I'm taking a MOOC on fantasy and science fiction literature. MOOC stands for "Massive Open Online Course" and it's a free, Internet-only class taught by a university professor. Enrollment is open to everyone, not just the students of that university. You don't get university credit for the course, so it's more like lifelong learning. I take most of my MOOCs through Coursera. It's the fourth week of my MOOC and we're reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. If you want to read the e-book, this is the edition we're using: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL20443134M/Frankenstein_or_The_Modern_Prometheus.
Okay, now that I've fulfilled my ebrarian obligations by telling you about MOOCs and giving you the e-text of Frankenstein, I'd like to talk about this book a little. It's the only one I've read in the dozen or so assigned for this course, but I didn't remember anything about the novel except a lot of ice. If you've never read it, you might think of Frankenstein as the monster, but he's actually the scientist who creates the monster. There are many fine literary criticisms of this novel out there and any librarian would be happy to help you find them. I will be writing a more scholarly essay for my course, but here I really just want to say that Victor Frankenstein is a jerk.
Yes, there are more eloquent ways to say this, but it all boils down to the fact that Frankenstein is a dick. He is whiny, self-obsessed, and cruel. First of all, Frankenstein believes that an evil angel of fate has led him to this cursed life. Um, no. Just no. Frankenstein liked science, so he studied science. There's no divine or diabolical cause behind that. Now I'm tired of typing out the whole name, so he will hereafter be referred to as F.
During his studies, F figures out how to create life, so he does it. Not once does he stop to wonder if it's wise to play God. Instead, he toils away in his lab, ignoring his family and friends for many months while they hear nothing from him. Then as soon as the creature is ALIVE!, F is horrified and wants nothing to do with it. Hello! You designed this thing. You've been staring at its body for months and you just now noticed it's hideous? This would be like if I designed a house and went to all the trouble of building it, then when I turned on the lights, I decided I hated it and never went back. Except the house is sentient. So F completely abandons the creature and leaves it to fend for itself. He's like a mother that gives birth and leaves her newborn in a trashcan.
Let's skip a bunch of the plot and move on to the next time F is an insufferable ass. This woman who has been living with the F family is falsely accused of a murder that F's creature committed. F goes on and on about how he (Frankenstein, not the creature) is much more wretched than the wrongly condemned woman because she can die with a clean conscience while he has to live with his own guilt. She's executed for no good reason, but he wallows in self-pity.
A while later, F encounters the creature and doesn't want to hear anything it has to say. He eventually listens to its request for a companion, but he procrastinates for months and months because it's such a horrid task. Really? All you have to do is repeat a science experiment and your creation promises he will leave you alone and never harm anyone again. Meanwhile, the poor sentient being lives in the wilderness, completely miserable and alone. So instead of completing his task, Frankenstein mopes around home, making his family worry for him, then traipses off on a tour of Europe while his best friend and travel companion tries to cheer him up. Gee, Victor, I'm so sorry your European vacation is such a bummer 'cause you have to take responsibility for your actions.
That's as far as I've gotten in the book. I know that more people are going to die and F's going to be all woe is me about it. Not because good people are dead, but because he has to experience pain. Boo-hoo, Frankenstein. They'd have been better off keeping company with your "monster."
