Review: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

 

Synopsis:

A young British woman, Mary Shelley, imbued with the nascent feminist movement, wrote the work during a vacation with her husband, also a writer, at Lord Byron's residence by Lake Geneva in 1816, when the idea of writing a story of ghosts and apparitions was proposed to the group of friends to distract them. Written in epistolary style, Frankenstein went beyond the limits of the proposal and became a masterpiece in the form of a parable that deals with the science of good and evil, the pride and responsibility of knowledge and the loneliness of monsters.

Review:

Well, we have all heard at least once about this monster, and I have long been looking forward to reading his story, the original one, the one written by Mary Shelly back in 1818.

Before I start with the review I want to tell you that all my life I thought that "Frankenstein" was the monster, but it was actually the name of the scientist who created the monster. I found this out last year from a professor who just started talking about this work.

The book begins with letters Walton sends to his sister telling her how he is doing on his voyage across the sea in search of unknown lands, places where no one has ever gone before, thus making great discoveries for all mankind.

Walton could well be in his mansion enjoying his inheritance and living a comfortable life but instead he has decided to follow this unusual dream.

In one of the letters Walton tells his sister what has happened to him on that trip, that although so far he has not discovered new lands, and the cold is unbearable, he has found a strange fellow by the name of Victor Frankenstein about to die and floating on a piece of ice in the middle of the ocean.

When Frankenstein recovers some strength he begins to tell us his story.

Frankenstein already as a child began to show interest in chemistry, and when he decides to travel to go to an important faculty and complete his studies, he becomes interested in where the beginning of life came from and after much research he manages to create a human being.

But neither he nor the world was ready for what would arise from that table of experiments.

"With an anxiety that was almost agony, I arranged around me the instruments that would enable me to communicate a vital spark to that dead thing lying at my feet. It was already one o'clock in the morning, the rain was pattering melancholy on the glass and my candle was almost consumed, when its faint glow I saw the yellowish eyes of my work open.

He breathed in deeply and a shudder shook him from head to lower extremities."

Thus is born the monster of this book. Frankenstein runs away leaving him alone, to his fate in a world he did not understand and did not seem to fit in.

This novel made me feel very bad, it is too sad, the monster is not evil but he feels very lonely. He discovers by himself that he can see, he can feel, he can walk, he is hungry, cold, pain and feelings.

But every time he gets close to humans, they react by screaming, hitting or running away, making the monster resentful towards people and especially towards his creator, whom he had not yet had the opportunity to meet.

Eventually he discovers that Victor Frankenstein is his creator and decides to look for him and entrust him with a very important mission, and if he fulfills it, the monster would go far away where no human could find him and not harm anyone, but if the scientist did not agree it would be the worst nightmare he could imagine.

"You are my creator, but I am your master! Obey!"

The decision is left in the hands of the scientist Victor Frankenstein what will he choose?

This story made me feel very sorry for the monster, for his loneliness and how he tries to fit in this cruel world. We can see, that people are the ones that lead him to commit some acts of which he suffers a lot doing them. Acts that he commits mowed down by anger.

"Merciless creator! 

You have given me feelings and passions, 

but you have abandoned me to the contempt 

and to the disgust of mankind"

It seemed to me a book that we should all read sometime, and from which we can rescue many things. 

As for the edition of the book I have suffered a little, because I bought a paperback edition and the letter is very small, at times I had to stop reading because I could not stand it but I wanted to keep reading haha. So I recommend you to get a good edition and take care of your eyes. (By the way, I paid 150 pesos arg. for it).

I marked almost the whole book with post-it and highlighter, so you can see how much I liked it.

The ending is too sad, it almost made me cry. I would love to tell you about it but it would be a huge spoiler. Those of you who decide to read it or those who already read it I'm sure you must think the same about that ending.