Summary of Chapter Notes ( 1-5 ) - Frankenstein

            We begin by reading four letters written by Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville.  The letters that Walton writes to his sister are about the journey of the ship he is captain of and he reassures her that he is doing fine and that he really longed to have a friend.  It’s important that he writes letters to his sister just so she knows his status.  While heading upon the North Pole, he finds a stranger named Victor nearly frozen on the ice and he tells Walton about his family.  Walton feels he now has a friend and is so excited he writes to his sister about him.

CHAPTER 1 - Victor Frankenstein, we learn was the stranger, begins his narration and starts with his family background, birth, early childhood and then described how his childhood companion, Elizabeth Lavenza, entered his family.  Back then, marriage wasn't always done for love, it could have been for helping someone out who has a bad life and job.  Victor's parents were in that situation and had raised Victor by spoiling him.  His parent's had a passion to help people and so they would go to cottages of the poor and help in some way.  When Victor was about five years of age, his parents brought back home to Geneva, a beautiful little girl name Elizabeth who was fostered by an Italian family to help her have a better life.  Elizabeth then, was treated as a member of the family.

CHAPTER 2 - Victor becomes increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the natural world and in natural philosophy.  He then reads about the works of three alchemists.

CHAPTER 3 - When Victor was seventeen, his mother caught scarlet fever from Elizabeth, and died.  Weeks later, he left his family in Geneva to attend the university at Ingolstadt.  Victor sets up a meeting with a professor of natural philosophy named M. Krempe, who complies to Victor that all the time he has spent studying the alchemists has been wasted.  Also, He then attends a lecture in chemistry by a professor named Waldman and felt convinced to pursue his studies in the sciences.

CHAPTER 4 - Victor ignores his social life and family back in Geneva and begins to study anatomy, death and decay.  Victor is very fascinated by the creation of life and feels he wants to renew it.  Working away in private as summers past, he decides to begin the construction and creation of an animate creature while he grows pale, lonely, obsessed, and neglects what's important, himself and his family.


CHAPTER 5 - On a stormy night of November, after months of labor, Victor completes his creation but when it slowly come to life, its awful appearance horrifies him.  His heart fills with horror and disgust and even creates problems for him to sleep.  One sleep, he was disturbed by a wild dream about him and Elizabeth kissing, and suddenly she turns into his mother's corpse.  He wakes up to the monster looming over his bed with a smile and rushed out of the house and refuses to return to the apartment for nights.  Victor comes across and old school friend named Henry Clerval and brings him back to the apartment.  When they go there, there was no sign of his creation.  Victor became ill with a nervous fever that lasted months and when he recovered, Henry gave him a letter from Elizabeth that she sent during his sickness.

Checked by: Kathleen Dixon   

Frankenstein's Creation

THE CREATION 

         In chapter five, Frankenstein finally accomplishes his goal of giving life to an inanimate object.  He worked very hard for almost two years to accomplish this goal and was completely obsessed with his project.  Mary Shelley described Frankenstein's creature as an 8-foot-tall, hideously ugly creation, with translucent yellowish skin so taut over the body that it barely covered his insides.  Although this creation had no name he was portrayed as a monster and appeared to have glossy and glowing eyes, short black hair, black lips and pearly white teeth as he has a heavy breath.  He's also described to have a square-shaped head and bolts to serve as electrical connectors or electrodes on his neck.  The monster goes through a period of abandonment and seeks revenge upon his creator and along the way is driven by despair and loneliness to acts of cruelty and murder against innocent people.  As depicted by Shelley, the creature is an intelligent, sensitive and emotional creature whose only aim is to share his life with another creation like himself.

Checked by: Kathleen Dixon 

Soliloquy Analysis

Act 5 Scene 5 

Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow
Spoken by Macbeth


Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
                     
                In act 5, scene 5, Macbeth is responding to when he was informed of his wife's death by suicide and feels he has lost hope, his view of life is now meaningless and no longer has a will to live.   Macbeth expresses his loneliness and regret in this final soliloquy.

Checked by: Chaz Gutmanis