creatures, and in his spare time he starts assembling pieces of corpses. No one mentions this, but it probably smells really bad at his place. Further, no one seems too worried about where Victor is getting all the pieces of corpses to sew together. Are we the only curious ones?
Obsession becomes Victor’s middle name.

Frankenstein Chapter 5 Summary

On a dark and stormy night… no seriously, that’s in the book. Anyway, on a foreboding night, Victor brings the stitched up corpse pieces to life. Victor is on the brink of the achievement of a lifetime. He has visions of a Nobel Prize in Potentially Evil and Highly Suspect Late-Night Doings. He has created a superior race of people. He is going to win fame and adoration and, oh wait. No! The monster is huge and not exactly aesthetically pleasing. Victor is roughly thinking, "uh-oh." But wait, you say. What’s so bad about this monster? Does he club baby seals or throw soda cans in the trash instead of recycling them? Did he hit someone’s mother? Nope. Nope. Nope. He’s just ugly. That’s it. And frankly, who did Victor expect from a pile of corpse parts, Brad Pitt? And isn’t beauty supposed to be on the inside? But in this story, beautiful = good, ugly = evil. Got it? Take it up with Shelley. Or societal ideals of the 1800s. The monster leans over Victor and smiles at him. Oh, the horror.
But Victor has just had a nightmare about Elizabeth and his mother’s corpses (think foreshadowing), so when he sees the ugly smile, he runs out of his house and spends the night in his courtyard. The next morning, Victor goes for a walk. He can’t seem to be able to stand being in the same room as someone who is ugly.
In town, in one of many remarkably convenient coincidences in this book, Victor runs into his dear old buddy Henry near the town inn. Henry has come to study at Ingolstadt. It’s the thing to do. Don’t worry – Henry is attractive. So it’s okay for Victor to be friends with him. Victor immediately falls ill with a fever, and Henry nurses him back to health over a number of months. Illnesses lasted a long time back then because they didn’t have things like penicillin or hygiene. When Victor recovers, Henry gives him some letters from Elizabeth.

Frankenstein Chapter 6 Summary

Elizabeth is worried about Victor’s illness. We are reminded that Victor has at least one good thing going for him right now. She also nags Victor to write home. Eventually, he does. She also tells him about a girl named Justine who has come to live with their family (as a servant) in Geneva after her own mother’s death.
Victor finally recovers…several months after the shock of seeing something ugly.
Henry and Victor both start studying "Oriental" languages in school. Victor tries to avoid all the science people. They think he is being modest, but he can’t stand to look at them or talk to them because they remind him of the huge mistake he has made. He decides to return to Geneva. Before he does, he and Henry go for a walk in nature and appreciate how beautiful it is. Perhaps we would even call it sublime. Hmm! Nature is beautiful…there’s something unnatural about the ugly creature…

Frankenstein Chapter 7 Summary

Back at school, Victor gets a letter from Dad. It seems that someone has murdered his little brother, William. He leaves for Geneva immediately. Victor arrives too late – the gates of the city have been closed for the night. Victor lurks around the woods near where his brother was killed. He sees the monster he created for a moment and it occurs to him that, since the monster isn’t attractive, he probably committed the murder. No one else has seen this monster or knows anything about it.
At home the next day (the gates have been opened by now), Victor finds out that Justine has been accused of the murder because she has a picture of Caroline in her pocket – the same picture William had with him right before he died. Victor and Elizabeth are the only ones who think Justine is innocent. Well, Justine, too.
But coward that he is, Victor won’t tell anyone why. He’s afraid to be labeled a crazy person.

Frankenstein Chapter 8 Summary

Shocking! Justine confesses even though she is innocent so that she won’t go to Hell. Elizabeth and Victor still believe in her innocence, although no one else does. Again, except for Justine. Justine is executed. Victor feels stupid. And guilty. His secret has now caused two people he loves to die.

Frankenstein Chapter 9 Summary

Victor continues to feel 1) stupid and 2) guilty. He mopes around, contemplating suicide. His father takes the family to Belrive to try to put the past behind them.
Victor goes off by himself to the valley of Chamounix and feels momentary happiness due to how beautiful it is (again with the beautiful nature bit – pay attention), but the feeling passes.

