Okay, here we go. Right, the last of the classes in the Botic novel
section is on Mary Shelley and her fabulous work, Frankenstein. Has anybody
read it? No? Really? Have you read it? No? Okay. I'm hoping that I can
inspire you to read it, even if not this year, next year, why not? It is
absolutely fabulous. It really is. It's a very, very interesting piece of
work. And it's very different from the other Botic novels that we've seen.
Now, of course, Shelley herself is a fascinating character. So let's do a
little bit of background, biographical details, because in this case, it's
very important, I think, to understand. Oh, hang on a minute. Do you do it?
Huh? Okay. Well, it's okay. Right, let's have a look. So she was called,
the author of Frankenstein was called Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. She was
born in 1797 and she died in 1851. So she was born at the end of the 18th
century and she died. She died in the middle of the Victorian period. She
was the daughter of two celebrities at the time. She was the daughter of
William Godwin, who was a political philosopher. He wrote political tracts.
He also, interesting for us, he wrote the first mystery novel, Caleb
Williams, which was a type of Gothic novel, but it had philosophical ideas,
political ideas interwoven. Not much read nowadays, but obviously very,
very influential on Mary herself. And her mother was one of the first
feminist writers. She was called Mary Wollstonecraft, and she wrote, she
was a celebrated feminist writer of The Vindication of the Rights of Men,
published in 1790, which attacked the monarchy and supported republicanism
after the French Revolution. The French Revolution. 1789 to 99. So that was
going on in the background of Mary's childhood, just as she was, you know,
when she was young. The reverberations of the French Revolution, very
important at this time. And Wollstonecraft also wrote, more importantly,
The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792, one of the earliest pieces of
feminist philosophy. And we know that, you know, that Mary would have read
this. We also know that her mother died after giving birth to her. 12 days
after giving birth to her, she died. And Mary was brought up with two
stepsisters. One of the stepsisters was from a previous affair that her
mother had had, and her father had adopted the girl from. The other sister
who was born, the woman that God gave birth to. Godwin then married later
on to the mother. So it was an incredibly bohemian background that Shelley
comes out of. You know, thinkers, free thinkers, people who believed in
free love and were politically very radical. She was brought up in a family
who was not afraid to say things that were new. And then, on top of all
this, in 1814, Mary Godwin met Percy Wilts Shelley, the poet, who was
interested in the political ideas of her father. So Shelley was a follower
of Godwin's politics and Mary met him when she had been away in Scotland.
And she came back and she met Shelley. So it was, you know, they all looked
for a side. And they eloped to Europe. What does to elope mean? They eloped
to Europe. I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's not escape exactly. Elope always is
related with running away to get married. To run away and get married when
there is parental, no parental consent. Or perhaps somebody else is
married. To somebody else. That was the case with Shelley. Shelley was
already married to somebody else called Harriet. Okay. But they were able
to get married later on after Shelley's wife committed suicide. This is, I
mean, it's a tremendously dramatic, the whole, you know, group around Mary
Shelley is full of dramatic deaths and suicides. Her half-sister by the, by
her mother with the previous suffering. And there was a man who, by the
way, who is now a doctor, who had just had an affair, actually committed
suicide in my city. In Wales. I didn't know that until recently. Okay. So
what else happened? Well they, so they ran away. Percy Shelley was this
poet who believed it freed dogs. So they ran off to France and then they
went on to other places in Europe. They got married eventually. Mary had a
baby before they got married. and the baby died. I believe that the baby
died so soon after childbirth that it wasn't even named, but it was a girl.
So she had, this is before she writes Frankenstein, she had an experience
of the death of a child in the family. And then they had two more children
who died as infants just, I think, very in the period around the time that
Frankenstein was being published. So after it had been written. And she had
one son by Shelley who survived, who was also called Percy. He was born in
1890 and he survived and lived to life old age. But Shelley himself, who we
will be studying, Shelley himself drowned in 1822. So it's all terrible.
Very tragic, dramatic, very sad. Mary returned to England with her
surviving son Percy and she herself lived to the age of 53 when she died of
a brain tumour, if you can imagine that. She also published further novels,
none of them as famous as Frankenstein. And very interestingly, she
actually rewrote parts of the original novel. I had not known this until I
re-read for this class. I re-read it and I thought, well hang on a second,
I remember it perfectly. And then I discovered that there was a little
section that had been completely written, a description of a character and
where she came from. And as we're going through the story, I'll mention it
so you'll know which version we're looking at. The 1831 version or the 1818
version. Okay, let's have a look. Fabulous novel. It's called Frankenstein
and then it has a subtitle. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. Mary and
her husband, so this is Percy, Jenny, spent the summer of 1816. You'll
remember, as I've mentioned it before, this was the year without a summer.
