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A review by jennamcclendon
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

***SPOILERS AHEAD.***

 
Okay, first of all, I have to mention the introduction (since I got the Penguin Classics edition). I had known Mary Shelley was a girlboss and that this story had been created with her husband and a friend when thinking of ghost stories, but I never knew so much about the other influences. She had a lot of death in her life, but I think that was after she wrote this. Her husband was also an author, and their friend was THE Lord Byron. There were SO MANY influences on this book from stuff I had read and knew about, like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (A DIRECT ALLUSION IN THE BOOK), Pygmalion and Galatea, Paradise Lost, Inferno, and the story of Prometheus. I felt very smart being able to catch these references and I’m glad I was able to because it really added another layer to the story. 

I loved how Victor was introduced by Walton. I found the story starting with a letter to be very creative, and then those letters started to tell Victor’s story and how he came to get there. Young Victor was so cute with his science stuff and his (sometimes creepy) fascination with Elizabeth, and I was so sad when his mother passed. He also had that great teacher to look up to when he went to Ingolstadt and that warmed my heart as a future teacher. The buildup to him creating the monster was very dramatic and suspenseful, although I wish it detailed more what he had to do to make it more gruesome and for us to realize how horrible it actually was. The monster was once beautiful, but after Victor realized what he did, it became hideous. The monster did somewhat remind me of a toddler at the beginning though, which is essentially what he was because he had never been on Earth like this before. 

After the monster came to life, everything went downhill. :) He literally murdered a CHILD just because he wanted Victor’s attention, and then he blamed Justine? Sweet innocent Justine who so greatly looked up to the Frankensteins and was like a sister to Elizabeth. She took her death so well and I was so upset that she actually ended up dying, but her and William’s deaths were very motivating for Victor. 

I’m going to be honest, the thing with the monster and the cottagers was super sad. I felt bad for him. All his life he had watched these people and helped them and learned from them, and all he wanted was to be a part of their family. I was so excited when he finally learned to speak well enough to go talk to De Lacey, who didn’t care about his appearance because he was blind and only looked at his character. And then Felix and Agatha and Safie had to come in and freak out and ruin everything, and now the monster wants to kill people. He would have been FINE if they had just given him a chance. If that had never happened, he would have never asked Victor to make him a bride and Henry would have never died, Victor would never have been arrested, and Elizabeth and Victor also never would have died. (Also, Victor was definitely bisexual. He literally STATED that he would never have people like Henry and Elizabeth again HE LITERALLY LOVED THEM BOTH. IT WAS TOTALLY IMPLIED. HE REACTED WORSE TO HENRY’S DEATH THAN ELIZABETH’S AND THEIR WHOLE FAMILY ASKED IF HE LOVED SOMEONE ELSE. ANYWAY.) But that ending... Victor giving up and asking Walton to kill the monster before he died, and then the monster coming back to see him and attempting to have a redemption arc... THAT WAS DEPRESSING. I don’t know how much I liked the ending, but I think I like that Victor died before he could get his revenge. 

The SYMBOLISM in this book. First, there was the weather, and that played such a huge role in Victor’s life. Every time he was hopeful it was sunny, and every time something bad happened or was about to happen it was gloomy or stormy. Nature comforted Victor when he was stressed, but he defied it when he brought the dead back to life. There’s such a conflict between nature and science and divinity. I also really liked how at first Victor was God, and his monster was Satan, a creation that he ended up hating and swearing vengeance upon and kicking out of his life. In the end, Victor also became Satan, and at this point, they both wanted revenge on the other so much that it was their only desire to keep living. Paradise Lost was such a huge influence on this and you can definitely tell. 

I can see why we would have read this in AP Lit, especially with all of the BritLit influences. I wish I could have taken that class. :( But I am so glad that I read this because it had such a big influence on our culture not too long ago. It wasn’t what I expected (I wanted more monster/Victor scenes and I wanted to hear more about the creation and stuff), but it was still worth the read. It’s definitely a more interesting classic if you can get past the slow pacing and backstory sometimes. Would recommend. :) 
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