Ingolstadt

Ingolstadt, a Bavarian university town on the Danube, serves as the crucible of Victor Frankenstein's intellectual ambition and the site of his most catastrophic act. It is here that the young Genevese, sent by his father to complete his education, immerses himself in the modern sciences under the guidance of Professors Krempe and Waldman, and it is within a solitary chamber in this town that he assembles and animates the creature whose existence will unravel his life and destroy everyone he loves. The town thus functions as the geographical and psychological origin point of the novel's central tragedy, the place where the pursuit of forbidden knowledge crosses into irreversible action.

Victor's Arrival and Academic Transformation

Victor arrives in Ingolstadt in a state of melancholy and self-doubt, having recently lost his mother to scarlet fever. He is conducted to a solitary apartment and, the next morning, delivers his letters of introduction to the professors. His first encounter is with M. Krempe, a squat, gruff professor of natural philosophy who dismisses Victor's boyhood studies of alchemists like Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus as "sad trash" and orders him to begin his studies entirely anew. Victor is repelled by Krempe's manner but is soon captivated by M. Waldman, a benevolent professor whose lecture on modern chemistry fills Victor's mind with a single, overwhelming purpose: "more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation." From that day, natural philosophy and chemistry become Victor's nearly sole occupation. He attends lectures, cultivates the acquaintance of the university's men of science, and finds in Waldman a true friend who smooths the path of knowledge. His application becomes so ardent that "the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory." Within two years, he makes discoveries in chemical instruments that procure him great esteem and admiration at the university.

The Secret Laboratory and the Creation of the Monster

Driven by an obsession to discover the principle of life, Victor turns to the study of anatomy and physiology, spending days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses examining the decay of the human body. After incredible labour, he succeeds in discovering the cause of generation and life and becomes capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. He resolves to create a human being, but finding the minuteness of the parts a hindrance, he decides to make the creature of gigantic stature, about eight feet in height. In a solitary chamber at the top of his house—a cell separated from all other apartments by a gallery and staircase—he keeps his "workshop of filthy creation." He collects bones from charnel-houses, disturbs the secrets of the human frame with profane fingers, and draws materials from the dissecting room and the slaughter-house. His human nature often turns with loathing from the occupation, but he is urged on by an eagerness that perpetually increases. The summer months pass while he is thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit, and he becomes insensible to the charms of nature and forgetful of his family in Geneva. His health deteriorates; he is oppressed by a slow fever and becomes nervous to a painful degree, shunning his fellow creatures as if guilty of a crime. It is on a dreary night of November, in this Ingolstadt laboratory, that he finally beholds the accomplishment of his toils: the dull yellow eye of the creature opens, it breathes hard, and a convulsive motion agitates its limbs. The beauty of the dream vanishes instantly, replaced by "breathless horror and disgust."

The Aftermath: Flight, Fever, and the Monster's Departure

Immediately after the animation, Victor rushes from the room, unable to endure the aspect of the being he has created. He throws himself on his bed and is disturbed by wild dreams, only to awake and find the monster standing over him, one hand stretched out as if to detain him. Victor escapes to the courtyard, where he spends the rest of the night in agitation. The next morning, he encounters his friend Henry Clerval, who has just arrived in Ingolstadt, and the joy of seeing him momentarily dispels Victor's horror. But when Victor returns to his apartment and finds it empty—the monster has fled—he is overcome by a nervous fever that confines him for several months. During this illness, Clerval nurses him devotedly, concealing the extent of his disorder from Victor's family. Victor's ravings incessantly concern the monster, and Clerval, though at first believing them the wanderings of a disturbed imagination, is persuaded by their pertinacity that his friend's disorder owes its origin to some uncommon and terrible event. It is only with the arrival of spring that Victor begins to recover, and he eventually leaves Ingolstadt with Clerval, never to return. The town thus becomes the permanent marker of his fall: the place where he crossed the boundary between life and death, and where he first abandoned the creature whose subsequent murders—of William, Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth—will all trace back to that single, fateful night in the solitary chamber at the top of the house.