The volcanic eruption had altered the weather and it was raining, cold in
the summertime. Crops didn't grow. So they spent the summer with Lord
Byron, the poet, John Poylory, who also later published a book, a Gothic
novel called The Vampire. Claire Claremont, who was Mary's half-sister.
They went to Geneva. They had a house in Geneva that Lord Byron had taken
and the group entertained each other with ghost stories. And in the
introduction to the 1831 edition, this is what Mary said. So 1831, looking
back, she remembered. She said, I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs
of Geneva. The season was cold and rainy and in the evenings we crowded
around the blazing wood fire. The summer of 1816 was the year of the fire
and occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts which
happened to fall into our hands. But later on, she had a dream. She saw a
vision of what she was going to put in the book and she spent two years
writing it properly. She thought it was going to be a short story and I
think her husband encouraged her to turn it into a proper novel. So she
started writing the novel when she was 18 and the first edition of the
novel was published anonymously in London on 1 January 18, when she was 20.
And her name first appeared on the second edition which was published in
France in 1823. So when it first came out, nobody knew that it had been
written by a woman, importantly. Prometheus from the title. Now Prometheus
is the character from Greek mythology. It's a character from the Greek
mythology. He's an angel who steals fire from the gods and is punished for
it by the gods. Prometheus – I'm simply taking this from Wikipedia, let
me read you through it. Prometheus became a figure who represented human
striving, effort, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge and the
risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. And in particular he was
regarded as a hero. He was regarded as a hero. He was regarded as a hero.
He was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose
efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy. Okay, so
this is the idea. And interestingly, Shelley himself, the poet Percy
Shelley wrote a four-act lyrical drama called Prometheus Unbound in 1820.
So he was also interested in the concept of Promethean fire and the, you
know, Promethean genius. So, in our website, in the section on the Gothic
novel, there is a link to questions about Frankenstein, things to think
about Frankenstein and they mention this. So it's worth thinking about or
possibly even commenting in the forums. Okay, let's start. It begins first
narrator. The first narrator is called Robert Walton. Are you with us? Are
you with us? Yes? Okay, great. You have to pay attention because this is a
novel which has multiple narrators. It's got the framework of the story
itself is a story within a story within a story. It's got three narrators.
And no overarching narrator to tell you to make any judgments about the
different narrations. The outer shell, the outer framework, so the
beginning, right at the beginning, and then right at the end of the novel,
this frame is given by Robert Walton, who is a character that you don't see
in the middle. So you've got the frame, he disappears, you've got story,
and then he comes back at the end. So Robert Walton, he's an Arctic
explorer. Sorry, I spelt Arctic wrong, haven't I? He's writing in
Richardson, for example. So Shelley thought, okay, that's a good thing to
work with. And she uses it as the framework, which gives it depth, gives it
a very interesting depth. These are not just characters who appear
momentarily. He's depicted, in fact, as anxious, lonely. He says, but I
have one want, which I have never yet been able to satisfy, is travelling
in the Arctic in a boat with sailors, and the absence of which I now feel
as the most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret. When I am glowing with
the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate in my job. If
I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in
rejection. So there's nobody here to share my joys or to share my sorrows.
So the character of Robert Walton is not just a character who's thrown me.
He's not just a character who's thrown me in for giving a framework. He's
fully realised he's a well-read character. You feel sorry for him, you
understand how he's suffering, but he helps us to see into the story of the
world. What happens? Well, Walton catches a glimpse of the monster on the
ice, travelling by stage. They are stuck in the ice. They're trying to find
the North West Passage, which is the way around to the Pacific Ocean from
the Atlantic. And there were people at this time, just after Frankenstein
had been published, Franklin set out on the exhibition to do exactly that.
So people in Britain were talking about this idea of finding the North West
Passage. So this is a very contemporary reference to scientific interest
and scientific endeavours. So Walton is our sort of scientist, even outside
the story of Frankenstein itself. And the lovely, the wonderful moment
where he sees the monster on the ice. He has no idea that it's the monster.
He sees it in the distance. It's something travelling on a sledge. It's a
very big figure. He doesn't know what it is. He doesn't see it directly.
