Frankenstein - A Series of World Literary Classics for Young Readers

Author: Mary Shelley (United Kingdom)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Light British Captain Robert Walton leads his crew on a ship to the ice-covered Arctic region for exploration, hoping to find a route across the Arctic Ocean to Asia. Due to the severe cold, the ice in the Arctic Ocean becomes thicker and thicker, and the ship is about to be trapped by solid ice. Suddenly, they discover a person driving a sled across the ice towards the distance. To their shock, the figure of the six people— it was almost a legendary giant. The next day, they found another person on the ice. This person was drifting on a floating ice floe, and all the dogs pulling the sled had died. The man was weak and seemed to have not eaten or drunk for many days. The captain ordered the crew to rescue him and provide medical assistance. After slightly recovering, the man told the captain his story: His name was Victor Frankenstein, and he lived in Geneva. His family was wealthy and highly respected. To study science and benefit humanity, he left his father, brother, and beautiful fiancée Elizabeth to study in Germany. After years of dedicated research, he created a human being using bones taken from human corpses and animal organs—a grotesque and monstrous creature. He was terrified of the creature and abandoned it. The creature wandered around, and due to its grotesque appearance, everyone regarded it as a monster and no one was willing to be friends with it. He saved a child from drowning but was shot and injured by the child's father. Filled with anger, he decided to take revenge on Dr. Frankenstein, believing that it was the doctor who created and abandoned him that led to his loneliness in the world. He killed the doctor's brother and framed the housekeeper. In exchange for a promise not to seek further revenge, he forced the doctor to create a mate for him. After being refused, he killed the doctor's friend Henry and the new wife Elizabeth on the night of the doctor's wedding. To avenge himself, the doctor chased the creature all the way to the Arctic. Knowing his own fate was sealed, the doctor asked Captain Walton to kill the creature to prevent more people from being killed. But as he lay dying, he told the captain that he had forgiven the creature, as he had not treated him kindly and had caused him to live a miserable and lonely life. In the end, the creature also took his own life out of remorse for his actions.