Frankenstein
Summaries
Ch. 2 Summary
• Unlike Walton, Victor has friends. Two of them. Or at least, he did during his
childhood. First, there's Elizabeth. Victor also has a friend named Henry
Clerval.
• Victor describes his idyllic childhood, which is a cue for us to begin use of the
historical present.
• As a brooding teenager, Victor develops an interest in science. Especially
interesting to him is the old, not to mention discredited, field of alchemy. He's
especially into some guy named Albertus Magnus.
• Victor realizes that science is very powerful, but possibly also destructive,
when he sees a tree get struck by lightning. Hmm!
Ch. 3 Summary
• Elizabeth catches scarlet fever. She recovers, but Victor's mother catches the
illness while nursing her back to health and dies herself. This is where the bad
things begin, if you hadn't already picked up on that.
• On her deathbed, she tells Victor and Elizabeth she wants them to get married.
Way to lay on the guilt trip, mom.
• A few weeks later, Victor goes away to study at a university called Ingolstadt.
He's only seventeen.
• Once he gets there, he finds a place to live and starts chatting up professors.
Some guy named M. Krempe teaches natural philosophy and basically discredits
alchemy entirely, to Victor's dismay.
• Luckily, Victor meets a nice chemistry professor named Waldman and decides to
study science. The real kind.
Ch. 5 - Dream
Assignment:
• Explain the dream.
• Explain the significance of the dream.
Ch. 8 Summary
• Shocking! Justine confesses even though she is innocent so that she
won't go to Hell.
• Elizabeth and Victor still believe in her innocence, although no one
else does.
• Justine is executed.
• Victor at least has the good sense to feel guilty, since his secret has
now caused two people he loves to die.
Ch. 9 Summary
• Victor mopes around, contemplating suicide. He continues to feel:
• (1) stupid and
• (2) guilty.
• His father takes the family to their lake house at Belrive to try to put
the past behind them.
• Victor goes off by himself to the valley of Chamounix and feels
momentary happiness due to how sublime it is (again with the
sublime nature bit —pay attention), but the feeling passes.
Ch. 14 Summary
• Now that the monster understands what the family is saying, he can understand their
story, which is weirdly like what has happened to Victor's family.
• Safie's Turkish father was accused wrongly of a crime (like Justine), and sentenced to
death in Paris. Safie met Felix when he was visiting her father in prison, and they fell
in love.
• At the time, Agatha, Felix, and the blind old man (named De Lacey) were respected
and rich Parisians.
• Felix plotted to help Safie's father escape from prison, but he was discovered, and
the family was exiled sans all their money.
• Safie's father tried to force her to move to Constantinople, but she ran away to Felix.
• These stories give the monster hope that Felix and De Lacey will be compassionate
toward him, since they too have suffered injustice.
Ch. 15 Summary
• One night, the monster finds books and clothes in the woods while he is foraging for
food. The most important book for him is Paradise Lost, which the monster
mistakenly reads as history instead of fiction.
• He also finds some of Victor's journal entries in the pockets of the clothes he initially
took from Victor. Big mistake. He discovers that Victor was totally grossed out by him
and hated that he had brought the monster to life.
• The monster decides that the cottagers are his last hope for social acceptance. Since
De Lacey is blind and the younger people often leave him alone during the day, the
monster plans to gain De Lacey's trust and acceptance and in turn be trusted by Felix,
Agatha, and Safie.
• Soon, the monster gets his opportunity. He approaches De Lacey, who is kind and
cordial to him.
• But the others return too soon and freak out. Felix drives him off, and, when the
monster finally comes back, they're gone. For good.
Ch. 18 Summary
• Victor procrastinates digging up all those graves.
• Finally, he decides to go off to England to work on his project.
• Before he goes, his father notices that Victor seems pretty upset.
Only he thinks it's because Victor doesn't want to marry his
adopted sister Elizabeth anymore.
• But Victor totally does. He's just got to make a second monster first.
• So, Victor arranges with his father to leave for two years—and BFF
Henry goes with him. Uh-oh.
Ch. 19 Summary
• Victor can't really work with Henry and the monster breathing down
his neck, so he leaves Henry with a friend in Scotland.
• Victor then rushes off to the Orkneys, where he can work on his lady
monster in solitude.
• Still, this guy has a tough time getting himself to work. He can't help
wondering if he's just making another destructive monster.
• Victor spends all his time alone with his half-finished monster and a
guilty conscience.