But that means it's there. She's planted the seed in the story from the
beginning. What happens next? Walton meets Victor Frankenstein. He's
following the monster. And Victor Frankenstein is half dead from cold. He's
been travelling. He's in bad health. Walton rescues Frankenstein and they
become friends. So Walton says, I begin to love him as a brother. Remember
this is in the letter to Margaret. I begin to love him as a brother. His
constant and deep breath fills me with sympathy and compassion. He must
have been a noble creature in his better days, even now erect, so
attractive and amiable. And remember, at the end of the book, the climax of
the story will come back to Walton's show. OK. So on board Walton's ship,
Frankenstein tells the story. So now we have the second narrator. This is
Frankenstein speaking. Now you must remember, even if you don't manage to
read the book, that Frankenstein is the person who creates the monster. The
monster has no name. The monster is not Frankenstein. The monster is a
monster, a demon, a creature. It has no name. Very interesting. OK. So
Victor Frankenstein is telling the story. He was born into a family from
Danube with two brothers and an adopted sister or cousin. This is where the
versions differ. In one version, I remember that they adopt Elizabeth as a
little girl who has nothing to do with the family, the Egyptian. And in the
version that I read recently, it seems that she was a cousin that was
adopted into the family. So well, either way, she is positive. She's part
of the family. She's sort of a sister, but she's not a sister. She knows
Victor from when he was a child. She loves him. But it's not impossible for
them to get married later on. OK. So there's the two brothers, Elizabeth
and an adopted orphan who's called Justine, who becomes nanny to the
younger brother. Victor's mother dies after the death of his mother. Victor
Frankenstein goes to study at Ingolstadt. Remember, all of this happens in
Danube. He's from Danube. He's Swiss. He's not British. He's Swiss. He goes
to study in Ingolstadt, where he begins to imagine building a human. And he
talks about science. He says, in other studies, you go as far as others
have gone before you. And there's nothing more to know. But in a scientific
pursuit, there's continual food for discovery and wonder. You know, really
positive things. There's a positive message about the value of science. And
he thinks, he asks himself, whence, from where, did the principle of life
proceed? And soon, he says, after days and nights of incredible labor and
fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life. Nay,
more. I became myself, capable of the staying animation of lifeless matter.
Now, can you suggest what you could be using to put life or animation into
lifeless matter? Any ideas about what you could have been thinking about or
what she could have been suggesting, the writer? Using corpses. Absolutely.
Charmed houses. Yeah. And then what? Electricity. Absolutely. Electricity.
Galvanism. Hang on a minute. I've got some dates for galvanism. Galvanism.
And then, by the way, 1786, discovered that you could make animals' legs
twitch. So this was really, really up to date. It was modern science that
we're getting here. Even though it produces something terrible and we know
that galvanism can't make things live. It means that they were thinking,
she was thinking about contemporary scientific questions and they would
have talked about it in the family. So, what happens? The monster is
brought to life. At one even moment, the room pattered dismally against the
panes and Frankenstein, in the text it's I, saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open. It breathed out. The convulsive motion agitated its knees.
Wonderful stuff. Can you remember? I can't remember. What is the name of
the literary figure where the weather imitates the feelings of people or
gives some kind of atmospheric effect? You're really good at this one. Tell
us what the name of the literary figure is when you've got the weather
mirroring the drama or the feeling of tension in the narrative. See if you
can remember. You know it begins with P. 28th, past... Yes. Yes it is. No?
Is it, was it phallocene? Is that it, phallocene? The phallocene's
suggesting that it's not real. Okay. Right. that. Iruni, you're asking,
does Robert Walton see the creature on the ice before meeting Victor? Yes,
he does. Absolutely. He sees the creature in the distance on the ice first,
then he finds Victor because Victor is following the monster and we find
out why at the end. Okay, so, pathetic fallacy here. Although, to be
honest, Mary Shelley is very, very measured with how much pathetic fallacy
she uses. She has beautiful descriptions of the mountains, the landscape.
There's some wonderful nature descriptions and she's very careful not to
overuse pathetic fallacy because if you overuse them, they become clichés
as we've seen in both of our books. And, you know, it's a bit funny really,
isn't it? So she's very, very careful about how she uses this but here I
think we can definitely say that's her. Pathetic fallacy. Okay, what
happens? He finds the monster repulsive. Now that I'm finished, the beauty
of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.
