English 451

Volume one of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was not quite the novel I expected it to be. In the first volume, Shelley provided deep insights into the character of Victor Frankenstein’s early life,  going back to his early childhood all the way through his experiences studying science at Ingolstadt. Shelley also introduces us to family members and other characters important to Victor in his early life, the most important probably being Elizabeth. I did not expect Shelley to go into this much detail for two main reasons.

First, this is my first time reading the original Frankenstein novel, with my only previous exposure to the series being through movie and television adaptations. This novel offers much deeper characterization of Victor Frankenstein than any other adaptation I am familiar with. As was mentioned in class, this original version of Frankenstein is very different from later adaptations, with one of the most immediate to me being the deeper character development.

The other reason for my surprise is that I considered Frankenstein to be primarily in the monster genre, which could be considered a sub-genre of science fiction. This sub-genre generally is not known for deep character development, instead focusing on plot development. I therefore expected Shelley to follow this same path. This demonstrates that the science fiction genre can be more diverse than one might immediately believe.