 Hello and welcome. Now, the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is considered among one of the major classics. However, if you are studying this either for your coursework or exams, it is also an incredibly wordy novel and there are lots of different subplots and sub-narratives and different main characters, of course the primary ones being Victor Frankenstein and the creature, and sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to wrap your head around all the major events that you need to understand, but equally to kind of take a step back from the story itself and know really what you need to focus on. Now, when it comes to actually revising for this story and of course also writing about this, it's really important to have an eagle's eye view. So what I decided to create was essentially a mind map, charting all the major events in this story. Now, bear in mind that this story is considered in terms of its narrative structure and its narrative framework. It's written in what we call an embedded narrative. In other words, it's not written from one person's perspective. It's actually there's a framed narrative. So this is the main story or the main person that introduces the story. Of course, this is Captain Walton. He's writing a series of letters then contained within that is another sub story and another sub narrative. Of course, this is Victor Frankenstein talking directly about his story and recounting his events. However, within his recounting, we then hear the creature himself when he encounters Victor Frankenstein and the creature also shares his narrative. Okay. So really, if you think about it kind of in a series of boxes, you've got the wider narrative, the frame narrative. So the widest box is Walton. So Captain Walton, his story and it's in his letters. Then a smaller box inside this wider box is Victor Frankenstein's own story. And then another box inside Victor Frankenstein's box is the creature. Hopefully that hasn't confused you. Just bear in mind that. And of course, this is one of the reasons why this story is so powerful, but equally also can be a little bit complicated. It is written in an embedded narrative structure. Okay. Now, what I think would be really good is to really start off by looking at generally all the major events that happen in this story. So that you can really have a clear idea and a clear understanding of the major events. Okay. And then with that, what I will do is go over all the main characters and key quotations to remember. And I will highlight, for example, when it comes to the character of Victor Frankenstein, the creature and so on, all the key quotations to remember for them, but also the word level analysis you can do when it comes to each of the key quotations. Okay. In this way, I'm trying to make this novel a bit more digestible and a bit easier to follow and to understand. Okay. So now what I'm going to do is basically go over the entire plot with you. Okay. Now, the story and as I mentioned, it's an embedded narrative. So the first narrative starts with Captain Walton writing letters to his sister who's back in England. And we learned that he's on a massive expedition on an exploration mission. It's something that's part of his ambition to essentially get with his men to the North Pole. However, he gets stuck. He gets stuck in the ice. And whilst he's stuck, he discovers a man, a really mysterious character in this cold area. And this man looks like he's almost very close to death. He's intrigued. This man, he's lonely. He's isolated his by himself. He then, of course, because this man looks like he's about to die out in the ice. And of course, this is in a very forbidden atmosphere. In fact, actually Captain Walton's own ship can't even pass through. He invites him on board. Okay. And then he discovers and of course he's writing this in his letter to his sister. He discovers that this man is called Victor Frankenstein and Victor Frankenstein, who's intrigued about how did you come here? How did you get here? Victor Frankenstein then narrates his own story and he's almost telling Captain Walton. Look, please take my story because I can see that you're a very ambitious man. I used to be an ambitious man and that ambition caused me a lot of pain. Please take my story as a cautionary tell to maybe dampen your ambition a little bit. Okay. So Captain Walton, of course, is writing all of this and then Victor Frankenstein starts his narrative within Captain Walton's story. So we firstly learned that Victor Frankenstein, he tells Captain Walton and of course speaks directly to us of his early life. We find that he had a very idealistic early upbringing. He's very intelligent. He comes from a good family and he talks of his early life and his really idyllic family setting in Geneva. So we learned that he comes from a very good family and then when he gets older, he sets off and goes to university to study anatomy. In other words, to study the body and how the body is made. Now whilst he's at university studying anatomy and how the body works, he becomes really ambitious and he starts working on what becomes a really passion project, something that really consumes him. It consumes him to the point of him becoming really obsessed but also almost sick. In other words, Victor Frankenstein confesses that whilst he was at university, he started working on his creation, essentially the crowning achievement of his university projects. And this creation was a creature that he wanted to make and it was made up of dead body parts. So he confessed that he went to the graveyards, you know, dug up different body parts, so different head, eyes, hands and so on. He put all of this together. He played the role of God and created a new creature, okay? And Frankenstein then brings the creature to life and of course bear in mind that he has played the role of God. He's played the role of both mother and father. They've created a new creature. So him as mother and father, this creature comes to life. It wakes up and when the creature, this creation of his wakes up, he is really horrified to behold it. He's horrified to behold this new creation and as a result, Victor Frankenstein confesses that he became so overwhelmed that he fled. He ran away from essentially what is his child. He ran away, runs off, goes to sleep, has really fitful nightmares and essentially