And what happens? He runs away. He leaves the creature in his apartment and
he goes. He doesn't even speak to the creature. He does nothing. He goes,
and he runs from the apartment, leaving it. At this point, it's interesting
though, thinking about gothic novels, but Shelley... She teases the reader.
She plays a little bit with this. Vixen goes back to the room later on,
okay? So he's gone away and you think, oh, what shall I do? What shall I
do? And then he goes back and through the door, forcibly open, as children
are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre, a ghost, to stand and
waiting for them on the other side. But nothing happens. Those are the
clichés of the gothic horror, isn't it? But she's you'll hear again in the
story. During this time, Elizabeth writes to him with news from home.
Remember, home for them is in Geneva and Victor is in Ingolstadt. Justine
has rejoined the family after taking care of her mother. This is
interesting. Elizabeth comments on the lack of class distinctions in
Switzerland. The republican institutions of our country have produced
simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great
monarchies that surround it. Hence, there is less distinction between the
several classes of its inhabitants and the lower orders being neither
suborned nor despised. Their manners are more refined and moral. Basically,
she's saying that society in Switzerland, as it's organized without a
monarchy, is better. Justine is part of the family, although technically
she's like a servant. She's not. They don't treat her like that. She's part
of the family. This is important. There are no characters. No characters
are wasted in this story. Absolutely, everybody is an important part of the
story. Okay, this screen is the monster's stripes. Victor starts to recover
from his breakdown and we see here examples of the lovely descriptions that
Shelley can make. Remember, she is married to one of the great romantic
poets, or at least she's hedges, while those of summer were already in bud.
So, you know, flowers, nature, it's all very pretty, and he's getting
better. But nobody gets better in a gossip novel. A letter from his father
brings terrible news. His youngest brother William has been horribly
murdered, strangled when out walking, and Justine has been suspected. So
Victor returns to Geneva, and a storm breaks out as he arrives, and he sees
the creature. Here we're not, it's really, really not Pathetic Fallacy,
it's Varna, it's like Wagner or something. He sees the monster. As he
arrives in Geneva, in the mountains, the Alps, mountain scenery, he sees
the monster in a flash of light. And he says, I could not be mistaken. A
flash of lightning illuminates the object, and discovered its shape, its
gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than
belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch. A filthy
demon, to whom I had given life. What did he bear? Could he be, I shuddered
at the conception, the murderer of my brother? The monster, Victor
realizes, has become my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the
grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me. And this is a
prophecy which will, of course, come true. He goes on destroying the people
that Victor loves. Okay, the Alps. Has anybody been to the Alps? Have you?
Go on, tell us about it. Really pointy mountains. Yes, and I think the last
few days, we've done all the things. The sea trains, there's a lot of them,
and the mountains are really very beautiful. Exactly. But it's spectacular,
isn't it? Incredible mountains. Wonderful descriptions of it. Okay, well,
Shelly herself, you know, they traveled through Europe. They went to
Geneva. We know they were in Geneva when they were visiting Byron. She
would have seen this in the world. So, you know, the descriptions are
wonderful. If you just read it for the descriptions of the Alps, it's
spectacular. Victor can't tell his family that he suspects the monster from
Emilia because he thinks that he won't be believed. He thinks there's no
way that they could believe that somebody else did it. And Justine seems to
have been framed by a monster. Justine's condemned to death, and Victor
cannot save her. And in a very horribly dry way, you know, the book just
goes back on the moral of Justine. And by this time, you have invested
feelings in the characters. Shelly is very, very clever with, you know,
building up. It's not a short story. She takes time to develop the
characters and to make us feel involved in the family, so that you're
shocked when Justine finally dies. William we haven't met, but we knew, you
know, he's part of Victor's family. Also, we feel shocked. It's a child,
and he's killed. Victor thinks of killing himself. He wants to commit
suicide, but he thinks of Elizabeth and his father, and he doesn't. He goes
on a journey instead into the mountains. And again, here we see the
romantic moment. It's a romantic vision. You know, people who were
traveling through Europe on the Grand Tour, which is the typical thing that
aristocrats did when they went off to Europe, they would see these things.
