Frankenstein

Frankenstein is a Gothic romance written by Mary Shelly (1797 1851) and published in 1818. The tale begins with letters from Captain Walton as he journeys Northward to undiscovered lands. There, in the frozen wastelands of the North, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein and there hears the strange sequence of events that lead the poor Doctor Frankenstein to those remote reaches of the earth. The Doctor's tale is strange indeed, and explores the limitations of human knowledge while showing, through Frankenstein's Monster, the way in which evil is created and how knowledge we're unprepared for can destroy us.

Victor Frankenstein, dedicated to the study of natural philosophy, gives life to a creature with monstrous human features. However, the experiment does not go as Frankenstein had imagined and, refusing his own creation, the doctor leaves him free and lonely wandering around the world. The aspiration to the absolute, the desire to affirm oneself and to "create", becoming like God, are the premises on which a story of horror, tenderness, romance, and drama is inserted. The eternal struggle between creature and creator, which reaches the atrocious climax of the destruction of both.

Mary Shelley wants to indicate in the figure of the monster, that she becomes violent only when not accepted, that society corrupts human beings. The novel "Frankenstein" thus attacks the immense pride of the human being, who becomes a victim of his own ambition and transforms himself into a monster.

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