HBL: Frankenstein Chapters 1-5
According to Victor, what is the most painful thing to the human mind? (77)
"The dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul of both hope and fear."
What is Elizabeth like?
Angelic, heavenly, celestial Victor acts like she is a possession
Who was Henry Clerval?
Becomes Victor's Best Friend. The son of a merchant of Geneva
Character Beaufort is the father of whom?
Caroline
How does Victor's father respond?
Discouraged him
Who is Victor's best friend?
Henry Clerval
What are some characteristics of female characters in the test?
Nice, innocent, self-blame/sacrifice, orphans
How does Victor experience isolation?
Self-created Studying at university Fascination with life and death
What does Autodidact mean?
Someone who teaches themself
In Elizabeth's letter, she talks of the benefits of a republican institution. What are the benefits and what is the historical significance of this statement? (51-2)
The benefits are that the servants do not rebel and it more politically stable. England and France were monarchies that were experiencing political turbulence.
What was the next step for Victor Frankenstein once he realized his capabilities?
To formulate a plan or blue print of this monster that he was going to create and bring back to life.
How is Robert like Adam?
He has the world before him He is an earlier version of Victor
How does Victor react to the creature? In effect, Victor is his father so how do you suppose the creature is going to react to this? (43-5) How is all this in stark contrast to Victor's own childhood?
He runs away from it. The creature will feel hurt and abandoned. Victor's father was very indulgent and always cared deeply for his son.
How is Victor trying to save humanity a reference to Mary Shelley's life?
Mary is trying to save her childhood
What are two important female relationships in Victor's life?
Mom (Caroline) and Elizabeth
How is the image of a flower a reference to the Vindication of the Rights of Women?
Mothering = death
Throughout these chapters, what is often referred to as eternal, unchanging, and restorative? Why is this comforting and what is the historical significance?
Nature is a constant restorative factor. It is comforting because it an unchanging aspect of life. The Romantic period emphasized nature.
What does Professor M. Krempe say about Victor's previous studies?
That all of the information that he had dedicated his studies in was extremely useless and majorly out dated. He said that Victor wouold have to begin all of his studies anew (study all over again a brand new topic). That all the time that he had spent had been a waste of his time. This motivates him.
During this time, what were the main two options for female characters to be?
The tramp The angel in the house
Summary of Chapter 3
At the age of seventeen, Victor leaves his family in Geneva to attend the university at Ingolstadt. Just before Victor departs, his mother catches scarlet fever from Elizabeth, whom she has been nursing back to health, and dies. On her deathbed, she begs Elizabeth and Victor to marry. Several weeks later, still grieving, Victor goes off to Ingolstadt. Arriving at the university, he finds quarters in the town and sets up a meeting with a professor of natural philosophy, M. Krempe. Krempe tells Victor that all the time that Victor has spent studying the alchemists has been wasted, further souring Victor on the study of natural philosophy. He then attends a lecture in chemistry by a professor named Waldman. This lecture, along with a subsequent meeting with the professor, convinces Victor to pursue his studies in the sciences.
What is Victor's education like?
Books by Alchemists, outdated scientists
What effect does it have on Victor when he sees his purpose fulfilled and his monster comes to life?
Breathless horror and disgust filled his heart. He runs out of the room and is full of horror and terror because he realizes that his obsession becomes a real thing. He was so caught up in the Can I do this? When he should have been thinking of the should I do this?- he didn't know what to do because his creation was now real. He runs because he doesn't think about consequences.
Summary of Chapter 2
Elizabeth and Victor grow up together as best friends. Victor's friendship with Henry Clerval, a schoolmate and only child, flourishes as well, and he spends his childhood happily surrounded by this close domestic circle. As a teenager, Victor becomes increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the natural world. He chances upon a book by Cornelius Agrippa, a sixteenth-century scholar of the occult sciences, and becomes interested in natural philosophy. He studies the outdated findings of the alchemists Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus with enthusiasm. He witnesses the destructive power of nature when, during a raging storm, lightning destroys a tree near his house. A modern natural philosopher accompanying the Frankenstein family explains to Victor the workings of electricity, making the ideas of the alchemists seem outdated and worthless. (In the 1818 version, a demonstration of electricity by his father convinces Victor of the alchemists' mistakenness.)
