Cliffsnotes on Shelley's Frankenstein

by Jeff Coghill

Book Overview

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into key elements and ideas within classic works of literature. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764585932
• ISBN13: 9780764585937
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.9" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Frankenstein as a product of the Romantic Period.

Victor Frankenstein's creation had murdered members of his family and strangled to death his fiance on their wedding night fulfilling his threat to "be with you on your wedding night" and warned Victor, "You are my creator but I am your master." As Victor centered his life around creating the monster, he would later center it around hunting down and killing his creation. This manhunt would expend Victor's life and prove his efforts futile to catch an untouchable and nameless monster. This novel is full of enduring themes of ambition, friendship, and the conflict between the two, psychology, oppression and rebellion, the dangers of scientific and intellectual advancement, and societal injustice. The writing itself isn't great but it's the story and the themes that make this a great classic. Shelley wrote this book influenced by the period of time in which she lived, the Romantic Period. This was the response to the previous time, the Age of Enlightenment. In the Age of Enlightenment, reasoning was deemed of utmost importance and people thought that there were natural laws and that reason plus these natural laws would equal progress. By progress, they meant not only advancement, but unlimited advancement, that society would continue to move closer and closer to perfection. In Frankenstein, we see the result of so much logic and reason- the creation of a monster. In the story there seems to be no natural laws governing the world. When I think of what natural laws would govern the world, Justice comes to mind as the most important. Throughout this whole story, justice is so dearly lacking. Injustice leads to more injustice. The monster is born into unforgiving circumstances that were not his fault. His creator rejects him immediately. Throughout his life, the monster found himself rejected by everyone for the repulsive looks his creator gave him. The monster even suffered rejection of the impoverished family he ardently and sacrificially helped. When he saved a girl from drowning, her father shot him. The monster yearned desperately for a mate of his kind, which Victor denied him for fear the two would breed an entire race of fiends or that she, too would reject him and there would be two fiends. Decide this debate between the monster and Victor for yourself. Even if Victor was right to deny him a mate, it was still an injustice for the monster. After all, the monster could not help the disadvantages he was born into and he strove mightily to be virtuous. He exercised his will and responsibility strongly, but to no avail. The poor thing begs for just one friend and he is denied this. The innocent Justine (a play on the word "Justice") is executed for the monster's crime; the monster eventually slays several innocent people he doesn't even know. Injustice is what moves the plot of this book.Shelley's novel disputes the importance and promise of natural laws, reasoning, and the idea of progress. It introduces emotion and int

Good resource for a not-so-good book

Seeing as how I didn't like Frakenstein very much at all, this book kept me at least fairly interested in the novel. The novel is very long, repetitive, and extremely slow at times, and the book helps make it a lot faster, and reviews the main plot so the complicated sentence structure of the book is easier to decode. Also, Cliffs notes tells about the literary messages of the novel, hard to figure out unless you know about romanticism, and explains most of the olden-style vocabulary. Finally, there is an excellent character web that explains all the relationships. All in all, helped me a lot with the novel.