Frankenstein Chapter 10 Summary

Victor feels awful. Then it rains. He goes up to the top of Montanvert to see the views, since pretty things have a way of cheering him up. Instead he sees the monster. Victor threatens to essentially kick the monster's butt, but the monster looks like The Rock. The monster, despite everything, invites Victor to come to a cave to talk with him by a fire. FIRE. Look out for that Prometheus reference.
The monster talks eloquently, so Victor consents to listen to the his life story. We know what you’re thinking. Uh-oh – are we in for another "Chapter One: I am Born?" No. This guy is a lot more interesting than Victor.

Frankenstein Chapter 11 Summary

The monster relates how he slowly learned about the world through his senses. He also discovered both the benefits of fire (warmth) and its drawbacks (that burning sensation). Begin use of historical present. At first, the monster attempts to get food by going into a hut, but the inhabitants scream in fear and run out. The same thing happens to him every time he goes into a village, or actually, any dwelling of people anywhere. The monster realizes that everyone is prejudiced against him because he is ugly. Finally, he finds a small hovel near a cottage and settles in there, watching the family, which consists of a blind old man, and two younger people.

Frankenstein Chapter 12 Summary

The monster stays in the hovel all winter. He kind of grows fond of the family he is watching. In fact, he really cares about them. At first, he steals food from them, but when he realizes they are poor, he stops and finds food in the woods instead. He also does work at night, like clearing snow or gathering them firewood, just to help them out. Why? Because he’s a genuine, nice guy. Seriously. The monster is one of the kindest, most helpful people we see in this book. He learns that the two younger people are named Felix and Agatha. The monster also realizes they can talk, and he listens to them until he learns their language. The monster thinks they are beautiful, and he gets really upset when he looks at his reflection in a pond and remembers how hideous he is. Poor guy. It’s really not his fault he’s ugly. He feels increasingly isolated, especially when he sees that everyone around him seems to have someone.

Frankenstein Chapter 13 Summary

Because the monster is all sensitive and stuff, he starts to realize that Felix is totally sad, too. Soon, a hot, foreign woman arrives at the cottage. Felix perks up. So does everyone else. The woman, Safie, doesn’t speak the language that the rest of the cottage people do, so they teach it to her. The monster eagerly eavesdrops on her lessons and learns the language, too. He also learns to read.
He learns about history from the book Ruins of Empires that Felix uses to teach Safie. The monster’s increasing literacy and knowledge is both good and bad; it brings him an understanding of the world he’s in, but it reminds him that he can’t really participate in the world. He’s ugly and different, and now he really knows it. And he’s alone, and he really knows that, too.

Frankenstein Chapter 14 Summary

The monster eavesdrops on the family all the time. Now that he understands what they’re saying, he puts together their story, which in many ways is like what has happened to Victor’s family. Safie’s Turkish father was accused wrongly of a crime, much like Justine, and sentenced to death. Safie wanted to marry a European man because Turkish men treat women too much like property, a supposed product of them being Muslim, and her Christian mother taught her that that was a raw deal. Luckily, she met Felix when he was visiting her father in prison, and they fell in love.
Agatha, Felix, and the blind old man (named De Lacey) were at one time respected and rich Parisians. Felix plotted to help Safie’s father escape from prison, but he was discovered, and the family was exiled sans all their money. Safie’s father tried to force her to move to Constantinople, but she escaped to Felix. These stories give the monster hope that Felix and De Lacey will be compassionate towards him, since they too have suffered injustice. Not only is the monster kind, but he seems to have quite a sophisticated understanding of the human psyche.

Frankenstein Chapter 15 Summary

(We are still inside the monster’s story to Victor.)
The monster finds books and clothes in the woods one night while he is foraging for food. The most important book for him is Paradise Lost, which the monster mistakenly reads as history instead of fiction. How would he know? He sympathizes with Satan’s character. Interesting. Since the monster can read, he also finds some of Victor’s journal entries in the pockets of the clothes he initially took from Victor. He discovers that Victor was totally grossed out by him and hated that he had brought the monster to life. This stings considerably. The monster decides that his last hope for social acceptance lies with the cottagers. Since De Lacey is blind and the younger people often leave him alone during the day, the monster hopes that he can gain De Lacey’s trust and acceptance and in turn be trusted by Felix, Agatha, and Safie. Soon, the monster gets his opportunity. He approaches De Lacey, who is kind and cordial to him. As bad luck would have it, the others return too soon, and Felix drives the monster away. When the monster comes back, the family has moved out.