Ruled castles hanging in the precipices of piney mountains. The impetuous
ares, that's a word, and cottages everywhere and there creeping forth from
among the dreams form the scene of singular beauty. But it was rendered
sublime. So more and more beautiful. More important. More grand. This word
sublime, we've seen it before. It's as important for the romantics. Sublime
by the mighty out whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above
all as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of
beings. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest
consolation that I was ever capable of receiving. They elevated me from all
the dreamless of feeling. And although they did not remove my grief, they
subdued and tranquilized it. I can't help reading into this the grief that
she must have felt, the child that she lost. And it's difficult to read
that without knowing or knowing that she was somebody who had a child who
died a couple of days after he was born. It's difficult not to read into
this feelings that Mary Shelley herself has felt. Okay, so when he's in the
mountains, he meets the monster because the monster is in trouble. So the
monster, and the monster loves cold places. It's very much a novel about
ice and, you know, very, very tremendous cold and how the monster can
survive in these places quite easily. And the monster comes up to him in
the mountains and he challenges it. So here we'll find the third narrator.
This is the poem for which we get the monster's sign. So we get everybody's
side of the story. The monster challenges it. He says, do your duty towards
me and I will do mine towards you and the rest of my part. If you will
comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace. But if you
refuse, I will glut the more of death until it be satiated with the blood
of your remaining friends. To glut the more. Have a guess what that could
be. What does that mean, the more of death? Yes, exactly. Yes, glut would
be to fill. If you are glutted, you are full up. And more is mouth. So the
mouth of death is going to be full with the blood of your friends.
Terrific. Terrifying. The monster has had an idea. The monster wants Victor
to make him a mate. A fiend. Victor Obviously, I haven't changed anything.
So we hear the story of what he's done since he was created. And the
description is how the monster felt at first. Smell, smell, smell. At the
same time, the light became more and more oppressive to him and the heat
really, really. And then he goes out outside the apartment. He goes out
into the countryside. I lay by the side of a brook. I look at some berries.
The monster is a vegetarian. Percy Shelley, if I'm not wrong, was a
vegetarian. We know. I would be very surprised if Mary Shelley was eating a
lot of meat living married to Shelley. So there's a theme here that it's
better to eat plants and things because the monster does. Also at this
time, the interesting thing with the, with the development or the
description of what happens to the monster, how it develops, comes from a
link to an essay that was published at this period, which was by John
Locke, a very influential political thinker. And it was called An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding. So here's Mary Shelley's concept of, you
know, if we make a human, what happens to it? How does it begin to have
senses? How does it, how does it develop in some way? So the monster
discovers fire and then comes out to the forest and frightens local
shepherds and villagers wherever he goes. And eventually he finds shelter
in a structure, a wooden structure, which has been built onto the side of a
cottage. And there are pieces of wood where he can look into the inside of
the house. So it's not in the house, but he can see the people inside the
cottages. It is a cottage. No, it's bigger than that. No, a cottage is just
a little, a little casita in a rustic house. Yes, a little casita. Quite
small, nothing elaborate, but a cottage is a small rural house. But there's
this structure that's been built onto the outside so you can see inside
without being at all connected or to, or seen by the people inside the
house. And he eavesdrops on the family. So the monster goes on and tells
about how he has educated himself. Just look at this. It's not just that
the monster is monstrous. Mary Shelley is fascinated by education. And you
think she should be brought up in a family who were incredibly literate and
knowledgeable and thinkers, but she was a girl. She wouldn't have been, she
wouldn't have had access to the same kind of education with anybody else at
the same time you had romance at Percy. Percy Shelley had been to Oxford,
although he'd been thrown out for writing a document about atheism. So he'd
spent six months in Oxford. So he was a sort of university graduate. Mary
Shelley hadn't had that same kind of access to education. And it appears,
you know, that she's fascinated with the way that you can educate yourself.
So the monster spends his time watching the cottages, the cottages that
people inside the house have. An old man and his adult son and daughter who
have a very sad winter with very little food. But the monster has helped
them without them knowing it or knowing about him. He cuts firewood in the
night. And he listens to them speaking to each other. And he gradually
learns how to speak. And then at the end of the day, the woman gets fired.
He sees the love that the family has for each other. And he starts to hope
that they will understand and come to love him. He wants to have what they
have. In particular, he wants love. In the spring, a young Turkish woman
arrives. She's the woman that the son loves. And the monster is very, very
interested, very clever, because what she does is the Turkish woman has
little French to be able to speak to the family. So they have to start
teaching her. And the monster is listening. So the monster is learning. The
monster is able to learn more language as the family teaches them in
arrival how to speak their language. So he says, While I am proving speech,
I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger. So
he learned how to write. And this opened before me a wide field for wonder
and delight. Every conversation of the cottages now opens new wonders to
me. While I listen to the instructions, which Felix, this is a young man,
bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society was
explained to him. But this is a sad moment because with knowledge comes a
change in the monster's feelings because the monster begins to reflect that
he's alone and that he's unlike humans. And now he begins to feel angry
that he's excluded from human affections. Very interestingly, he also finds
a bag which is lost in the forest. And in the bag he finds some books.
