Frankenstein Summary and Complete Study Guide

**Victor Frankenstein**: The ambitious young scientist obsessed with creating life. Mary Shelley makes his flaw clear: he loves the theory of creation but is repulsed by the reality. The moment the Creature opens his eyes, Victor runs away like a deadbeat dad. He gets sick, recovers, and just... doesn't go back. He abandons his creation to figure out the world alone. Later, when the Creature finds him and asks for basic compassion, Victor starts creating a mate then destroys her out of fear. Every choice Victor makes is about avoiding responsibility. He's brilliant but selfish, pioneering but cowardly. His pursuit of the Creature across the Arctic is revenge, not justice—he's still not taking responsibility, just blaming his creation for consequences he caused. **The Creature**: Most sympathetic "monster" in literature. He wakes up confused in Victor's lab, gets abandoned, and teaches himself to read using Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and The Sorrows of Young Werther (very specific taste for someone who found random books). He saves a girl from drowning and gets shot. He helps a family by cutting wood anonymously, then reveals himself and they beat him with sticks. Every attempt at kindness gets punished because he's ugly. His request for a companion is reasonable—just make someone who won't reject me. Victor's refusal to create a mate is what transforms the Creature from rejected victim into murderer. He kills not from evil nature but from learned hatred after a lifetime of rejection. His eloquence in the book contradicts the popular image of a grunting monster. He out-argues Victor philosophically. **Robert Walton**: The frame narrator whose Arctic exploration mirrors Victor's ambition. His letters to his sister frame the story. He rescues Victor and hears his warning about dangerous ambition, then actually listens and turns his ship around—he's the only character who learns before tragedy strikes. His presence suggests the story's message is meant for ambitious people specifically: know when to stop. **Elizabeth Lavenza**: Victor's adopted sister/fiancée (yes, it's weird). She's good, patient, and waits for Victor while he vanishes for years doing science stuff. She represents what Victor destroys through his obsession—family, love, normalcy. Her death on their wedding night is the Creature punishing Victor by making him as alone as the Creature is. She's underdeveloped as a character, which might be Mary Shelley showing how Victor sees women: as beautiful objects, not full people.

**Who's the Real Monster?**: The central question. The Creature kills multiple people—definitely monstrous acts. But Victor created life and abandoned it, then refused to create a companion, forcing the Creature into isolation. Victor's intellectual curiosity didn't include ethical responsibility. Mary Shelley (writing at 18!) asks whether scientific advancement without moral consideration creates horrors. The Creature says: "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend." Society creates monsters by rejecting difference.