runs away from his creation, okay? Then Frankenstein when he later recovers but he never goes back to find his creature, his own child and he later then finds a letter and receives a letter from his father in Geneva basically saying that his young brother William has been murdered. Now Frankenstein of course ponders this sudden change of events and he suspects that the murderer of his own brother William is the creature that he created and abandoned, okay? So he returns home. So he leaves of course university. He returns home for his brother's funeral and realizes that not only has his brother, his young brother William been killed but Justine, their servant has been mistakenly suspected and accused of being the murderer and she's unlawfully, she's lawfully executed. However, it's on the mistaken assumption that she is the one that killed William. So Victor Frankenstein is really tortured by this knowledge because he realizes that as a result of him, he has been directly related to firstly William's murder but of course also the murder of Justine who is a really, really good and kind servant to them. So Frankenstein feels really guilty and he feels incredibly responsible for both the deaths of William, his young brother and Justine and he runs away to the mountains where he finally meets the creature, his creation, the child that he ran away from. Now, this is now the third narrative. Okay, so the creature approaches him. Of course, Frankenstein and the descriptions we get of the creature, it looks really horrifying. Okay, now the creature then approaches Frankenstein and tells him his story. He, how he basically as a child that's been abandoned slowly started to understand the world around him. He's very eloquent. He's able to speak really clearly and we learned that he learned how the world works through primarily watching from a distance. The Delacy family because initially when he first was kind of figuring things out, he noticed that human beings who judged him based on his appearance and not the quality of his character would often run away from him or become really violent. So of course, he finds a place in the woods near a small lodging. This is where the Delacy family lives and he witnesses them and this is how he learns how to speak and how to communicate. He longs for warmth, companionship like a child would long to have a mother, father, a family. He one day approaches the Delacy family. At first he approaches the blind father who accepts him however when the other seeing human beings see him. So the other members of the Delacy family, they do chase him away. So the monster reveals to Frankenstein or rather the creature reveals to Frankenstein that he is incredibly lonely. Human beings are very shallow. They judge everybody based on appearance, not the quality of the character and the creature says because he's very lonely he wants Frankenstein who also abandoned him as his maker. He wants him to create a mate for him, a companion, someone who can be his lover but also his friend. Frankenstein agrees initially and he creates a mate, right? So he creates a female version of the creature. However, once he creates her he realizes how maybe he might unleash a race of these terrible beings onto the human race and ultimately maybe even cause the deaths of all human beings. So he decides to destroy this creation of his meaning of course the creature will never have a mate. The creature witnesses him doing this and he vows revenge against Frankenstein. Now, later we find that one of Frankenstein's really close friends, Henry Carval is killed and as a result Victor Frankenstein himself he finds himself in the same position as Justine who was accused of murdering William. So he finds himself in the position of the accused. He knows that Henry was killed even looks at the marks of the fingers that killed and choked him and he realizes this is the creature, okay? However Frankenstein cannot prove his innocence. Later on Frankenstein decides to marry Elizabeth, his cousin and she is killed on their wedding night. So the creature vows that not only will he be alone because of Frankenstein's actions but Frankenstein himself will also be alone. So as a result he ends up killing Elizabeth on Frankenstein's own wedding night and Frankenstein also discovered that his father has died. So now he is completely alone, completely isolated but equally he realizes that his creation has been at the root of all of these senseless murders. As a result Victor Frankenstein decides to now vow revenge. Now the tables turn it goes from the creature constantly trying to pursue Frankenstein, pursue his family, pursue everything. Frankenstein is now alone and Frankenstein is the one that now starts chasing the creature. He wants to destroy this creation and he decides to hunt the creature down and kill it and this is what leads him to go deeper and deeper and deeper into icy regions across Europe and he finally gets to the icy North Pole and this is where when he's almost at the point of death he meets Walton and Walton welcomes him on his ship. Now ultimately the story ends sadly with Victor Frankenstein once he's told his very cautionary tale against ambition and against overreaching human boundaries and playing the role of God. Victor Frankenstein ends up dying and the creature who's been secretly witnessing this interaction comes in when Walton has left Victor Frankenstein's body. He appears, the creature appears and weeps and Walton finds the creature morning over his father and mother and morning over his creator. Ultimately the creature then shows that it is now ready to die and the creature leaves and presumably dies alone much like his own creator. So that's it when it comes to understanding the plot and the narrative of Frankenstein. Do bear in mind that it is written as I mentioned in an embedded narrative. The main narrative framework, the frame is Captain Walton who's very ambitious and of course once he realizes these ambitions he decides to now head back to England who doesn't want to do any more discoveries and try to play the role of God. However Victor Frankenstein's story is told within his and then within Victor Frankenstein's own story is a creature's story. So thanks so much for listening and do make sure you come back where I'll go over all the key quotations to remember for the main characters of this story.