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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Welcome to the other side of Frankenstein. We finished it. We did it. We made it. We made it through spooky season. We made it through this book. Thank you for taking, doing that. Thank you for coming along with me on this journey. You know, I wanted to say right at the start of this episode, I know that there were a lot of you who weren't so sure about this book when I announced it. And you wrote in to say, oh, no, I don't want to read this book. It's going to be scary. I don't think I want to join for this season. And many, many, many of you stuck around and you stuck around because you trusted me and I really, really appreciate that. I'm so humbled by that and so grateful. And you've been writing in to say that you glad you did, that you're glad you stuck around because this book was not at all what you thought it was going to be. And I'm so glad to hear that. I'm glad that it was okay. I'm glad that you made it and I really do appreciate your trust. And I know there are some of you who didn't love this book and that's okay too. We don't have to like all the books that we read on here. Just because I like them and choose them doesn't mean you have to like them. But I really do appreciate your trust in me, your sense that when I say it's not horror like Stephen King or, you know, Screaming Dream or something like that, that it's not. And I appreciate that and I am so glad that you're here. But we made it. We made it through. And I know there's lots of you that love this book. So I don't want to say, I don't want to be running it down. I love it too, obviously. So I just want to say, whoever you are, whatever you felt about the book before and now, thank you. Thank you for coming along with me on this journey to read Frankenstein. So today, as I say, this is the wrap up, we are not going to be reading anything else today. We are going to be talking at some length the book. We're going to talk about the ending, but we're also going to kind of zoom out and try to have a little bit more of a big picture lens now that we know the whole story and come back to some of the themes that we've been talking about throughout some of the big questions that came up. And I'm going to do my best via your comments and questions, to tie it all up with a big black tattered bow, or whatever kind of bow we think Frankenstein should have. We're going to tie it all up so so that we are ready to put it behind us and move joyfully on into our Christmas spectacular, which this year is A Victorian Christmas with the book A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. So that is going to begin on Monday. There will not be a break. So on Monday, November 3, we will begin with an intro episode, as we always do. That will be where we talk a little bit about the book, a little bit about the author, and we'll talk about going to talk some logistics because there's a lot going on during our Christmas Spectacular this year and I'm excited about it and I want to share it with you. So that will happen during the Intro episode on November 3rd, and then beginning that Thursday and carrying on through the months of November and December, we will read the book A Little Princess. And then we will end right before Christmas. I think the Last episode is 22nd December or something like that. And then we'll take a break for Christmas and New Year and then we'll come back in January with a new book, which I will announce via a trailer at some point in December. And I will let you know as we go along when that is going to come out. So that is what's coming up here on Storytime for Grown Ups. So before we get into this episode, I just want to remind you, as always, to please subscribe. That way you'll get all of the Christmas episodes. Please tap the five stars. This is a great time if you haven't done it yet, to rate the show and write a little review. If you have a couple of seconds, you just finished a book, so maybe this is a good time to let people know know that you enjoyed it. So if you did enjoy it, tap the five stars. If you didn't, don't tap anything. And then also tell a friend. Remember, we are trying to gather our friends and family together for our Victorian Christmas. So this is the perfect time to just, you know, copy a link to this show, which you can do right in your podcast app, and then text it or email it or send it by a carrier pigeon to somebody that you know, lots of people that you know that you think might like it. That's the best way to grow this show. And growing this show is great because it means we can keep doing it. So please spread the word if you, if you're able, and scroll into the show notes and check out the links. I won't go into all of them now. We've been talking far too long before getting into the episode, so just check out those links. You can pre order my book, Christmas Carol. It's coming out very soon, November 6th. And you can find the merch store, buy some Christmas presents, whatever it is, check out all those links, scroll into the show notes and do that and spread the word. Okay, so let's get into this episode. What I would like to do here is to try to wrap this all up via several comments that I've been hanging on to from throughout the book, as well as some that I got right here at the end. And then I want to respond to them in a sort of back and forth. Okay, so I'll read a question or two, talk for a bit, read another question or