Frankenstein - Chapters I - VIII

From the beginning of the novel, I personally disliked Victor Frankenstein, and feel that he is an unreliable character who is narcissistic in his interpretations of life. The novel commences with a description of Frankenstein's childhood, who he grew up with and how his parental figures met. It is told that he travelled a lot around Europe, before settling in Geneva - which parallels the life of the creator of this distinguished novel, Mary Shelly. Chapter II divulges in Victor's relationship with his adopted sister Elizabeth - whom he calls 'Cousin'. The narrator describes her as a “Calmer and more concentrated disposition” to that of Victor. This suggests that she levels out his erratic behaviour and earths him. Continuing, the chapter progresses to describe more of Victor’s young adulthood, and how he becomes infatuated with scientific experiments. Chapter III tells the story of how, at the age of seventeen, Victor was introduced to the University of Ingolstadt – which at the time retained a reputation for Liberal thinkers, and was not the typical upstanding university. After a long goodbye from Victor’s friends and family, Frankenstein arrives at the University eager to learn about authors such as Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Alburtus Magnus, all of which were deemed as “nonsense” by one of his teachers - M. Krempe. Distraught by this, Victor slog’s through the laborious task of meeting and greeting his fellow academics, and eventually becomes a good acquaintance of M. Waldman. His unorthodox views, similar to Victor, spur Frankenstein on to create the Creature. Chapters IV and V tell the story of how the Creature came to life and I feel that these chapters are the most fascinating to study because they allow the reader to see into the mind of a mad scientist who is following his passions and ignoring society’s unwritten conventions, in order to discover something unique to him – in modern terms it would be classes as his ‘guilty pleasure’. These chapters of exploration are comparable to those of Robert Walton at the start of the novel, which is why it could be argued that Walton is a bad narrator – because he permits his own personal life and experiences to influence the novel, and therefore manipulate the outcome. Chapters V, VI and VII divulge into the consequences of creating the Creature and how they affect Frankenstein psychologically and physically because he becomes seriously ill, requiring the help of his long-term friend Henry Clerval. Eventually Victor returns home in good health, to find that the Creature has killed William, his younger brother, and Justine – a local girl with no family to depend upon other than the Frankenstein’s – is being held responsible.

Upon reading these few chapters the reader gets an immediate sense of how mentally unstable Victor becomes. At any sign of the Creature – whether metaphorical, physical or imaginary – Victor becomes even more obsessed than previously thought. Even at the beginning of the novel the reader can see that it is going to end badly for the protagonist because he is too self-absorbed. The moral of the story could be that men should not attempt to play the figure of God or “Play with Fire” because they will be punished. The reason why no one had made scientific discoveries like this before is because people were too afraid of being burdened with guilt if something went wrong.