Frankenstein - Themes

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Knowledge and discovery

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The novel begins with Walton describing his own voyage of discovery, which he hopes will lead him to the North Pole. On meeting Victor, he hears of another tale of discovery, that of the secret of creating life itself.

The Monster is also on a path of self-discovery, and all three characters share a powerful desire to acquire knowledge - a desire that ultimately leads two of them to their deaths, and which very nearly kills Walton.

The Monster quite naturally seeks knowledge about where it came from and how to survive in a hostile world. Through patient endeavour, it learns how to speak and read. But the knowledge it gains only leads it to curse its existence.

It knows that it can never be accepted in the world of man, yet craves human company and the love of the father who abandoned it. Finally, through learning of the 'sanguinary (bloody) laws of man', the Monster is taught that it can be acceptable to kill in some circumstances. This knowledge leads to the deaths of many innocent people.

Robert Walton was brought up by his uncle, and is self-taught in the art of sea-faring. This is despite his father's dying wish that his uncle forbid him from embarking on a life at sea. His determination to succeed, shown by his willingness to work "harder than the common sailors during the day (and devote his) nights to the study of mathematics… medicine... and physical sciences", leads him to believe he can be the first to discover the sea passage to the North Pole. However, his real motivation is self-glory, fuelled by overwhelming ambition. This leads to him failing to assess the dangers of his voyage and knowingly putting the lives of his crew at risk.

Victor Frankenstein also puts others' lives at risk, as well as his own, through his ambitious pursuit of knowledge. He neglects his loving family and allows his health to suffer greatly in his obsession to discover the secret of creating life out of death.

Shelley makes it clear she believes knowledge such as this cannot lead to good. Some benefit may have come from finding a way to the North Pole, but no good is shown to come from Victor's creation of the Monster.

She shows Victor's 'success' to have severe and tragic consequences that should serve as a warning to scientists, past, present and future, that knowledge is a very dangerous thing and should only be used for the good of mankind - and certainly not personal gain.

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Justice

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Through reading Victor's journal and the books found at the De Laceys, the Monster discovers it has been the victim of persistent injustice. Shelley makes it clear the Monster is one of many such victims. She wanted her audience to think about the injustices in her world, and perhaps do something about them.

The Monster suffers right from the start with Victor's flight from it, deserting his responsibilities as a 'father'. People in the 19th century would have seen this as a crime. Victor is punished with death by the novel's end.

But the Monster is also responsible for some terrible crimes, especially the murder of Elizabeth. It punishes itself by committing suicide. However, if people had been kinder, or at least less cruel, the Monster would have found acceptance and felt no need to exact revenge on a world it believed to be responsible for its plight.

Shelley, like her mother, was a firm believer in social justice: that we should look after everyone from all ranks of society, regardless of wealth or status. Perhaps it should not be a surprise, then, that the fairest, most decent characters are women. But they are punished by fate, a cruel God, the Monster or (ironically) the system of justice itself.

Victor's mother shows kindness in firstly taking in Elizabeth, then taking care of her when she falls ill with scarlet fever. An injustice is done to her, though, when she dies of the same disease after coaxing Elizabeth to a full recovery. Elizabeth then acts as a mother to the remaining family, marries her livelong love, Victor, but is punished with death at the hands of the Monster.

Justine is a caring servant and loving guardian of William who unreasonably feels responsible when he is murdered. Her execution as a result of a forced conviction and unfair judge is a further example of the many injustices Shelley saw in the world around her. It is also ironic that the judicial system saves Victor when on trial for the murder of Clerval, when he is the guiltiest character in the story. Shelley could not be clearer: justice is blind, the world is unjust.

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Prejudice

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Prejudice, or judging people with little or no evidence, is a recurring theme throughout Frankenstein. The first major incidence of it comes when Victor abandons his creature. Worse, when he wakes to see it reach out to him just hours after its 'birth', Victor assumes it means harm. In fact, it is simply the natural action of a 'child' reaching out for its 'parent'.

People who come across the Monster are all deceived by its appearance into thinking it will do them harm, when in reality it has been born with completely pure and good intentions. It is attacked by townspeople, beaten by Felix (who it thought could be a friend) and shot at by a peasant. It is no wonder it turns evil in the face of such prejudice. Shelley makes us question how we treat those who appear monstrous when we may be monsters ourselves.

Victor also suffers prejudice, in parallel with the Monster, when he is washed up in Ireland and treated with immediate suspicion and anger, called a 'villain', and accused of a murder he did not commit.

Justine suffers prejudice, and pays with her life, when she is accused of murdering a child. That child, William, is himself prejudiced. He insults the Monster with the same words Victor uses against it, when all it wanted was to make friends. Shelley is constantly showing her readers the destructive and isolating nature of prejudice.

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Isolation

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Frankenstein is full of characters who suffer physical or emotional isolation. Shelley deliberately chose settings that would emphasise this, such as the remote vastness of the Arctic Circle, where the story begins and ends.

Walton chooses to isolate himself in this frozen wasteland, yet soon regrets the absence of a true companion on his expedition.

Victor also chooses to isolate himself, firstly at university in Ingolstadt, when he avoids contact with his family to work on the Monster. Later, he neglects Elizabeth (his most loving, unfailing companion) out of fear she will discover his secret. He then chooses the remote Orkney Islands on which to embark on the construction of the second creature, and seems most comfortable when surrounded by the wilderness of vast lakes, towering mountains or wild heathland.

It is no surprise that when Victor meets the Monster for the first time since its creation the setting is high up in the Swiss Alps. Both are drawn to it as a place where they can attempt to escape reminders of what they have done and become. Also, sublime landscapes such as these overwhelming remind the reader of the characters' insignificance compared with the awesome power of nature.

The Monster is another victim of isolation. Unlike Walton and Victor, it does not bring this upon itself. Indeed, it tries early on to make contact with humans and connect with them, but is always abused, leading to self-imposed isolation in the hovel next to the De Laceys' cottage.

The torment it feels at being excluded from society in general, and loving companionship in particular, is what makes it ask Victor for a mate. When it later witnesses Victor tearing this mate to pieces, it sees a lifetime of isolation ahead and only then commits its most terrible crimes. Shelley's point here is that isolation, whether self-imposed or not, can only bring about unhappiness, a breakdown in civilisation and, ultimately, tragic consequences.