two, talk for a bit, etc. Etc. As a way to sort of draw together as many of the themes and ideas that we've been discussing throughout this book, because there have been tons and kind of dialogue with you all about the book, even though it's actually only me talking. So I'm going to use your letters for that. But first, I think it is worth reminding ourselves of what happened in the final chapter, or the final half a chapter, I guess it was, so that we can all be on the same page. So we'll do that, and then we'll begin with a comment or two and we'll try to wrap things up nicely so that we can put Frankenstein behind us and move into our Victorian Christmas. And I think that's going to be a wonderful change of pace. So here is the recap. All right, so where we left off, we are finally back with Walton as our narrator. He's writing to his sister Margaret, still after hearing all of Victor's tale. And he tells us that he believes Victor and wishes they could have been friends when Victor was younger. Walton tells Margaret that they are now in grave danger. The ship is surrounded by ice. He feels responsible for all his men, and he's worried that they're going to mutiny. He later tells Margaret that the crew have Asked him to promise that if they get out of the ice, they will turn around and not go any further north. Victor kind of rallies at this point, and he calls the crew cowards, but Walton can't bear to drag them on if they don't want to go. A little while later, Walton reports that Victor has died. As he's writing, there is a loud noise, and he goes to find out what it is, and he finds the monster standing over Victor's body. The monster is crying and he's visibly distraught, and he tells Walton that he feels horribly remorseful for Victor's death. Walton feels some compassion for him, but ultimately he can't bring himself to feel anything but disgust for the monster. The monster's not surprised. He tells Walton that he will now go and kill himself. And he jumps from the ship and he disappears. And that is the end of the book. Okay, so the first comment I want to read comes from Michelle Staddle. Michelle writes, I'm honestly struggling with why anyone would want to be Team Monster. Being Team Frankenstein or Team Monster are not the only options. They're both awful. Frankenstein is awful for all the reasons discussed, but the creature is beyond awful. Yes, he had a neglectful parent, but that is zero excuse for maliciously murdering a child and framing an innocent. He knew it was wrong, and that makes it so much worse. And the creature knows it is wrong to kill again just to manipulate Frankenstein. Yes, to some extent. Frankenstein bears some responsibility, but the creature is 100% responsible for his own actions and gets zero sympathy from me. I honestly do not get why others sympathize with him. He murdered with malice and said he would do so. Again, I loathe him. Okay, so I want to begin this conclusion episode talking about the monster. And I picked Michelle's comment because it very clearly illustrates the sentiment of, I would say about half of you, maybe a little bit more than half, but around half, that the creature is truly a monster. We can have no sympathy for him. He's a murderer. He's evil. Why are we even talking about this? And I want to begin by pushing back on this a little. Not because I think that Michelle or any of you who agree with her is objectively wrong, but because I see this a little bit differently. And I suspect, although, of course, I can't know for sure, but I suspect that Mary Shelley also wanted to convey something slightly different than that the monster was just pure evil. But by the way, just because she wanted to convey something doesn't mean that she necessarily did. So you're Very welcome to your opinions, but I want to put forward my case both because this is my podcast, but also because I think there's something going on in the book that is worth exploring. Now, I want to begin by saying that I have a thing for monsters. Not like actual monsters, not like evil people, but the sorts of monsters that you meet in, like, fairy tales or gothic literature or some kinds of fantasy stories. Right? Monsters who look like monsters on the outside, maybe even act like monsters sometimes, but are actually good and at their core. The best example of this kind of monster, of course, is the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. And those of you who've been listening to the show for a while know how much I love Beauty and the Beast. But another example of this kind of monster is, believe it or not, Rochester from Jane Eyre. We talked a lot about that when we read Jane Eyre and also last summer when we discussed fairy tales. But then there are also more complicated examples. There's one in particular I'm thinking of now, but it's from a book we haven't read on here yet, but we will read it. So I'm not going to say it, but there are other types of monsters who start out good, but by the end, they are really, truly behaving badly. So badly that they can't be redeemed. Which is different from the Beauty and the Beast idea, because the whole point of that story is that there is redemption at the end, but the beauty, so to speak, of the kind of monster who starts out good and then becomes a monster, such that they have passed the point of no return and can't ever really re enter society. The beauty of that kind of monster is that it makes for a deep, deeply poignant tragedy. And I believe that you can love a