Chapters 4, 5 and 6: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

[Chris OConnor]

Chapters 4, 5 and 6: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

[Cattleman]

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 bring us to the meat of the story. Victor begins his studies at university, and becomes obsessed with the nature of life. Interesting, Shelley is quite vague on the creation of the 'monster' (I will use this term for identification, and I do not believe it is ever given a name), and how it is brought to life. I know the movies show lots of electricity (e.g., the 'great kites' in "Bride of Frankenstein"), but there is no mention of a chemical injection, electrical shock, or other method. As I think on this, it is really not essential to the story.

What are your thoughts? Should Mary Shelley have gone into more detail? Considering the state of science when the book was written, is it even possible for her to have done so?

[LanDroid]

Although very well written, gotta admit I wanted more detail in this section. The main episode is covered in only a few pages - from learning the secret of creating life, performing experiments for over a year, then succeeding in creating life, and having the creation abandon him (or mutual abandonment).

It was probably wise for Shelley not go into "scientific" detail on how this was accomplished, but she could have had more interaction between Victor and the monster at the beginning. Instead Victor immediately runs out, spends the night in a rainy courtyard, finds Henry Clerval later that morning, brings him back to the house and, mercifully, the creature is gone. Then Victor seems to almost forget about the monster for two years...

On the other hand, leaving out detail lets the imagination run wild.

[LanDroid]

Victor sets an extremely high standard.

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

And admits he is not living up to it, a danger signal.

Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete.