Bedside Lamp English Learning Reader III: Frankenstein (English-Chinese Contrast)

Author: Li Zhengshuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: Young British captain Robert Walton leads his crew on a ship to the frigid Arctic region for exploration, hoping to find a route through the Arctic Ocean to Asia. Due to the severe cold, the ice in the Arctic Ocean becomes thicker and thicker, and it looks like 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 figure was six times their size—nothing less than a legendary giant. The next day, they discover another person on the ice. This person is drifting on a floating ice floe, with all the sled dogs dead. He 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 slightly recovering, 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 bids farewell to his father, brother, and beautiful fiancée, Elizabeth, to go to university in Germany. After years of dedicated research, he creates a human 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. Enraged, he decides to take revenge on Dr. Frankenstein, believing that it is the doctor who created and then abandoned him, leaving him alone in the world. He kills the doctor's brother but frames the incident on the maid. 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 to the Arctic. Knowing his own time is limited, he 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, as he did not treat him kindly, allowing him to live a miserable and lonely life. Ultimately, the creature also takes his own life in remorse for his actions.