This document provides a detailed summary and analysis of each chapter of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’. It serves as an educational resource for students and teachers, focusing on key themes, character development, and plot progression. The content includes chapter breakdowns, character insights, and thematic discussions relevant to the novel’s context and significance.
Frankenstein
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About the author
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London in
1797 and died in 1851. She was the daughter of William
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, two great
intellectual rebels of the time. Eleven days after her birth,
her mother died leaving her father to look after Mary
and her sister. Mary developed an intense affection for
her father and he for her, but things became tense when
Godwin remarried as Mary and her stepmother did
not have a good relationship. Mary never had a formal
education but learned from the books that she found in
her father’s library.
In 1814 she met the young poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley,
and went with him to France. They married in 1816,
after Shelley’s first wife killed herself. They had a happy
but short marriage, and on her husband’s death in 1822,
she returned to England with her son, Percy. There she
published many of his poetry and prose works, adding to
these her own notes.
Mary had been interested in writing herself from an
early age. By the time she was nineteen, she had written
Frankenstein (1818), one of the most famous novels ever
published. She also wrote several other novels, including
Valparga (1823), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1834)
and what is often considered her best work The Last
Man (1833). She also wrote a travel book History of a
Six Weeks’ Tour (1817), which is about her trip around
Europe in 1814 with her future husband.
Summary
Young Victor Frankenstein comes from a caring family.
His adopted sister, Elizabeth, loves him and he has a good
friend called Henry. He is intelligent and deeply interested
in science. At university he learns how to create life from
human body parts but, at the moment of his triumph, he
realises he has created a monster. The monster wants to
be loved but Victor rejects him and the monster escapes
from Victor’s laboratory. In his anger and frustration,
the monster first kills Victor’s brother, William, but
then comes to believe that he will be happy if he has a
mate. He asks Victor to make him a female companion,
promising to leave the country and commit no more evil
in return. Victor agrees but later has doubts and destroys
the female. The monster wants revenge and goes on to
kill Henry and finally Elizabeth on the night she marries
Victor. Victor pursues the monster across the North Pole
and eventually dies. The monster, saddened by the death,
vows to kill no more.
Chapters 1–2: Victor’s family adopt a young girl called
Elizabeth and they move to Geneva. Two more sons
are born, Ernest, the oldest and later William. Victor
makes friends with a boy called Henry Clerval. Victor is
very interested in electricity and chemistry and goes to
Ingoldstadt University to study. He becomes obsessed
with creating life and puts together a human form from
parts of dead bodies. The monster comes to life. It opens
its eyes and makes sounds. This distresses Victor and he
falls very ill. His friend, Henry, nurses him back to health.
Chapters 3–4: Victor receives a letter telling him his
brother, William, has been murdered. He is very sad
and travels to Geneva. On the way, he briefly sees the
monster in a forest. Justine Moritz, a servant to the
Frankenstein family, is arrested and executed for the
murder. Victor is terribly unhappy because he knows who
the real murderer is. He travels to the mountains where
he meets the monster again. He threatens to destroy the
monster. The monster replies that Victor is responsible
for everything because he created him and now his life is
miserable because people are unkind.
Chapters 5–6: The monster tells Victor his story. After
leaving the laboratory, he lived in a small hut next to the
de Lacey’s house. The monster watched the family and
secretly helped them by collecting wood. But one day, the
children saw the monster with their blind father and they
screamed and attacked him. They left their house in fear.
The monster was lonely, unhappy and he wanted revenge.
He burned the de Lacey’s house down and went to look
for Victor. Instead, he found his brother, William, and
killed him. The monster now wants a female companion
and Victor agrees to create one.
Mary Shelley
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Chapters 7–8: Victor tells his father that he wants to
marry Elizabeth but first he must travel and study. His
friend, Henry, joins him and they travel to London. Victor
learns a lot from the scientists there and collects the
things he needs for the female monster. He then goes
on his own to the north of Scotland. One night, as the
monster looks in through the window, Victor destroys the
female. The monster is very angry and threatens revenge.
Victor takes a boat. He falls asleep and arrives in Ireland.
There, someone tells him that a dead body has been
found and Victor is arrested for murder.
Chapters 9–10: Victor is taken to see Mr Kirwin, the local
judge and he discovers that the dead man is his friend,
Henry Clerval. Victor is very distressed and spends the
next two months very ill in prison. His father goes to
see him and a month later Victor is found not guilty of
Henry’s murder. Father and son start the journey back
to Switzerland but stop to rest in Paris. A letter from
Elizabeth arrives. She tells Victor that she loves him and
wants to marry him. Victor decides they must marry very
soon before the monster takes his revenge.
Chapters 11–12: Victor and Elizabeth get married
and start their holiday in a hotel. That night Elizabeth is
murdered in her room. Victor sees the monster through
an open window and chases him. The monster escapes.
Victor follows the monster to the North Pole. He
becomes very ill and is rescued by Walton, the captain of
a boat. As he lies dying, he tells Walton his story and asks
him to promise to destroy the monster when he is dead.
Victor dies. The monster approaches the lifeless Victor
and begs forgiveness. When he realises Victor is dead, the
monster decides that he must die too and jumps into the
water and disappears.
