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1-Page Summary of Frankenstein

Overall Summary

Captain Robert Walton wrote a letter to his sister, Margaret Saville. He said that his crew found Victor Frankenstein adrift at sea and offered to tell him the story of how he came upon the ship.

Frankenstein has a perfect childhood with his family, who take in orphans and even have a caring relationship with them. When he is seventeen, Frankenstein’s mother dies of scarlet fever. He then goes to the University at Ingolstadt where he studies to become a doctor. He becomes so obsessed with learning how life works that it starts affecting his relationships with both his family and friends. Eventually, Frankenstein discovers the secret to creating new life—but when he does this for the first time, its appearance is so horrifying that he abandons it forever. A few months later, however, Victor hears news about one of his younger brothers being murdered by someone else; but since no one believes him (since they think Victor was just trying to cover up for himself), Justine Moritz gets executed instead. She was an orphan adopted by Victor’s parents and had been living with them ever since she was young; now she is dead because of what happened thanks to Frankenstein’s monster killing her brother William while disguised as her during the night on which William died from getting stabbed multiple times right before having a heart attack due to blood loss after being attacked by someone else earlier in the evening before dying at exactly midnight from all those injuries combined together plus not having any medical help arrive in time despite there being plenty of people around nearby including police officers who were never called or shown any evidence proving their presence until after everything had already happened).

The monster is a creature who was created by the scientist Victor Frankenstein. The monster wants to be loved and accepted, but because he looks so grotesque, he can’t find love anywhere. He blames his creator for bringing him into this world and not giving him what every human needs: love. So, the monster demands that Victor create another creature like himself so that they can have each other’s companionship. However, at first Victor refuses to do so out of fear of being punished by society for creating such hideous creatures.

Back in Geneva, Victor’s father expresses his wish that Victor marry Elizabeth. But first he must travel to England. He meets up with Clerval and they head to Scotland together. On the way, however, Victor leaves Clerval at a friend’s house and moves to an island where he creates another monster—a female one this time. One night while working on it, he sees the original monster watching him from outside his window. The sight of it is so terrifying that he destroys the female monster immediately by throwing its parts into the ocean. But when he gets back home, there are reports of a murder committed during that same night—one involving Clerval! When police find out about this connection between Victor and Clerval, they arrest him for murder but later release him after two months because there was no evidence against him (and also because of his father).

Victor returns home with his father, and marries Elizabeth. Now that he has married her, the monster kills Elizabeth on their wedding night. Victor’s father dies of grief a short while later. Now all alone in the world, Victor dedicates himself solely to seeking revenge against the monster by tracking him down in the Arctic Circle where they have previously trapped themselves on ice floes which subsequently broke apart due to an explosion caused by fireballs shot into their camp from unknown assailants.