BOOK REPORT #2
REFERENCE:
1) Author: Mary Shelley.
2) Title: Frankenstein.
3) Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD.
4) Place of Publication: London, England
5) Date of Publication: 1992
6) Number of Pages: 208.
PLOT SUMMARY:
At the beginning, Robert Walton, an explorer looking for a new passage from Russia to the North Pacific Ocean via the Arctic, found a man who was weaken by the cold and told the man’s tragic story in the letter to his sister in England.
The man named Victor Frankenstein was grown up in Geneva, Switzerland and moved to Germany to study natural science. With time, Victor became obsessed with the ambition that he could recreate a human body. After his experiment with electricity, Victor made the ambition a reality. He opened graves and gathered limbs and organs from the dead body and put them together so as to produce an ideal artificial human. However, after bringing the creature to life, Victor soon regretted it because he was not a human but a “monster”, and abhorred his ugliness and deserted him. While the monster was following after Victor heading Swaziland, he learned how to read and speak from books and gained intelligence and human hart. Also, he learned who he was from the experience that he was mistreated by others due to his ugliness. Then, he appeared before Victor and demanded a creature of another sex to make his own family. If Victor did so, the monster promised not to appear again. At first, Victor tried to fulfill the promise from sympathy with the miserable monster, but finally refused because he feared the further increase of monsters. The monster got angry about it and vowed revenge against Victor, and then murdered his brother, friends and wife. His wife, Elizabeth, was killed on their wedding night as the monster warned.
Walton heard the Victor’s whole story and learned that Victor came here to kill the monster. However, Victor died on the Arctic Ocean without fulfilling his mission. Then the monster appeared before Walton and told him his side of the story, and disappeared in the darkness of the sea saying “I shall die.”
LITERARY TERMS:
1)Setting: The end of the 18th century Russia →The Arctic (present)
Switzerland, Germany, England and Ireland (reminiscence)
2) Point of View: This story is told from omniscient.
3) Conflict: Victor vs. the monster who was created by him.
4) Symbol: The ugliness of the monster means the ugliness of Victor himself because he
toyed with a human life.
5) Climax: When the artificial human became a real monster and killed Victor’s brother,
friends and beloved wife.
6) Irony: Although his ambition to control human life became a reality, Victor finally met with
a terrible misfortune. (Victor was revenged by the monster he created.)
7) Theme: Human cannot take control of nature including human life no matter how advanced
natural science has become.
EVALUATION:
This book is the most famous work among Gothic novels. Gothic novels are considered a prototype of Science Fiction or Horror novels. Around the end of the 18th century, people became interested in the world which they could not explain with reason. They were impressed by the ragged mountains and rude sea and enjoyed them in fear. In this book, I could find many descriptions about awesome nature. I think that Shelly intended to show the difference between nature and artificial illusion.
I thought Frankenstein the name of the monster before reading this book, but I soon found that it was the name of the doctor who created it. Frankly speaking, this book is much harder to read than I thought because it has not only difficult words but also some parts which require deep interpretations, so I also read Japanese version to keep better truck to understand the story. After reading this book, I felt sorry for the monster who had never been loved even by the creator himself. Through this book, I think that Shelly would like to warn that scientific advances might destroy humans if taken incorrectly. Especially, human life should not be controlled by human but should be only by God.
REFERENCE:
1) Author: Mary Shelley.
2) Title: Frankenstein.
3) Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD.
4) Place of Publication: London, England
5) Date of Publication: 1992
6) Number of Pages: 208.
PLOT SUMMARY:
At the beginning, Robert Walton, an explorer looking for a new passage from Russia to the North Pacific Ocean via the Arctic, found a man who was weaken by the cold and told the man’s tragic story in the letter to his sister in England.
The man named Victor Frankenstein was grown up in Geneva, Switzerland and moved to Germany to study natural science. With time, Victor became obsessed with the ambition that he could recreate a human body. After his experiment with electricity, Victor made the ambition a reality. He opened graves and gathered limbs and organs from the dead body and put them together so as to produce an ideal artificial human. However, after bringing the creature to life, Victor soon regretted it because he was not a human but a “monster”, and abhorred his ugliness and deserted him. While the monster was following after Victor heading Swaziland, he learned how to read and speak from books and gained intelligence and human hart. Also, he learned who he was from the experience that he was mistreated by others due to his ugliness. Then, he appeared before Victor and demanded a creature of another sex to make his own family. If Victor did so, the monster promised not to appear again. At first, Victor tried to fulfill the promise from sympathy with the miserable monster, but finally refused because he feared the further increase of monsters. The monster got angry about it and vowed revenge against Victor, and then murdered his brother, friends and wife. His wife, Elizabeth, was killed on their wedding night as the monster warned.
Walton heard the Victor’s whole story and learned that Victor came here to kill the monster. However, Victor died on the Arctic Ocean without fulfilling his mission. Then the monster appeared before Walton and told him his side of the story, and disappeared in the darkness of the sea saying “I shall die.”
LITERARY TERMS:
1)Setting: The end of the 18th century Russia →The Arctic (present)
Switzerland, Germany, England and Ireland (reminiscence)
2) Point of View: This story is told from omniscient.
3) Conflict: Victor vs. the monster who was created by him.
4) Symbol: The ugliness of the monster means the ugliness of Victor himself because he
toyed with a human life.
5) Climax: When the artificial human became a real monster and killed Victor’s brother,
friends and beloved wife.
6) Irony: Although his ambition to control human life became a reality, Victor finally met with
a terrible misfortune. (Victor was revenged by the monster he created.)
7) Theme: Human cannot take control of nature including human life no matter how advanced
natural science has become.
EVALUATION:
This book is the most famous work among Gothic novels. Gothic novels are considered a prototype of Science Fiction or Horror novels. Around the end of the 18th century, people became interested in the world which they could not explain with reason. They were impressed by the ragged mountains and rude sea and enjoyed them in fear. In this book, I could find many descriptions about awesome nature. I think that Shelly intended to show the difference between nature and artificial illusion.
I thought Frankenstein the name of the monster before reading this book, but I soon found that it was the name of the doctor who created it. Frankly speaking, this book is much harder to read than I thought because it has not only difficult words but also some parts which require deep interpretations, so I also read Japanese version to keep better truck to understand the story. After reading this book, I felt sorry for the monster who had never been loved even by the creator himself. Through this book, I think that Shelly would like to warn that scientific advances might destroy humans if taken incorrectly. Especially, human life should not be controlled by human but should be only by God.
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