Frankenstein, highly regarded as the the first science fiction novel, is
no stranger to gothic themes. Most of the novel is centered around Victor Frankenstein,
an obsessive scientist whose family dies of diseases. From this dark point, he experiments
on the dead on hope to regenerate a dead body. After completing his goal and
creating his monster, he abandons him with fear letting him roam the earth.
The overall theme of death and sadness takes over this story completely.
Victor as a character has a very disturbing life that constantly delays his feeling
of happiness. A running thread of the novel is the constant delay of his
marriage with his cousin Elizabeth. Constant deaths make Victor hopelessly want
to work more and this gives him no social life or time to spend on a future
wedding.
The story only gets darker when it goes into the monster’s story. Having
met with Victor after searching for years and killing more family members of
his, he tells him how his life has been since he abandoned him. He looked onto
a family’s life through their window, learning their names, secretly helping
with chores and desperately wanting to be apart of it. Only to be rejected at
the sight of his face. The monster’s life is a struggle of being unloved,
unwanted and not knowing why he was put on earth. It’s incredibly dark and
having being turned into the “villain” of the story for wanting answers and
acceptance is pretty heartbreaking.
Both Victor and his monster are tortured souls, constantly butting heads
with each other until they reach their demises. It’s a gothic novel by all
means. Death, gloom and sadness accompany every page, not holding out for
harshness and pushing boundaries for the genre.
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