I've always wanted to read Frankenstein, to know the real story. I think too many people, including myself, believed that Frankenstein was the monsters name and the name still gets thrown back and forth. A lot of things that were brought up in class are things I realized as well, or as they were being brought up I realized new ideas on who the characters really were.
It's interesting to know how much of Mary Shelley's history affected her book. That fact that she was a teenager when she wrote it probably affected the emotions that were reflected in Frankenstein. Like the monster many teenagers go through feeling like they are discriminated against or an outcast. I think is some ways her characters were like her. I'm sure there were times in her life where she left discriminated against or felt as if she wasn't really apart of society the way others were.
Overall I liked Frankenstein, my favorite part of the book was the monsters story about his observations of the world. When I first started reading the book I found it hard to get into because I wasn't sure what Walton had to do with the story. After getting into Victor's story and then into his monster's, it felt as if you had to peal back the necessary layers to get to their stories. By the time I got wrapped into the monster's story I had already forgotten about Walton. I think the character Walton was there to comfort Victor so that the end of his life didn't seem as lonely. Victor lost everything at the end and the only thing he had left was his desire to kill what he gave life to. The monster's life is easy to feel sad for because it's hard to imagine the type of isolation that he felt. In the end Victor felt the same way. They reflected each others feelings well. Both felt great hate for the other to the point where they wanted revenge and it was the end of both of them. Maybe that's why Walton was there as well, to confirm that they both indeed existed once and that he knew their stories, and now, so do we.
I think a main theme to this story is responsibility. Victor should have realized that he needed to teach his creation how to live peacefully in the world. That's really all the monster wanted, and he wanted to be accepted. Without Victor guiding the monster, how could he have known what his responsibility was. When he killed one of Victor's relatives and framed it on that girl, he didn't feel any guilt just anger. A lot of times we hear how children learn things from their parents but it's interesting to also realize what happens when someone doesn't have a figure to guide them.
