The Story of Frankenstein

Mary Shelley was a Romantic author who wrote the book Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Shelley was just eighteen when she wrote the tale, which is now regarded as one of the best novels of the nineteenth century. By most accounts, Frankenstein is also the book that gave rise to the science fiction subgenre.

The novel's central theme is the shift in European thought from the Enlightenment to the Romantic era, which occurred during Frankenstein's period and was marked by enormous social change. Strangely enough, a volcano rather than a vision marked the beginning of the Frankenstein story. A massive volcanic eruption at Indonesia's Mount Tambora in 1815 filled the air with ash and dust. Roughly 100,000 people perished immediately after the explosion. The warm growth season never materialized the following summer. Most of Europe was shrouded in fog and even frost instead of sunshine. Crop failures affected Europe, Asia, and even North America for three years after that. Then came famines, diseases, and political uprisings.

In Geneva, where she was visiting with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, their friend Lord Byron, and Lord Byron's physician, John Polidori, on a rainy afternoon in 1816, Mary Shelley came up with the story. The gang passed the time by creating and telling ghost stories when they were cooped up indoors due to bad weather. On that day, the concepts for Polidori's 1819 novels The Vampyre and Frankenstein were both being developed. 

Mary, Percy, and Lord Byron contested to determine who could produce the scariest tale. After contemplating the idea of a scientist who had created life and been frightened by what he had made for days, Shelley was moved to write Frankenstein. Mary started the book after her husband Percy and his friend Lord Byron decided to each write a ghost story on a stormy night in the Swiss Alps. Mary had already sketched out hers by morning, focusing on the prototypical "mad scientist" Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who, to improve health and lengthen life, undertook to create an eight-foot-tall human being (later referred to as a "daemon" and "fiend") from body parts recovered from exhumed graves.

Her novel also teaches us valuable truths about life. She uses examples to show how decisions have repercussions, so we shouldn't "play God." The Modern Prometheus is the book's subtitle or alternative title. Greek mythology holds that Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to mortals, incurring eternal wrath. Shelley parallels this in her narrative about Victor Frankenstein, who, in his hubris, sought out a source of forbidden knowledge. Frankenstein is a prime example of a Romantic overreach that crossed the line between morality and theology.

The most critical and obvious takeaway from Shelley's work is that science and technology can be overused. The conclusion is straightforward—everyone Victor Frankenstein cared about—including himself—met a horrible end. This demonstrates why it is vital for all members of society to respect human life.

Our most terrifying story is still Frankenstein, which continues to capture our imaginations because it taps into our most primal anxieties about the fine line separating life and death and about our inadequacy in the face of our romantic ideals.