Creation of the Monster

The creation of the monster is the catastrophic fulcrum of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the moment when Victor Frankenstein's two-year obsession with bestowing life culminates in a scene of such profound horror that he instantly recoils from his own accomplishment, abandoning the being he has made and thereby unleashing the chain of murders and misery that will consume everyone he loves.

The Night of Creation

It was on a dreary night of November that Victor Frankenstein beheld the accomplishment of his toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, he collected the instruments of life around him, intending to infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at his feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and his candle was nearly burnt out. By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, he saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

The Horror of the Result

Victor had selected the creature's features as beautiful, but the reality was a grotesque mockery. Its yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; its hair was lustrous black and flowing, its teeth of a pearly whiteness, but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with its watery eyes, which seemed almost the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, its shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips. The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled Victor's heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being he had created, he rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing his bed-chamber, unable to compose his mind to sleep.

The Dream and the Awakening

When lassitude finally succeeded the tumult, Victor threw himself on the bed in his clothes, but sleep brought only wild dreams. He thought he saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, he embraced her, but as he imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and he thought he held the corpse of his dead mother in his arms, a shroud enveloping her form, with grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. He started from his sleep with horror, a cold dew covering his forehead, his teeth chattering, and every limb convulsed. By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, he beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom he had created. The creature held up the curtain of the bed, its eyes fixed on Victor, its jaws opened, muttering inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled its cheeks. One hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain him, but Victor escaped and rushed downstairs, taking refuge in the courtyard, where he remained the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which he had so miserably given life.

Immediate Aftermath and Abandonment

The morning, dismal and wet, dawned and discovered to Victor's sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock indicating the sixth hour. He did not dare return to his apartment, but felt impelled to hurry on, drenched by the rain. He continued walking, endeavouring by bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon his mind, his heart palpitating in the sickness of fear. He came at length opposite the inn where the Swiss diligence stopped, and there he encountered Henry Clerval, who had just arrived. Victor's delight at seeing his friend was immense, but when he returned to his apartment, he found it empty — the creature had fled. This was the commencement of a nervous fever that confined Victor for several months, during which he raved incessantly about the monster, his words surprising Henry, who at first believed them to be the wanderings of a disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which Victor continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that his disorder owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.

The Enduring Consequences

The creation of the monster was not a single, isolated event but the origin of a cascade of horrors. Victor's journal of the four months that preceded the creation, which the creature later discovered, minutely described every step in the progress of the work, mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences, and rendered the creature's own sense of his odious and loathsome person indelible. The creature, reading this record, sickened and exclaimed in agony, "Hateful day when I received life! Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust?" The creation led directly to the murders of William, Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth, and ultimately to Victor's own death and the creature's self-imposed destruction. Victor himself, looking back, remembered shuddering at the mad enthusiasm that hurried him on to the creation of his hideous enemy, and called to mind the night in which he first lived. The creation was the act that transformed Victor from a promising young scientist into a haunted, guilt-ridden wretch, and it set the monster on a path of isolation and vengeance that would end only with the destruction of both creator and creation.