Background and themes
Mary Shelly was greatly influenced by the Romantic
Movement and she wrote Frankenstein after Lord Byron
introduced a challenge to discern who among the three
writers, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Byron himself,
could write the best ghost story. Her work was greatly
influenced by the mass production and dehumanization
of the Industrial Revolution, which posed a threat to
the Romantic ideals of the importance of the individual,
the beauty of nature, and the emotional and free spirit.
Frankenstein can be seen as a protest against this scientific
revolution.
Love and friendship: Victor had two very close friends,
Elizabeth and Henry. Their personalities complemented
his own. Victor was the scientific, mechanical part,
while Henry was the literary part and Elizabeth was the
soothing, gentle, feminine influence that balanced out the
literary and scientific passion. The monster explained to
Victor that he had no friends and was lonely and his quest
in life was for companionship and understanding. It was
his loneliness and rejection by humans and Victor himself
that made him savage. He had no one to comfort him,
support him or love him, and he felt that absence strongly.
Loneliness recurs as a theme throughout the monster’s
existence.
Science and nature: The theme of scientific intervention
in nature is key to this novel. At the time it was written,
scientific development in England was becoming of great
importance and was beginning to influence every aspect
of human life. Shelley portrays the natural environment
that surrounds us, the lakes, the mountains and the
forests, as both beautiful and consoling whereas when
scientists interfere with nature, a hideous monster is
created. Whether Shelley intended it or not, her message
is of great importance today in serving as a warning of the
disastrous consequences that genetic engineering may
have if not accompanied by moral and ethical responsibility.
Judging by appearances: Another theme is the human
tendency to judge a person based on his or her
appearance. It is true that the monster appears horrifying,
but he is also shown to be more humane than some of
the other humans in the story. Indeed, he is at first quite
sensitive and tolerant. Unfortunately, no one tries to
understand him or to accept him the way he is or see the
inner beauty that exists.
Discussion activities
Chapters 1–2
Before reading
1 Discuss: Talk about horror stories.
Do you like horror stories? What makes them
frightening? Do they sometimes have a message? What
was the last horror film you saw? Did you like it?
While reading (At the end of p. 2)
2 Guess: Ask students why they think the man that
Walton found wants to go to the North Pole.
After reading
3 Pair work: Ask students to talk about whether they
think Frankenstein should have created the monster
or not.
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Do you think it is all right for scientists to do all kinds of
experiments? What kind of experiments do you think
could be bad? Do you think it was a good idea for
Frankenstein to create the monster?
Chapters 3–4
Before reading
4 Pair work: Ask students to talk about the monster
Frankenstein has created.
What does he look like? How do you think he felt when
he came alive? Can he talk and think? What problems
will he have now that he has run away?
After reading
5 Role play: Put students in groups of four to write
and act out Justine’s trial. One student is Justine,
one is the prosecutor, one is Frankenstein (defending
Justine) and one is the judge (who decides Justine is
guilty and sentences her).
Chapters 5–6
Before reading
6 Guess: Ask the students to imagine in small groups
what has happened to the monster since he left
Frankenstein’s laboratory.
What do you think happened to the monster after he
left Frankenstein’s laboratory? Where did he live? What
did he eat? Did he meet any people? Why did he kill
William?
After reading
7 Role play: Put students in pairs. Ask them to act out
the final conversation between Frankenstein and the
monster.
Student A: You are the monster. Tell Frankenstein you
want a wife and why. Promise you will leave the country
and never hurt anybody again.
Student B: You are Frankenstein. Tell the monster you
don’t want to create a female monster and why. Agree
to make another monster in the end, but make the
monster promise to go away and hurt no more people.
Chapters 7–8
Before reading
8 Discuss: Ask the students to discuss the possible
reasons why Frankenstein is going to England.
Is Frankenstein trying to escape from the monster? Does
he need to talk to someone important there? Is there
something he needs in London to make the other
monster? Will he go alone?
After reading
9 Role play: Tell the students to imagine that
Frankenstein didn’t destroy the female monster.
Student A is the monster and Student B is the female
monster.
What do they say to each other? Does the monster like
the female? Does she like him? What does the monster
say about Frankenstein?
Chapters 9–10
After reading
10 Write: Students work individually. Ask the students
to imagine they are Frankenstein. They have to write
a reply to Elizabeth’s letter.
The letter should talk about what happened in Ireland.
Describe the prison, the trial and how you felt about the
death of your friend. Also say you are afraid of the
wedding night.
Chapters 11–12
While reading
11 Role play: Put the students into pairs. Refer to
page 63, penultimate line ‘Elizabeth left me and went
to the bedroom.’
Students imagine there was a conversation between
Elizabeth and the monster before he killed her.
Student A: You are the monster. Tell Elizabeth that
Frankenstein created you. Tell her that he destroyed your
female companion and that you are going to kill her.
Student B: You are Elizabeth. Tell the monster that he
shouldn’t kill you and that you will help him.
After reading
12 Research: Put students in groups to do some
research about a novel or a film in which a monster is
the central character. Each group can then do an oral
presentation for the rest of the class or a wall display
with texts and illustrations.
You can get information from the Internet or books.
Describe the monster, explain what the monster does,
its reasons for doing evil things and whether you think it
is 100% bad or that there is some good in the monster.
Some possible choices are vampires, zombies, bogeymen,
ghosts etc.
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