What effect does Professor M. Waldman's lecture have on Victor?
He sees this lecture as completely different and it inspires him. "I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town."
Where does Victor's father send him?
He sends him to a University called Ingolstadt to complete his education and to be acquainted to other customs other than the ones of his native country.
What did Victor intend for the creature to look like? What was the actual result, particularly with the eyes? How does the result match up with his intentions? (43) What is the significance of dreams ("the beauty of the dream vanished" (43) & Victor's dream right after)? (Think about possible connections to Author's Introduction)
He wanted it to look beautiful. The result is gross and disturbing and the eyes were watery and white. It is the complete opposite of the beautiful features and proportionate limbs that Victor had selected. Mary Shelley found refuge in her dreams but Victor is confined to nightmares and death. Instead of escaping his problems, they spill over into his dreams.
After recovering from his illness, what (in addition to Clerval) is particularly restorative for Victor? Why does he refer to it as "inanimate" (57)? How is this connected with Clerval? (In other words, what does he represent as a character?)
He went on a walk with Henry and enjoyed the natural beauty. He refers to it as inanimate because it is unlike the creature that Victor created, who is alive and not sedentary. Henry represents the happiness and innocence found in nature, which fascinated Victory so much before the creation of the monster.
Describe the physical appearance of the monster.
His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!— Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!— Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the
Where did Victor get materials for his "project"? p. 58-59
I collected bones from channel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop, of filthy creation: my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting-room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion. Analogy: 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. Pgs. 60-61
At this point, Victor interrupts his narrative to come back to the present. What warning does Victor give the Captain about acquiring knowledge? p. 55-56
I see you by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.
Where is Mr. Frankenstein and Caroline go after their wedding?
Italy
Summary of Chapter 5
One stormy night, after months of labor, Victor completes his creation. But when he brings it to life, its awful appearance horrifies him. He rushes to the next room and tries to sleep, but he is troubled by nightmares about Elizabeth and his mother's corpse. He wakes to discover the monster looming over his bed with a grotesque smile and rushes out of the house. He spends the night pacing in his courtyard. The next morning, he goes walking in the town of Ingolstadt, frantically avoiding a return to his now-haunted apartment. As he walks by the town inn, Victor comes across his friend Henry Clerval, who has just arrived to begin studying at the university. Delighted to see Henry—a breath of fresh air and a reminder of his family after so many months of isolation and ill health—he brings him back to his apartment. Victor enters first and is relieved to find no sign of the monster. But, weakened by months of work and shock at the horrific being he has created, he immediately falls ill with a nervous fever that lasts several months. Henry nurses him back to health and, when Victor has recovered, gives him a letter from Elizabeth that had arrived during his illness.
What phenomena particularly attracted Victor's attention? What branch of science did he focus on?
Science of Anatomy/physiology. The human frame. Life to death. Death to life. Human feelings.
What is Victor curious about?
Secrets of heaven and earth He wants to cure death and make a new race God complex
How did Victor's mother die?
She died from the disease Scarlet Fever that she caught from nursing Elizabeth her adopted daughter back to health.
Victor often says that the creature is lurking in his heart or mind (64, 80, etc.) or acknowledges himself as the true murderer. What is the creature a manifestation of and what is the larger commentary on humanity?
The creature is manifestation of how Victor does not appreciate the reality of the fruits of his imagination because the creature does not align with his idea. The larger humanity often neglects things and values imagination over reality. The creature (satan) is the darkness in Victor (also satan).
When Victor returns home, how does he end up seeing the shadow of the creature? What is the significance of the motif here?
