Ernest Frankenstein

Ernest Frankenstein is the second son of Alphonse Frankenstein and Caroline Beaufort, and the younger brother of Victor Frankenstein. Born seven years after Victor, he grows up in the shadow of his brilliant elder brother, yet he is a distinct figure in the Frankenstein household. His character serves as a foil to Victor's intense intellectual drive, representing a more conventional and less destructive path through life. While Victor is consumed by his quest for forbidden knowledge, Ernest remains grounded in the ordinary pursuits of youth, and his survival through the novel's cascade of tragedies makes him the sole remaining witness to the complete destruction of his family.

Identity and Background

Ernest is introduced in Elizabeth Lavenza's letter to Victor during his convalescence at Ingolstadt. Elizabeth describes him as sixteen years old, "full of activity and spirit," and notes that he is "desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service." Unlike Victor, who was devoted to study, Ernest "never had your powers of application" and "looks upon study as an odious fetter." His time is spent in the open air, climbing hills or rowing on the lake, and Elizabeth fears that he will become an idler unless the family permits him to pursue a military career. This portrait establishes Ernest as a young man of action rather than contemplation, temperamentally unsuited to the scholarly life that led his brother to ruin.

Role in the Family Tragedy

Ernest is present at the family outing to Plainpalais on the evening of May 7th, when his younger brother William is murdered. He had been playing with William, who ran away to hide himself; Ernest searched for him in vain and waited a long time before returning to the family. When Victor returns to Geneva after William's death, Ernest is the first family member to greet him. He welcomes Victor with tears, saying, "Ah! I wish you had come three months ago, and then you would have found us all joyous and delighted. You come to us now to share a misery which nothing can alleviate." Ernest also reveals the devastating news that Justine Moritz has been accused of the murder, and he relates the circumstantial evidence against her. When Victor insists that he knows the real murderer, Ernest exclaims to their father, "Good God, papa! Victor says that he knows who was the murderer of poor William." This moment shows Ernest caught between his trust in his brother and the apparent evidence against Justine.

Survival and Witness

Ernest is the only member of the immediate Frankenstein family to survive the monster's campaign of vengeance. After the murders of William, Justine, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth, and the death of Alphonse Frankenstein from grief, Victor reports that "my father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that I bore." Alphonse dies in Victor's arms, leaving Ernest as the sole remaining link to the family's former life. Victor himself later loses all sensation and is imprisoned as a madman, and when he is finally released, he devotes himself entirely to pursuing the monster. Ernest is not mentioned again in the narrative, but his survival is significant: he is the one who must live with the knowledge of what his brother's ambition has wrought, and he represents the ordinary life that Victor might have led had he not been consumed by his fatal passion.

Thematic Significance

Ernest's character embodies the domestic and conventional happiness that Victor sacrifices in his pursuit of glory. While Victor isolates himself in his laboratory, neglecting his family and his health, Ernest enjoys the simple pleasures of nature and physical activity. His desire to become a soldier, though it worries his father, is a normal ambition for a young man of his time and place, in stark contrast to Victor's monstrous creation. Ernest's survival also serves a narrative function: he is the last living witness to the Frankenstein family's destruction, a reminder that Victor's actions have consequences that extend beyond his own tragic fate. In a novel filled with death and despair, Ernest's continued existence offers a faint, ambiguous hope that life may go on, even after the most terrible calamities.