Frankenstein: Week Two

[Marie]

Victor excels at university, and after intense study of the dead, he develops a secret technique to bring life to the non-living, leading to his creation.

At a loss of how to recreate the most intricate parts of the human body, Victor is forced to make the creature massive in stature, and sewn together from mismatched body parts. The beautiful creation of Victor's dreams is hideous, and he flees in repulsion, relieved when he returns to find the creature vanished.

Victor falls ill from exhaustion and is nursed back to health by his friend, Henry Clerval, who has come to study at the university. After a four-month recovery, he plans to return to his worried family in Geneva, when spring arrives and the weather is suitable for travel. He is forced to return home sooner, when he learns of his brother William's murder. As he returns, Victor sees the Creature, and believes him responsible for his brother's death.. Justine, a former ward and friend of the family, is convicted of the crime after their mother's locket, missing from William's body, is found in the pocket of her clothes, and witnesses say she was acting eratically. Victor doubts anyone would believe the true story, and Justine is hanged after her trial.

Months later, still plagued by guilt, Victor leaves for the mountains. The Creature finds him and gives Victor an ultimatum, that he hear his side of the story before Victor destroys him.

[QNPoohBear]

Victor's obsession with destiny is annoying the heck out of me. He continually refuses to take responsibility for his actions. He's fight or flight response is flight and he's always falling ill.

I feel very very bad for Justine and horrible for M. Frankenstein to lose his youngest son so horribly.

I don't remember these two early sections but I remember the Creature's story well.

[Sara]

I have more sympathy for any of the other characters, and at times even the monster, than I feel for Victor. He alone has created the situation and yet others are suffering far more brutally than he does.

[QNPoohBear]

Sara wrote: "I have more sympathy for any of the other characters, and at times even the monster, than I feel for Victor. He alone has created the situation and yet others are suffering far more brutally than h..."

Agreed. Victor is not a likeable character. He continually refuses to take responsibility for his actions. I read that the 1831 revised text actually makes Victor a little more sympathetic, which I'm not getting at all.

[Marie]

I honestly never thought about whether I liked Victor when reading this before. He's not meant to be liked, but I don't feel he's meant to be sympathetic either. His selfish obsession causes all of this suffering, for which his own suffering is all he really feels sorry for. There's obviously the cautionary tale of obsession, and the questions of how far we have right to go. I wonder if she wasn't pressured to further the "sympathetic" angle, much like being made push the idea of crimes against God.

[QNPoohBear]

In the 1818 edition, Victor keeps going on and on about destiny when it was really his own choices that shaped his future. Apparently in the 1831 revised text, she toned that down a little. She probably was pressured to change a lot of things. People had a hard time believing the story had been written by a woman and the content is pretty radical.