The gates of Geneva had shut for the night which left Victor to wander outside in the forests. There is some lightning. The storm represents an impending struggle. "During the voyage I saw the lightnings playing on the summit... The storm to appear rapidly."
What is the significance of the lightning strike shattering the tree? (26-7) How does it make him feel immediately? What does it mean symbolically? What is the significance of lighting/storms in the larger narrative? (24, 40, etc.) How does this potentially connect to his comments about life and death? (37)
The lightning signifies the theories of electricity and galvanism, fields of study which discredit the scientists that Victor has been studying. It symbolizes the worthlessness of the scientists that Victor has studied and his belief in the impossibility of ever being able to know how nature works. It is significant because Victor decides to stop pursuing science. Storms are significant because they symbolize Victor's passions and he refers to storms when reflecting on his life. He associates storms with life and death.
Summary of Chapter 1
The stranger, who the reader soon learns is Victor Frankenstein, begins his narration. He starts with his family background, birth, and early childhood, telling Walton about his father, Alphonse, and his mother, Caroline. Alphonse became Caroline's protector when her father, Alphonse's longtime friend Beaufort, died in poverty. They married two years later, and Victor was born soon after. Frankenstein then describes how his childhood companion, Elizabeth Lavenza, entered his family. At this point in the narrative, the original (1818) and revised (1831) versions of Frankenstein diverge. In the original version, Elizabeth is Victor's cousin, the daughter of Alphonse's sister; when Victor is four years old, Elizabeth's mother dies and Elizabeth is adopted into the Frankenstein family. In the revised version, Elizabeth is discovered by Caroline, on a trip to Italy, when Victor is about five years old. While visiting a poor Italian family, Caroline notices a beautiful blonde girl among the dark-haired Italian children; upon discovering that Elizabeth is the orphaned daughter of a Milanese nobleman and a German woman and that the Italian family can barely afford to feed her, Caroline adopts Elizabeth and brings her back to Geneva. Victor's mother decides at the moment of the adoption that Elizabeth and Victor should someday marry.
How do Victor and Elizabeth react to Justine's trial? What is the irony of her name and what is Shelley's commentary? (think in particular about her threatened excommunication 73)
They both believe she is innocence. Justine sounds similar to justice but justice was not realized in this situation due to strong circumstantial evidence. Shelley's commentary is that the justice system does not always work.
Why did the couple feel it necessary to visit the poor?
They felt like this was their duty because of Caroline's back ground of an orphan.
Summary of Chapter 4
Victor attacks his studies with enthusiasm and, ignoring his social life and his family far away in Geneva, makes rapid progress. Fascinated by the mystery of the creation of life, he begins to study how the human body is built (anatomy) and how it falls apart (death and decay). After several years of tireless work, he masters all that his professors have to teach him, and he goes one step further: discovering the secret of life. Privately, hidden away in his apartment where no one can see him work, he decides to begin the construction of an animate creature, envisioning the creation of a new race of wonderful beings. Zealously devoting himself to this labor, he neglects everything else—family, friends, studies, and social life—and grows increasingly pale, lonely, and obsessed.
Why does Victor say that he didn't tell anyone about the creature? Do you believe him or is there some ulterior motive? (66-8)
Victor doesn't want to tell anyone because he doesn't want to be labeled as insane. I don't necessarily believe him because he might seek personal revenge.
Victor makes numerous references to "imagination." How does this compare to reality? What is preferable?
Victor prefers his imagination due to the fact that he reality is scary and unpredictable and he can't control it like he can control his imagination.
How is Caroline treated?
Victor's father shelters her to make up for the grief She is a fair, exotic flower and her husband is the gardener
How does Elizabeth compare what happened to Justine with books? (79) How does she begin to feel about humanity? (79-80)
When injustices occurred in books, it felt remote and fair and Elizabeth did not expect to experience injustice. She begins to view humanity as monsters who are thirsting after each other's blood.
Does Victor warn Robert?
Yes, Victor remarks about the intoxicating drought/dash the cup, the Elixir of Life, Holy Grail (all have religious undertones)