Frankenstein Chapter 16 Summary

Seeing as everyone hates him for no fair reason, the monster swears revenge on all people, particularly that jerk who created him only to live miserably, ugly, and alone.
Still, he shows his compassion by rescuing a little girl who slips into a stream and almost drowns. He’s a hero, see? But when the man accompanying the girl sees the rescue, he assumes the monster is attacking the girl and shoots him. Not the nicest way to say "thank you." The monster hides out in the woods, nursing his wounded shoulder. Things are not going so well for him. In another occurrence of astounding coincidence, the monster makes it to Geneva and runs into William Frankenstein, Victor’s younger brother. Apparently shallowness runs in the family, because William reacts much the same way Victor did, calling the monster ugly and wretched.
The monster is about to let this go when William threatens that his father is Alphonse Frankenstein. Bad call. Enraged upon realizing that William is related to his creator, the monster strangles him with his bare hands. Afterwards, he takes the picture of Caroline from William’s dead hands and puts it in Justine’s pocket. We told you he was clever. It is after this explanation that the monster asks for Victor to help him out by creating for him a mate so he won’t be alone. We probably would have buttered up Victor differently than confessing to murdering his brother. Just a thought.

Frankenstein Chapter 17 Summary

Victor refuses the monster’s request. The monster’s pretty smart though, and he changes tactics by saying that Victor owes him a mate. It is his duty as creator. (Think God, Adam, and Eve.) He says it will make him less evil because it is loneliness that has made him such a grumpy jerk/murderer. The monster promises to take his new mate to a South American jungle and hide away from people for the rest of their lives. Sounds fair. Victor bends like a wet noodle. He agrees, convinced by the monster’s smooth rhetoric. The monster is thrilled. He’s going to have his own girlfriend. Still, he doesn’t exactly trust Victor-the-Dead-Beat-Dad. So he vows to follow Victor to check in on his progress. He says he’ll know when the work is done, which is just a little creepy and ominous.

Frankenstein Chapter 18 Summary

Victor procrastinates. Finally he decides to go off to England to work on his project.
Before he goes, his father notices that Victor seems pretty upset. Only he thinks it’s because Victor doesn’t want to marry his hot sister Elizabeth anymore. In Victor’s defense, she is adopted. No, Victor is down for the marriage. But first he’s gotta make a second monster. Victor arranges with his father to leave for two years. Henry goes with him. Uh-oh.

Frankenstein Chapter 19 Summary

Victor can’t really work with Henry and the monster breathing down his neck, so he leaves Henry with an acquaintance in Scotland. Victor then rushes off to Orkneys, where he can work on his lady monster in solitude. Still, this guy has a tough time getting himself to work. He worries that he might just be making another destructive monster who wants to kill even more people. Victor spends all his time alone with his half-finished monster and a guilty conscience. We still don’t know where he gets the body parts and stuff to make the second creation.

Frankenstein Chapter 20 Summary

All Victor really does is work in his little, abandoned shack. He has all the time in the world to think. He has the sudden realization that the new monster will have free will. This complicates things. Even if monster #1 agrees to be peaceful, monster #2 might be furiously angry at being made so hideous. She might hate monster #1. Mrs. Monster might very well go on a killing rampage, and then whose fault would that be? It would be Victor’s. At least he thinks so. AND what if they had monster babies? The thought is too terrible for Victor to even consider. In the middle of his work, with the monster watching through the window, Victor destroys everything. He thinks he’s done a good thing. Maybe he has. But he has broken his promise. The monster vows to exact revenge on Victor, promising in a very scary way to be with him on his wedding night. Unfortunately, one of Victor’s main flaws is his obsession with himself. He assumes that the monster intends to kill him on his wedding night, ignoring the much more obvious threat to Elizabeth, despite the fact that the monster has made a habit of killing people Victor loves. We call this frustrating. English majors calls it "dramatic irony." The next night, Victor gets a letter from Henry. It basically says, "What’s taking so long? Let’s go already." Victor rows out into the ocean, taking the she-monster remains with him and dumping them into the water.
After deciding NOT to perish at sea, Victor lands in a nearby town, where instead of being treated hospitably, the people accuse him of committing a murder that happened there the night before. This is fitting, since he did sort of just commit a murder. And dump the body into the water.

