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The first time I picked up Frankenstein, I was in primary school and had no idea of the famous character preparing to waken from it's sleep. To me, it was just a ‘book� that came in a pretty leather bound cover with a promise of mystery. (Leather bound covers always seem like they have something important to tell you). And it was with such ignorance that I began my journey through Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus�. More than a decade later, this story remains just as riveting.

The story begins with a series of letters, with no indication of the compelling monster that stalks its pages, from Captain Robert Watson to his sister. The creator, Victor Frankenstein only enters the story when their paths cross on the journey to the North Pole. The slow and compelling start draws one into the cold and harsh ambience of the narrative: the icy North thus serving the story twice. As he recounts the event of creation of the ‘monster�, the horror unfolds, not so much at the grotesque creature that has been put together from the various parts of different dead bodies, but at the rejection at the hands of the good doctor and the repulsion he feels towards this own creation. But perhaps, I am taking sides? As triumph gives way to abhorrence, it is difficult not to question the doctor’s motives. Frankenstein’s monster is anything but. He is an exercise in self-improvement. He reads, he yearns to understand the dejection by his father and above all struggles to find his place in the world, to understand the meaning of his existence.

“Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.�

The narrative proceeds with three different voices, with each professing its own side of the story. As a result, there are three storylines with conflicting viewpoints. Hence, on one side is Frankenstein who professes horror at the artificial creature who is not only monstrous to behold, but is also responsible for murdering his brother. But, the creature justifies itself by questioning the morality of his creator, who gave him life but then mercilessly flung him out into a world that he couldn’t comprehend and that ,in turn, would recoil at the disgusting assemblage of his parts. Both versions have merit, and make for unreliable narrators. It is a long standing argument, whether the author’s depiction of the story weighs more important or the readers understanding and interpretation of it, whether it runs parallel to the creators intentions or not. In Frankenstein, the latter argument wins out and is supported by Mary Shelley herself in that she remained mum about a lot of the issues and theories surrounding the story. One of them being the religious in nature: the threat to the omnipotent by a doctor who had discovered the secret to death. The question of the identity of the ‘omnipotent� is also an interesting one: does it relate of the masochist domination of the society of Shelley. In case of which, Frankenstein obviously must relate to the feminine counterpart, where education and all the measures taken to intellectually strengthen oneself, could not rise above male domination.

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.�

In support of the above many lines have been drawn from Percy Shelley to the character of Victor Frankenstein. But the one that I found most interesting is that, it is rumored that after the death of Mary Shelley’s husband when his body was cremated, his heart wouldn’t burn. This unburnt spoof of nature was treasured by the widow till her own death. This hard-hearted monster was the object of love of three different women, two of whom committed suicide.

The implications of this story are great and the questions that it spawns are manifold in nature. A multi dimensional gothic masterpiece and arguably the first work of science fiction, that I found to be as relevant today as it was when I first read it and perhaps as when it was written almost two centuries ago by a pregnant sixteen year old during a winter in Geneva.