We've got Goethe's Sorrows of Werther, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Kutak's
Lives, which educate him about human emotions. Do you know anything about
Paradise Lost? You must have studied it last year. What do you remember?
What's it about? In what way? Who's it? Adam and Eve, that's it. Garden of
Eden. Evil. And Satan. Satan is the character that you see in Paradise
Lost, which is very interesting if you look at this, of course, because our
Satan character is the monster. Okay. Right. The monster reveals himself.
The monster plans to show himself to the cottages. He thinks of them as my
protectors, but they don't know he's there. He shows himself to the old man
first. The old man is blind, so he knows that he can speak to the old man
without him being frightened by how he looks. So he speaks to the old man
first, pretending to be a traveler, but when his son and daughter arrive,
they're horrified and they drive the monster away. Felix, the young man,
darted forward and with supernatural force tore me from his father to whose
limbs I clung like a child. In a transport of fury, he dashed me to the
ground and struck me violently with a stick. This is very interesting
because this is a lovely example of the energy of the verbs that Mary
Shelley uses. If you look at the language that she uses in a lot of the
action sections, other Gothic novels without ladies fainting, if you
remember, walking around castles, very strange things happening, but not in
a very energetic way. There is massive energy in the verbs that she
chooses. Look at this. Clung, tore, dashed, struck. They're all violent,
extreme verbs. Linguistically, it's a fascinating piece that, of course,
you know, teenagers, we've all been there. She's a teenager. She's 18 when
she wrote this. Fabulous, fabulous energy. It's wonderful. Okay, the
monster runs away and again, remember, it's the monster telling the story
at this point. So the monster says, I gave vent to my anguish in fearful
howlings. Oh! This is, so he feels bad, but, but, but, he's driven away. He
travels. He meets people who run away for him. He tries to help people that
he's shot at. And eventually, he comes to Geneva. Now what do you know
about Geneva? Geneva is where? The family knows. Exactly, right. Comes to
Geneva and happens to meet William, Frankenstein's younger brother. And he
finds out who he is. Frankenstein, you belong then to my enemy, to him
towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge. You shall be my first victim.
And he kills one of his family, William. And then he explains a little bit
about how Justine has been, you know, wrongly accused of the crime because
the monster finds something that William was wearing. And he meets Justine
and she's asleep. He puts her in her pocket. It's all very, you know, great
coincidences. You won't meet coincidences like this until you read books by
Thomas Hardy. But that's okay. You know, we're not too bad about this
coincidence. Only one and it's not too bad. So, this is the end of the
monster's narrative and then we return to the scene in the Alps where
Victor's talking to the monster. Okay? So back to the sort of present
inside the second story. Right? Now, here is where the monster asks for a
mate. The monster now persuades Victor to make a fever for them to have
company. Victor says, so remember, now the eye is Victor. Okay? His words
had a strange effect on him. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish
to console him so he'd feel sorry. When I looked upon him, when I saw the
filthy mess that moved and tore, my heart sickened and my feelings were
altered to those of terror and hatred. So he can't help himself. He can't
love the monster. He tries to feel pity but it's looking at him that seems
to provoke disgust. The monster argues with him. There's lots of arguing.
He felt that Mary Shelley must have been brought up in a house where they
were constantly just talking and arguing and it was okay and everybody
argued about things, thought things through, talked all the time. So the
monster gives his side of the argument. I shall feel the affections of a
sensitive being and become linked to the chain of existence and events from
which I am now excluded. He wants to be part of, you know, humanity. So
Victor agrees to meet Athena. He plans to go to England where there are
scientists that he can learn from. But he's also depressed. I think I
agree. He says, My melancholy, which every now and then would return by fit
and with a devouring blackness overcast the approaching sunshine. I'm...
Sorry. And with a devouring blackness overcast the approaching sunshine.