character like that even as you acknowledge that there's no happy ending for them and that it was through their own deeds that the happy ending was denied them. And that is how I feel about the creature. Okay, I will admit it. I love the creature. I love him even now. Even after all the things he's done. I don't condone the things he's done. They're horrific and terrible. I don't think he deserves a happy ending. I don't think there's any way that he could get a happy ending. I mean, after killing a child and a young man in the prime of life and a woman on her wedding night, there is no going back. There's no redemption for a man like that. It can't be done. I don't want it to be done. But I still weep for him, and in a way, I still love him. What I'm saying is, I think that the tragedy of this story, the poignant, beautiful tragedy of it all, is that the creature had a beautiful soul. He could have been good. He could have been great. And because of the events of the narrative, the things that happened to him and the way he was made, he descended and descended and descended until he was committing acts of atrocity that no one can condone. That's a tragedy. It's different, I think, than a person who's just evil to the core and loves doing evil deeds and laughs about it and thinks it's awesome or whatever. That's not a tragedy. That's horror, maybe, but it's less interesting to me, right? Lock that guy up. Kill him, whatever. Fine. But the creature isn't that he's good at his core, but he's done pure evil. And that is interesting. I mean, look at the way that the creature talks about the things he's done at the end of the book, okay? This is not a guy who's had lots and lots of fun being evil. This is a guy who hates himself. I mean, he hates himself to the point of feeling that he oughtn't to be alive anymore. He knows that everything he did was wrong. He sees sees that he's allowed himself to wallow in revenge such that he has snuffed out the young and the innocent. Remember, this is a novel, okay? No one actually got hurt. Nobody died in the making of this story, okay? No one was actually killed. So we can look at all this with a little more distance than if it was like a crime scene or something. And what I see in those last declarations of the creature is deep and true remorse for something that no matter how bad he feels, cannot be undone. And I don't think we or anyone else needs to punish him because he's on his way to punishing himself. He's leaving that ship and he's ending his own life. He's going to do it for us. And I'm sorry, but I feel for him. You don't have to, but I do. And I think that we're meant to feel for him because otherwise it's not that interesting. And you may feel that it's not that interesting, and that is your right to feel that way. But I think we're meant to feel the nuance here, and we're meant to feel bad for the creature here at the very end. So I want to zoom in for a moment on this scene at Victor's deathbed, where Victor is now dead and the creature shows up on the ship and he's talking to Walton. Because for a while now we've been looking at the parallels between Victor and the creature. And we've been saying that as things draw closer and closer to the conclusion, Victor and the creature are kind of becoming more and more alike. But I do think there is a key difference between the creature and Victor. And it's that the creature takes responsibility for his actions. He actually always has. He does terrible things, but he always owns up to them. And he always also has always understood that they were wrong. He knows that he's behaving immorally and that his hatred for Victor and what he did to him is the force that he has given into when he committed the murders. And he also takes responsibility for Victor's death, even though he didn't actually murder him with his own hands. Here is what he says he says in his murder, meaning Victor's. My crimes are consummated. The miserable series of my being is wound to its close. O Frankenstein, generous and self devoted being, what does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovest? Okay, so he's asking for forgiveness he knows he can never have because Victor is already dead. And that's apt, right? Because he can't be forgiven. He's gone too far. I mean, maybe God could forgive him. That's between him and God. But his God was Victor, and Victor is a man who doesn't seem like he'd ever be willing to forgive the creature. But the point here is that the creature knows that he's done wrong. Okay, here's more. He says a frightful selfishness hurried me on while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy. And when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine. Okay, now, of course, this sounds exactly like Victor, right? Victor says stuff like this all the time, right? I was supposed to be one way, but everything that happened to me made me this other way. But when Victor says it, he's always lamenting his fate, right? He's not saying, because I did this bad stuff, I am the way I am. He's saying, because all this bad stuff happens. Happened to me. I am the way I am. And I do think that that's an important difference. I think the creature is saying, I was made to be good, but bad stuff happened to me. And so I did bad things as opposed to I was made to be good and bad stuff happened to me, and now I'm miserable. I mean, the bad stuff that happened to Victor was Victor's own doing, but he never acknowledges that. Whereas the creature does acknowledge