Frankenstein Chapter 21 Summary

So, things get worse from there. The town magistrate, Mr. Kirwin, makes Victor look at the body to see if he has some reaction to it. Very sadly, the dead guy is Henry. So Victor is accused of murdering Henry, who really got murdered because Victor destroyed the monster’s potential wife. We also almost forgot how attractive Henry is. So Shelley reminds us. Victor falls ill and stays that way for two months.
Recovered, he finds himself in prison. Not the best way to wake up from a feverish illness. Mr. Kirwin is now inexplicably more compassionate towards Victor than before his illness. Further, to Victor’s surprise, his father comes to see him.
The court ends up finding Victor innocent of Henry’s death. Something about circumstantial evidence and shameless authorial manipulation of the plot.
The point is, he can now return to Geneva with his father.

Frankenstein Chapter 22 Summary

Victor stops to rest in Paris and recover his strength. He gets a letter from Elizabeth, asking him if he is in love with someone else. Nope, not the last time he checked.
He thinks about the monster’s threats, still so painfully oblivious to the monster’s true intent. He decides to get on with the marriage and fight the monster, win or lose, to be free of him one way or the other. Back in Geneva, he tells Elizabeth that he has a terrible secret. He can’t tell her until after they are married. This is never a good sign.
Elizabeth, however, is unfazed. So they get married and go off to a family cottage in pretty much the middle of nowhere.

Frankenstein Chapter 23 Summary

The newlyweds go for a walk around at their cottage. Only Victor has more than wedding night jitters. He is just oozing fear about the monster’s arrival. Inside the cottage, he sends Elizabeth to bed so he can search the house for the monster. This is not how a wedding night is supposed to go down. Big mistake. He hears Elizabeth scream. It suddenly hits Victor what we’ve all know for chapters now: the monster didn’t want to kill him. He wanted, and got, Elizabeth. The body count has now reached four. Poor Victor really hates himself at this point. He goes home to Geneva to tell his father the sad news, and the man drops dead from grief.
The body count has now reached five. Victor is alone and miserable. Just like the monster he created. He goes to a magistrate to try and tell him about the monster and Elizabeth’s death, but the magistrate doesn’t believe him. Since Victor has nothing left to live for, he decides to spend the rest of his life hunting down the monster and attempting to kill him.

Frankenstein Chapter 24 Summary

The Great Pursuit begins. The monster leaves a trail of clues for Victor to follow, but never allows his creator to get close enough to catch him. During his chase, Victor meets Walton. We’re back to the story in a story now, where Victor is on the boat with that sensitive, superior guy who writes letters to his sister. Remember? Victor asks Walton to keep up after the monster after Victor dies. After that, Victor’s narrative ends. Walton, for some bizarre reason, believes all of Victor’s lunatic ravings. He wishes he had known Victor when he was normal, too, because he thinks he would have made a good friend. The crew asks Walton if they can head home already, because with the sub-zero temperatures and the stuck-in-the-ice situation, morale has gotten unbearably low. Victor berates them for giving up, and they are momentarily moved to agree with him. But two days later, they ask again, and Walton is all "Fine. We can go home." When the ship is about to return to England, Victor dies. Just like that. A few days pass. Walton hears strange noises coming from the room where Victor’s body is. He finds the monster crying over Victor’s body. Exclamation point. Walton is surprised. The monster is still ugly, especially when he’s crying. Walton’s pretty nice to the monster, though.
The monster concludes that now that his maker is dead, he has no more life purpose such as killing Victor’s friends or leaving Victor puzzling clues or stalking Victor from afar. Now that he has nothing left, the monster decides to build a funeral pyre for himself on a mountaintop and die. He leaves the ship and disappears into the dark.

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Author : E.Minshall

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