That's the melancholy. I pass four days on the lake alone in a little boat
watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves Again, this
is just a wonderful description of feeling depressed. But before he goes to
England he agrees to marry Elizabeth. But he's, you know, he's concerned
that he wants to get the promise to the monster out of the way. He needs to
get this work done. Without anybody finding out about it. So, he goes to
England. It's a travel novel. We've been to Switzerland and now we're
coming to England. And in fact, it's very interesting because tourism at
that point was becoming actually quite popular. People did travel and visit
good places and go on little tours. So, there's actually a little aspect of
that. They go to Oxford and they say how lovely it was. But, so,
Frankenstein travels to England with Curvan. Remember Henry Curvan his
friend who nursed him back to health at the beginning. They see beautiful
places but Victor can't enjoy them. He says I was occupied with my gloomy
thoughts and neither saw the descent of an even star nor the golden sunrise
reflected in the Rhine. This is a lovely piece of what I would call a
technically it's called parallax and we've met it before. It's when you say
I'm not going to talk about this thing that is so terrible and it's like
this and like this and like this. You say you're not going to do something
and then you talk about it and by talking about it you have talked about
it. So, you know you can't read that line without seeing the even star and
the golden sunrise reflected in the Rhine. So, even if Victor can't enjoy
them the reader can. It's lovely. Okay, but very interestingly here Clairol
is very happy. He says that Clairol, the friend is a being formed in the
very poetry of nature and this these words come in the text inside
quotation marks and readers at the time may have known we are lucky we have
the internet we look it up and we discover it is a quotation from Lee Hunt
who was a contemporary of the Shelleys was a friend of the Shelleys in
fact, actually named two of his children after Percy Shelley after his
death and so she quotes from this friend very poetry of nature and this is
the essence of the romantic novel this poetry of nature the scenery of
external nature he loved with ardour and then she quotes from Wordsworth
who was the previous generation we haven't studied them yet we've leapt
forward in time we're going to do the romantic quotes now they're coming up
but all the romantic quotes Wordsworth and Coleridge and the younger
romantic poets Shelly and Byron and Keats but this is a little piece from
Wordsworth's Tintin Abbey sounding cataract haunted to another action it's
lovely and there's more of it in the text it's a piece about six lines long
but Victor in contrast is a blasted tree the bolt has entered my soul to
lightning and light and electricity and disaster they separate so they go
so this is Henry and Victor travel up to Scotland to reach Perth and then
Victor insists on you know Henry you must go over there and I'm going to go
this way so I'll see you later in another few months or something and he
goes alone to one of the remotest old islands of the Orkney Islands now the
Orkney Islands are on the side of not at the top of Scotland but on the
side of Scotland quite near Ireland and there he's going to meet a few more
creatures now he begins to have doubts she thinks he thinks she might also
turn with disgust from oh sorry from to no so from the superior no she
might also turn with disgust to the superior beauty of man she might quit
him and he be alone again so she's thinking sorry Victor is thinking that a
female monster might find humans more beautiful and leave the monster for
him a race of devils is another possibility they could have children a race
of devils could be propagated upon the earth which might make the very
existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror
some people call Frankenstein one of the very earliest science fiction
novels so science fiction looking into the future what could happen if we
do this and it's it's a very interesting type of examination which we still
have to do nowadays you know what do we do do genetic mutations you know
this kind of debate is very relevant to us in modern day when it's when he
finishes he finishes making the female and then he sees the monster
watching him through the window and in terrible fury he tears apart the
female this is Victor himself tears apart the female monster he has just
made and the monster disappears with a howling devilish despair and revenge
and then he comes back and he returns and he threatens Victor he says you
are my creator but I am your master beware your hours will pass in dread
and misery and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish you from your
happiness forever so are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of
my wretchedness you can blast my other passions but revenge remains revenge
henceforth dearer than light or food so revenge for him is going to be more
important than food or than sunlight I may die but first you my tyrant and
tormentor shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery beware for I am
fearless and therefore powerful this is one of the lines that's quoted
sometimes from Frankenstein beware for I'm fearless and therefore powerful
and also powerful you can't quite see it because of the computer thing but
it says I shall be with you on your wedding night this is the threat that
he gives I will be with you on your wedding night and Victor interprets
this as a threat to himself the monster strikes again Victor leaves the
island in a small boat but he's blown offshore towards the Irish coast and
when he lands immediately he's accused of murder because Clairvaux's body
has been found on the shore strangled and left deliberately by the monster