that his crimes were his own doing. And he said sees that in killing everyone he killed, particularly Elizabeth, that he sealed his fate as a monster. Right? He tells Walton, evil thenceforth became my good meaning. He embraced his monstrousness and saw that he could never go back. There was no hope for him after that. And he's now truly gone from Adam, which he could have been, to Satan. Right? Here's what he says. The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil, which is a reference to Paradise Lost, because Satan in that book was once an angel, but he becomes the devil. So he's not Adam after all. Right? The creature is not Adam after all. He's Satan, and he knows it, and he's sorry for it. Okay? So I want to put forward the idea that the creature is still worthy of sympathy, not for what he has done, but for what he could have been. Right? He was formed unnaturally. He isn't supposed to be here. He was abandoned and neglected and hated. There is nowhere on the whole face of the earth that he would be accepted or loved. His God was not a loving God. He was truly and utterly alone. And even in that loneliness, he found beauty. He turned to good. He heard the birds singing, and he felt the sun shining. And he rejoiced. He learned to love his human neighbors and to want to do good deeds to help them. He longed for love, but he didn't belong in the world. He was never meant to be. Everyone he ever met tried to kill him, and so he took his revenge. Right? I admit I love the creature. I love him for what he might have been and the tragedy of what he became. You don't have to agree with me, but I do think all of that is there in the book. But I'd like to explore this a little more, but in a couple different ways I want to read now. Two more questions. Okay? The first one comes from Nathan Black. Nathan wrote this way back at the beginning of the book, and he was explaining that when he first read Frankenstein on his own, he accidentally skipped the Walton section at the beginning and began with Victor's narrative at chapter one. So here is what he. Why did Shelley need Captain Walton at all and start the story with him, because, as you probably already know, we don't stay with him long. If you do what I did and start at chapter one, it's almost the exact same story. So why do you think Shelley chose to frame this as a story within a story? Okay, and this next one comes from Ashley Hadden, and she wrote this one just recently after the final chapter. Here's what she. I posted in the drawing room about fatherhood the other day, and this chapter has me pondering it, too. Walton is the captain of this ship and therefore is a sort of father figure to his crew. Their fate lies in his hands, and he chooses to listen to his crew's concern and to sail back to England, choosing human connection over glory. I love that Victor couldn't influence him to stay. Okay, so I want to answer Nathan's question of why we needed Walton at all via what Ashley is talking about in her letter, because I think that Walton can help us to illustrate what I was saying a moment ago about Victor, how Victor doesn't ever take responsibility for his own misery. The creature does take responsibility for his evil deeds and for his misery, even though a lot of that misery was created by Victor, which the creature also acknowledges. But Victor never really does that. I mean, maybe a little, like, for a second at the end, but then he's back to not acknowledging it. Because if the tragedy of the creature is that he could have been good but was rejected and abandoned and unloved and turned to evil as a result, then Victor is the cause of that tragedy. And the thing that caused it was his hubris, right? His sense that he was important enough to be the one to spawn a new race of beings, and his inability to see that it wasn't his being that was inherently evil, it was his lack of attention to it that caused it to seek revenge. But we talked at the very beginning about how the problem with Walton and then also with Victor was not that he wanted to explore the North Pole, right? Exploration is wonderful and important, as is scientific discovery and knowledge and all of this. The problem was that Walton was doing it simply to make a name for himself, right? It actually didn't seem to matter what he did. He had tried poetry and a couple of other things, and that hadn't made him famous. So now he was gonna go on this dangerous expedition to the North Pole, and maybe that would make him famous. And we discussed how that is just hubris. It's just narcissism. You shouldn't be doing this Stuff for the sake of your own fame, you should be doing this stuff for the sake of itself, like to help people or to discover new things or whatever it might be. So Walton was in danger of doing what Victor did. Right. He's put all these people's lives in danger in order to do something he doesn't actually really care about. He only cares about it in the sense that it will make him famous, and that's not good. And Victor said that he was telling Walton his story so that Walton wouldn't do that and would instead learn from Victor's mistakes. But is that really what Victor is doing here? I mean, was that in the end what his story turned out to be like? Look at what happens when Victor finds out that Walton has been writing his story down. Here is a quote. Walton says, frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history. He asked to see them