Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being.”

What is a creator to do when his creation is monstrous and repugnant? When the act of creation is a regrettable mistake that will forever haunt him?

And what about the intelligent creation abandoned and abhorred by its creator? What hope is there for a social being doomed to perpetual solitude and—worse yet—the rational awareness of its isolated and forsaken existence?

I love the philosophizing and everything else about Frankenstein. I love that a teenage girl wrote this as part of a scary story challenge. I love that she makes me equally pity the protagonist and antagonist (and question who’s who). I love that scientific advancement and the acquisition of knowledge are simultaneously celebrated and cautioned. I wish I could dole out hugs to Victor Frankenstein, his creature, and Mary Shelley because I love all three of them so much!

“Oh, Frankenstein! generous and self-devoted being! what does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovest. Alas! he is cold, he may not answer me.”

— Frankenstein’s Creature

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

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𝓟.𝓢. This review was crossposted from Goodreads because it contains actual thoughts rather than a typically facetious single-sentence remark. View all my book ratings and pointless takes on Goodreads or The StoryGraph.