Frankenstein (Cliffs Notes)

Most interpretations of this novel are flawed because they are based Victor Frankenstein's own opinions, which are not confirmed by any other character or by the outcome of the narrative. Victor's grim view of his own career and particularly his creature commences at the moment when the creature comes to life and fails, like any artist's work, to meet the creator's high hopes. By his own admission, Victor has deprived himself of sleep and nourishment, not to mention even the slightest social intercourse such as letters to his family might have provided. He is on the verge of a physical and nervous breakdown which overtakes him on the very next day and from which he does not recover for many months. In this condition, when he sees the creature suddenly open its eye and move, and somewhat later smile upon its creator and reach out towards him, its ugliness appalls him, for the labor is now complete and all imperfections are irremediable.
Mere ugliness is the sole flaw which Victor notices in his work, but that is sufficient to drive him from it and thus to allow it to escape. This mistake is ultimately to blame for the creature's learning to hate mankind. Since Victor has been so obsessively preoccupied with the task of conferring life upon dead matter, he has made no provision for the next step, and the creature is allowed to wander abroad without supervision or care. Victor is totally unaware of its innocence until after its goodness has been crushed by yet more human prejudice against physical ugliness. Indeed, Victor does not hear his creature's side of the story until after the innocent William has died, and it would be surprising indeed if the brother's grief and self-reproach left him capable of recognizing the creature's innocence of evil intent in the death of William. We know, however, that he did not intend to kill the child in spite of the world's having thoroughly educated him in brutality and hatred. On the contrary, even at that late date he intended to make William his friend.
Yet Victor cannot accept his true responsibility for having failed to provide for his creature as his own parents had provided for him. Rather, his heavy sense of guilt induces him to shift the blame to the science which led him to create the being in the first place. Just as he calls science ``unlawful'' for taking him away from the calm and serene enjoyment of his family even though it is clear that his own obsessive-compulsive nature is at fault, so he also blames science for bringing the creature into the world whereas its evil was not innate but learned. Parental irresponsibility is simply too heavy a burden for Victor to carry.
Critics, however, accept his assessment of the situation, especially that aspect of his interpretation which arises when, by a flash of lightning, he catches sight of the creature in the storm and supposes it to be the murderer of William. The fact that this guess is in fact correct is probably why its rashness is not more generally recognized, and once we accept this piece of the speech, the rest of it follows although it is nothing but the most violent hysteria. Beginning with the naive assumption that ``nothing in human shape'' could have committed so heinous a crime (for Victor hasn't had the benefit of the twentieth-century press), he says that the creature had to be guilty, declaring in defiance of all his scientific training that ``the very existence of the thought was an inescapable proof of the fact.'' And from this reckless reasoning he moves on to the fanciful view of the creature as ``my own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to kill all that I held dear,'' as if the creature were a kind of doppleganger sent to punish its creator for the crime of having defied the laws of nature by calling it into existence.
The fact that by understanding those laws Victor has created a being not only more agile and enduring than mankind but also full of goodness is somehow lost sight of, and Victor's own self-loathing is allowed to drive the critics' supernatural interpretation of the events. It is even rare to find any admission that the creature is guilty of only two deliberate crimes: framing Justine and murdering Elizabeth. The creature's narrative is sufficient to account for every single detail of its behavior, and yet the idea that it is some sort of preternatural vampire stubbornly refuses to be displaced. It is time to accept the idea that Victor Frankenstein is deranged and that his life has not been ruined by science but rather by his own frenzy, obsessions, and impracticality.

yep. uh huh. you bet. this book was nice. i red it.

Victor Frankenstein's creation had murdered members of his family and strangled to death his fiance on their wedding night fulfilling his threat to "be with you on your wedding night" and warned Victor, "You are my creator but I am your master." As Victor centered his life around creating the monster, he would later center it around hunting down and killing his creation. This manhunt would expend Victor's life and prove his efforts futile to catch an untouchable and nameless monster. This novel is full of enduring themes of ambition, friendship, and the conflict between the two, psychology, oppression and rebellion, the dangers of scientific and intellectual advancement, and societal injustice. The writing itself isn't great but it's the story and the themes that make this a great classic.

Shelley wrote this book influenced by the period of time in which she lived, the Romantic Period. This was the response to the previous time, the Age of Enlightenment. In the Age of Enlightenment, reasoning was deemed of utmost importance and people thought that there were natural laws and that reason plus these natural laws would equal progress. By progress, they meant not only advancement, but unlimited advancement, that society would continue to move closer and closer to perfection. In Frankenstein, we see the result of so much logic and reason- the creation of a monster. In the story there seems to be no natural laws governing the world.

When I think of what natural laws would govern the world, Justice comes to mind as the most important. Throughout this whole story, justice is so dearly lacking. Injustice leads to more injustice. The monster is born into unforgiving circumstances that were not his fault. His creator rejects him immediately. Throughout his life, the monster found himself rejected by everyone for the repulsive looks his creator gave him. The monster even suffered rejection of the impoverished family he ardently and sacrificially helped. When he saved a girl from drowning, her father shot him. The monster yearned desperately for a mate of his kind, which Victor denied him for fear the two would breed an entire race of fiends or that she, too would reject him and there would be two fiends. Decide this debate between the monster and Victor for yourself. Even if Victor was right to deny him a mate, it was still an injustice for the monster. After all, the monster could not help the disadvantages he was born into and he strove mightily to be virtuous. He exercised his will and responsibility strongly, but to no avail. The poor thing begs for just one friend and he is denied this. The innocent Justine (a play on the word "Justice") is executed for the monster's crime; the monster eventually slays several innocent people he doesn't even know. Injustice is what moves the plot of this book.

Shelley's novel disputes the importance and promise of natural laws, reasoning, and the idea of progress. It introduces emotion and intuition. Frankenstein studied laboriously but failed because he left the monster emotionally neglected and rejected. When Victor first learns of the murder of an innocent member of his family, he intuitively knows it was the doing of the monster- he offers no reasoning or deduction as to how he knows. The monster hounds Victor and seems to supernatually know where he is at all times.

One of the many interpretations of Frankenstein is that it was a product of the Romantic Period, which was a response to the Age of Enlightenment.

Seeing as how I didn't like Frakenstein very much at all, this book kept me at least fairly interested in the novel.

The novel is very long, repetitive, and extremely slow at times, and the book helps make it a lot faster, and reviews the main plot so the complicated sentence structure of the book is easier to decode.

Also, Cliffs notes tells about the literary messages of the novel, hard to figure out unless you know about romanticism, and explains most of the olden-style vocabulary.

Finally, there is an excellent character web that explains all the relationships.

All in all, helped me a lot with the novel.