and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places, but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. Okay. And then Victor says, since you have preserved my narration, I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity. Okay, there it is again. Posterity. He's thinking of his name going down in the history books, right? He's thinking of fame. Victor is still full of himself, still obsessed with his own image and being the good guy of the story and the victim of the creature. And Walton is kind of eating that all up, right? In fact, he compares Victor to a God, which is sort of proof positive that he hasn't gotten the point of the story, that you shouldn't play God. Here's what he. What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike, in ruin. He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall. Like, yeah, he does feel his own worth, right? He feels his own worth too much. That's his problem. But further evidence that Walton doesn't get it is that at one point, he tries to find out how Victor brought this creature to life. Right? Presumably because he might want to try to do the same thing. Here is what he says. I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavored to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation. But on this point point, he was impenetrable. Okay, so Walton is still all kind of starry eyed and naive. And Victor seems like he's contrite. He understands that people shouldn't make beings in a lab. But that's the part that he has always understood, right, you shouldn't play God. He got that part, but he still wants fame. And he still believes that the only thing he did wrong was create the being in the first place. He still takes no responsibility for what he did with it afterwards. He does, though, just like the creature, compare himself to Satan. Here is what he all my speculations and hopes are as nothing. And like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. But listen to the language here. The creature compared himself to Satan by saying, the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. He acknowledged that he is, in fact, a devil. He has become a thing he hates. But Victor's language implies that something has been done to him. He is chained in eternal hell. Someone has done this to him. It's not a way that he is or a way that he's become. So he sees that you shouldn't play God, but he doesn't see that you should have some compassion and empathy and love for the being that you create if you did play God. But that's where Walton differs from him. See, I think this is a really key theme in the whole book, this idea of human connection, the importance of relationships and love. Victor loves who he loves, but he doesn't really take care of them. Right? He abandons the creature, but he also abandons Elizabeth. He abandons Clerval on their trip. He abandons his father. He abandons the people he loves in service of his work and in service of his own ego and his own victim complex. But Walton, like Ashley says in her letter, even though he admires and looks up to Victor, he ultimately chooses human connection. In the end, Victor even now thinks that the men should continue on to the North Pole because science and discovery are the most important things. Right Here is what he says to the men. He says, be men or be more than men. Be steady to your purpose and firm as a rock. The ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be. It is mutable and cannot withstand you. If you say that it shall not, do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe. And this is actually a kind of really stirring speech when you listen to it. And if these guys were, like, going into battle or doing something that they absolutely had to do and they needed to be brave and courageous, then this would be a fantastic speech. But actually they're doing something they don't even have to do at all. And what they're saying is, this is not important. We don't need to do this. Can we please go home to the things that are important, which are the people that we love? Right. But Walton is really super into this speech. He loves this kind of talk. So he isn't like cured of his own hubris. But when push comes to shove, he does turn the ship around because he cannot bear the idea of being the cause of the death of these men who put their trust in him. Right here is what he says. It is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered through meat. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause. So he turns the ship around. Would Victor have turned the ship around? I do not think so. Okay, so Walton serves the purpose of showing us what really matters, what's really important, and that is humanity, human connection, care for your fellow man. Exactly the things that the creature was denied. Victor sort of saw all of this, but he still saw it through the lens of his own narcissism. Here is what he during these last days, I have been occupied in examining my past conduct. Nor do I find it blameable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness, I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well being. This was my duty. But there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused and I did right. In refusing to create a companion for the first creature, he showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil. He destroyed my friends. He devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness and wisdom. Nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. So he sees that human connection is