in the place where Victor lands so Victor's imprisoned he has a breakdown
and eventually he's freed and is taken home by his father and at home in
Geneva Victor prepares to marry Elizabeth but he's continually thinking
about the threat of the monster but as if possessed of magic powers the
monster had blinded me to his real intentions and when I thought that I had
prepared only my own death I hastened that of a far dearer victim these are
premonitions or well what do you suppose is going to happen Elizabeth will
die this is it yes okay so they start their honeymoon in the Alps and it's
night time when we reach the inn the moon had reached her summit in the
heavens and was beginning to descend the clouds swept across it swifter
than the rays of the vulture and dimmed her rays while the lake reflected
the steam of the busy heavens rendered still busier by the restless waves
that were beginning to rise suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended what
could we say this is literally trope literally figure probably what do you
think prophetic fallacy not fallacy by itself but prophetic fallacy that's
it yes something dreadful is going to happen it's and the landscape is
telling us yeah Victor tells Elizabeth to go to bed he wants to check the
inn he's going to there's pistols and he's got a dagger as well he thinks
that the danger is outside a movie developed is taking this idea you know
in their hundreds afterwards he hears a scream he arrives in the room to
find that the monster has killed Elizabeth and he tries to shoot him but
the monster runs away and after that he just has a total breakdown his
father dies of grief and at that point Victor decides to follow the monster
and to kill it so he tracks it to the Arctic where he meets Walton and he
comes back in a full circle back to Walton so he's finished with Walton
closing the story the narrative returns to Walton writing a series of
letters to his sister you have read this strange and terrific story
Margaret and when he says terrific he doesn't mean yeah great he means
terrorific which is sort of an archaic word here and you have read this
story and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror like that which
even now curdles mine so he's saying ok it was a horrible horrible story
Frankenstein's health gets worse they're on this ship in the Arctic they
are frozen in at this point and he asks Walton to undertake my finished
work destroy the monster and Walton agrees to destroy the monster and then
after you know various conversations about half an hour afterwards he
meaning Frankenstein attempted again to speak but was unable he pressed my
hand and his eyes closed forever while the irradiation of a gentle smile
passed by his toe which died he's died but of natural causes exhaustion and
cold having chased the monster to the Arctic and there's long descriptions
of how terrible it is and the journeys he makes across Europe and then up
to the Arctic Walton breaks off his writing for a while and then in the
letter he comes back so one letter is finished and then he comes back and
says you'll never guess what happened I will describe it to you now so
there's a lot of it's very dramatic very immediate the form of the letter
he describes how he came into the room where Victor's body was lying on the
bed and he found the monster hanging over him crying in grief and horror so
the monster is grieving for Victor oh Frankenstein generous and
self-devoted man what does it avail as I now ask you to pardon me what use
is it for me to ask you to pardon me it's no use and then Walton actually
talks to the monster so they have a dialogue and the monster exclaims his
feelings of misery after killing Elizabeth he says evil henceforth after
the killing became my good and now it has ended there is my last victim the
monster says he's going to kill himself he says I shall no longer see the
sun or stars or clear the wings of fair mages my spirit will sleep in peace
or if it thinks it will not surely kill us farewell and after he says this
these are the last lines of the novel told by Walton in the letter it goes
sprang from the cabin window as he said this upon the ice raft that lay
which lay close to vessel he was soon borne away by the warriors and lost
in the dark fabulous fabulous ending the monster is going to commit suicide
but we don't see it we don't get closure but we do get the monster
disappearing into the ice of the world okay right well that's it that's
that's what the novel was about um how do you feel about the novel after
having seen quite a lot of details i think 18 writing that at 18 yes yes
yes yes yes shelly mary shelly describes how by writing this uh you know
she moved she stopped and this is tremendous but i think probably she'd run
away with shelly at the age of 16 and they'd eloped you know she had a baby
she was quite grown up for a teenager but it's an amazing amazing feat of
writing by any standards i mean it's a marvelous marvelous novel and it
deserves to be more widely read it deserves to be uh read properly and
appreciated for you know the piece of literature that it is as well as for
having um you know inspired lots of movies because i'm not what i haven't
seen the kenneth brown one which is probably quite faithful to the text but
other things which are part of frankenstein you know the monster with the
bike through his neck and this is this is the image that we have of
frankenstein i think it's been you know it's been taken from shelly and i
hope you can take it back you get people to read it it's fabulous you can
read it in translation why not okay right thank you very much for coming
here innit that's super okay we'll see you um next week gosh next week oh
funny burly next week at least we leave all the horror we go to something
funny that's a nice way to stop the whole christmas okay see you next week
bye