Plainpalais

Plainpalais is a plain on the outskirts of Geneva that becomes the geographical and moral epicenter of the first catastrophic consequences of Victor Frankenstein's creation. It is here that the monster commits his first murder, killing Victor's youngest brother William, and here that the innocent Justine Moritz is condemned and executed for the crime. The location thus functions as the site where Victor's private transgression—the creation of life without responsibility—erupts into the visible world of law, grief, and irreversible loss.

The Murder of William Frankenstein

On the evening of May 7th, the Frankenstein family, including Alphonse, Elizabeth, and the two younger brothers William and Ernest, went for a walk in Plainpalais. The evening was warm and serene, and they prolonged their walk farther than usual. When dusk fell, they discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone on ahead, were missing. Ernest eventually returned alone, saying that William had run off to hide and that he could not find him. The family searched until nightfall, and then again with torches through the night. At about five in the morning, Alphonse Frankenstein discovered his youngest son's body stretched on the grass, livid and motionless, with the print of the murderer's finger on his neck. The child, whom Alphonse had seen blooming and active in health the night before, was dead. The miniature portrait of Caroline Beaufort that William had been wearing was gone, taken by the murderer.

Justine Moritz's Trial and Execution

Justine Moritz, a servant who had been raised in the Frankenstein household and was deeply devoted to the family, was accused of the murder. The miniature portrait was found in her pocket, and her confused behavior on the night of the crime was taken as evidence of guilt. Despite Elizabeth Lavenza's passionate defense of Justine's character in court, and despite Justine's own protestations of innocence, she was condemned. Under pressure from her confessor, who threatened excommunication and hellfire, she falsely confessed. She was executed on the scaffold as a murderess. Victor, who knew that the monster was the true killer, was present at the trial and suffered agonies of guilt, but he remained silent, convinced that his story would be dismissed as madness.

Victor's Guilt and the Location's Thematic Weight

Plainpalais becomes the place where Victor's secret knowledge and his public identity as a grieving brother and cousin collide. After the murder, Victor himself goes to the spot at night, during a violent thunderstorm, and there he sees the monster among the rocks of Mont Saleve, confirming his suspicion that his creation is the killer. Yet he cannot reveal what he knows. The location thus embodies the central paradox of the novel: the truth is visible only to the one who created it, and the innocent suffer while the guilty walk free. The plain, a seemingly open and ordinary space near the city, becomes a landscape of concealed horror, where the consequences of Victor's ambition are made manifest in the deaths of a child and a young woman, both of whom he loved.