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When is a monster not just a MONSTER? When he’s Victor Frankenstein’s monster. Mary Shelley had a lot in mind when she created this beast. Appearances, she seems to say, can be deceiving.

Video Transcription:

I said that Frankenstein was really the character that mattered. But that’s not entirely true. A good third of this book is the monster’s story.

Mini-recap: The monster might as well be a human—at least at the beginning. It learns by observation. It craves connection. It wants to love and to be loved.

It spends months observing a peasant family—only to be rejected and abused.

And then—and only then—is when it becomes a real monster.

Now I don’t want to get ahead of myself because we’re going to talk about the themes of monstrosity and knowledge in Recaps 7 and 8.

So remember this about the monster: He’s a physical manifestation of Shelley’s story.

Here’s what I mean. In the same way that the monster is a mish-mash of parts, he’s also an embodiment of the many themes of this book.

His existence demonstrates that monstrosity is not innate but learned.

The way he acquires knowledge—both good and bad—reveals the benefits of knowledge, and its dangers.

And finally, in the same way that this book is a tapestry of texts, so, in a way, is the monster. With no knowledge of his own, the monster is a blank slate. And his story is formed as others apply their own characterizations of the monster to the monster.