the most important thing. But he used that realization to abandon the creature. He sees that he shouldn't have created the creature and that he had a responsibility toward it. But he doesn't acknowledge that the dereliction of that responsibility is the reason the creature did what he did. So even though he's talking a big game here, he's actually exemplifying the whole problem, which is that when you think only of yourself, you become a kind of devil. Okay, so now I want to read two more comments, and these will be the last ones. This is the last kind of big idea that I want to explore in this episode. Of course, there are a ton of other things that we could discuss, but we have to wrap it up eventually. So this is the last thing that I want to talk about for now. So here are two more comments. The first one comes from Marian. Marian writes, the act of naming people and things is of great importance in the Bible. Following creation, the first thing God did was name day and night, heaven and earth. By giving Adam the privilege of naming the other creatures of the earth, God also gave him stewardship of them. When someone's name was changed, it always set them on a new path. That said, I find it telling that Victor has never named his creation, nor has the monster given himself a name. It's so much easier to disregard someone whose name we do not know. And this last one comes from Lauren Nichols. Lauren writes, victor tried to play God. Victor also has shown himself to be arrogant and self centered, consumed by his own emotions and fears and wants. Did he manage to create a being in his own image? Perhaps he did. So what I want to talk about here at the end is the two big questions that I think this novel poses. These are questions that we've been talking about throughout, right? The first one, remember, is should people play golf? And the second is, if you do play God and create a sentient being, what responsibilities do you have to? That being the first question, should we play God? I think that's the one that is most associated with this story. If you ask someone what Frankenstein is about, even if they haven't read the book, they might say something like, it's about a guy who tries to play God but creates a monster instead. But I think actually that this is the less interesting question of the two. We know we shouldn't play God. No one is going to say, yeah, what Frankenstein did, that was a great idea. I mean, okay, somebody might, but most people will say no. But I also think that even the people who said no might do it anyway. I think that if something becomes possible to do, somebody somewhere will do it. I mean, it's happening now with all sorts of technologies, right? We've talked a few times on here about AI for example, sentient AI that seems to actually be alive would be pretty parallel to this situation. So just because you shouldn't play God doesn't mean that people won't do it. So to me, the more interesting question is the second one. What responsibilities do we have to the beings we create? And this is what we've been talking about throughout the whole book, right? Victor had responsibilities to his creature and he shirked them. But this second question is also kind of wrapped up in the first question. Because if you have created a being in a lab, then you are that being's God. That's why you have responsibilities for it. And that's why I think Marian's comment is so important. The creature has no name. We've been calling him the creature, or sometimes the monster. I mean, these are not particularly flattering names. And they essentially mean that this being is nothing. He's no one. He exists outside of what is natural and right. And I think that's the point. No one knows what to do with a being made the way that this being was made. And like Lauren says, because Victor mistreats and abandons it, it becomes the monster that it eventually becomes. The monster became a monster because of the treatment first of Victor and then of the world. Here's a quote. This is the creature talking. He says, when I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participating repeated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? And then later he says, here's another quote. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honor and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animals. So he's saying he once hoped that people would excuse the fact that he looks the way he looks, which I think we can say is a sort of symbolic way of saying he hoped that people would excuse the fact that he was made the way he was made. It's not his fault that Victor brought him to life fully grown in a lab. He didn't ask for that. Right. The creature knows what made him the way he is. And he knows it isn't fair. Here's what he says about Am I to be thought the only criminal when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings. I, the miserable and the abandon, am an abortion to be seen, spurned at and kicked and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice. Because, I mean, yeah, he shouldn't have been created, but now he is created. So, like, what gives is the fact of his Unnatural creation, a sentence of exile or death, now that it is clear that he is essentially human. But I think what's going on in the book is that Shelley is trying to tell us that a creature made in this way, even if it is essentially human, never can really be truly human. And therefore, though it is a tragedy, it cannot join the community of the human race. And I actually think that this is the conclusion that the creature comes to as well. He sees that the only way forward for him is death, and that he must destroy his own body so that no one else can try to make a creature like him. He sees that he is not a thing that ought to exist, even though he wanted so desperately to exist. Here is what he tells. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which brought me thither, and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe. I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. The tragedy of the whole thing is that even though he never should have existed, once he did exist, he was, for a moment, a beautiful soul. Here's what he Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die. Now it is my only consolation. He was a good and valid and worthwhile thing, but also, he was never meant to be, and there was no place for him within the human community. And because of this, instead of life, he becomes death. And he ends up killing a whole family, essentially, right? A child, William. A man in the prime of life, Henry, and a bride, Elizabeth. He was not brought forth from human love. He didn't grow into his soul inside his mother's womb, and. And so he cannot be. But even though he cannot be, we can still feel for him and love him. It's a conundrum, it's a tragedy. And I, at least, think that it's beautiful. So I want to end all of this with Mary Shelley's own words. This is from Mary Shelley's introduction to the new publication of Frankenstein, which came out in 1831. So the book came out in 1818, but then, as we discussed in the intro episode, she republished it in 1831, which, with some minor changes, and that new edition included an introduction which she wrote. You can read the whole thing online. But I just want you to hear this little part now. Okay? She's talking about how she got the idea for the book for Frankenstein. She says that she had this kind of vision in her mind's eye, and this is what it was. Here's the. I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. Okay, so there it is, right? Frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock this stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. To play God. Right. To think that you know better than the creator of the world will always end in horror. And I think it's the genius of this story that the creature Frankenstein creates is not inherently evil. It is not a zombie or a wild animal. It's a man, a seemingly, at least at the beginning, good man. And it's genius because I think making it that way just throws into stark relief this idea that no matter who or what it is that you create in your lab or inside your computer or whatever it is, you are not God. And so the thing that you create cannot be a part of the human community. And the human community is, above all things, what is important. The creature knew that, and we know it too. So that's where I'm going to stop. Humanity and the human community is exactly what we're going to celebrate in our Victorian Christmas together. So let's move on to that. Thank you for being a part of Frankenstein. Thank you for sticking around, even if you weren't so sure about this book. And I hope that you will join us on Monday to begin a little princess. But before I go, because tomorrow is Halloween and because we have shared this wonderful spooky season together, I wanted to end with a sort of bonus story time. I wanted to read you something that is Halloween related to send you off to your Halloween festivities and to close out spooky season so that we are ready for joy and merriment come Monday. Okay, so I am going to read you here to close a poem. It's by the king of spookiness himself, Edgar Allan Poe, and it is called Annabel Lee. Most people, I think, when they think of a spooky poem by Edgar Allan Poe, probably think of the Raven. And the Raven is wonderful, but I actually think that this poem is much, much spookier here. It's very short and I think in some ways it actually relates to Frankenstein and all of the themes that we've been discussing. So I'm going to read it to you now and then I'll be off to dust away the cobwebs and hang up the mistletoe and I will see you on Monday for a little princess. But now, let's end with Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived, whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee. And this maiden, she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea. But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee, with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that long ago in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee, so that her high born kinsmen came and bore her away from me to shut her up in a sepulchre in this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me. Yes, that was the reason, as all men know in this kingdom by the sea, that the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love, it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we, of many far wiser than we. And neither the angels in heaven above nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And so all the night tide I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling dwelling my life and my bride in her sepulcher there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for being a part of Frankenstein. Please join me on Monday, November 3rd, as we begin A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett as part of our Victorian Christmas. I hope to see you there.