Bedside Lamp English Learning Reader III: Frankenstein (Pure English Version)

Author: (English) Mary Shelley
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Young British captain Robert Walton leads his crew on a voyage to the frigid Arctic region to explore, hoping to find a route through the Arctic Ocean to reach 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 spot a person pulling a sled across the ice, heading into the distance. To their shock, the person's figure—almost a giant from legend. The next day, they discover another person on the ice. This person is drifting on a floating ice floe, with all the dogs pulling the sled dead. The man is weak and appears to have gone without food or water for many days. The captain orders his crew to rescue him and provide aid. After a slight recovery, the man tells the captain his story: His name is Victor Frankenstein, and he lives in Geneva. His family is wealthy and highly respected. To study science and benefit humanity, he leaves his father, brother, and beautiful fiancée, Elizabeth, to attend university in Germany. After years of dedicated research, he creates a being using bones taken from human corpses and animal organs—a grotesque and monstrous creature. He is terrified of the creature and abandons it. The creature wanders aimlessly, and due to its grotesque appearance, everyone treats it as a monster, with no one willing to befriend it. He saves a child from drowning but is shot and injured by the child's father. Filled with anger, he decides to take revenge on Dr. Frankenstein, believing that it is because the doctor created and then abandoned him that he is left alone in the world. He kills the doctor's brother and frames the housekeeper for the crime. In exchange for a promise not to seek further revenge, he forces the doctor to create a mate for him. After being refused, he kills the doctor's friend Henry and, on the night of the doctor's wedding, kills his bride, Elizabeth. To avenge himself, the doctor pursues the creature relentlessly, all the way to the Arctic. The doctor knows his time is limited and asks Captain Walton to kill the creature to prevent more people from being killed. But as he dies, he tells the captain that he has forgiven the creature, because he did not treat him kindly, leaving him to live a miserable and lonely life. In the end, the creature also takes his own life in remorse for his actions.