Plot
A young scientist named Victor Frankenstein is experimenting with electricity. He builds a creature and brings it to life but is horrified by its appearance and calls it a monster. The creature tries to be good but is shunned and attacked making it angry and violent. Victor is determined to annihilate the creature and pursues it across the world.
Author – Mary Shelley / Philip Pullman
The British Library’s Mary Shelley page includes lots of interesting background about her life, works and images from their own collection.
Discover more about Mary Shelley / Philip Pullman
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Themes – universal ideas
Ambition, creation, dangerous knowledge, discrimination, family, nature vs nurture, revenge.
More to explore – motifs, symbols, context, setting
Arctic, blindness, copper wire, creation, disfigurement, electricity, fire, grave robbing, Luigi Galvani, Geneva, ice, lightning, scientific history, storms, Wimshurst machines.
Did you know?
In 1815 Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia and huge amounts of ash were thrown into the atmosphere. The next year became known as “The Year Without a Summer” because less sunlight reached the Earth. This dark, gloomy year was when four friends came up with a challenge to write spooky stories to scare each other through the miserable summer. Mary Shelley was one of those friends, and she created Frankenstein.
When Frankenstein was written, people were very concerned about grave robbing. People would steal corpses and sell them to anatomists – doctors who studied anatomy of the human body – because they could not get enough bodies legally. You can still see watch towers, mortsafes and cages that were used to stop the grave robbers.
Further reading and listening
Discover these titles and more
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If you enjoyed this dramatized version of Frankenstein, try these titles:
Try the original version of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The Library has the original and a graphic version, adapted by Fiona Macdonald. You can also download a free copy or read it online.
The Library also has Mary and Frankenstein by Linda Bailey and Júlia Sardà which is a picture book version of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein. Library copy available.
Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley suggests what might have happened when Frankenstein’s Monster passed through Britain on his way north to the Arctic. Library copy available.
Clay by David Almond is another story inspired by Frankenstein. A new boy arrives in town with a gift for modelling clay figures and for bringing his models to life. Library copy available.
The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson describes another scientific experiment that goes wrong. The Library has the original novel and a graphic novel version and you can also read the book online.
Mr Mumbles is the first in Invisible Fiends series by Barry Hutchison. It’s all about creepy beings wanting revenge. Library copies available.
Bizarre biology by John Townsend is a history of weird and sometimes gory scientific experiments. Library copies available.
How the world began by Gilly Cameron Cooper explores creation in myths and legends from around the world. Library copy available.
Frankenstein : graveyards, scientific experiments and bodysnatchers by Ruth Richardson describes some of Mary Shelley’s background that led to the creation of Frankenstein.
200 years of Frankenstein from the Infinite Monkey Cage (BBC podcast – personal log in required)
Literacy and Language
The subtitle of Frankenstein is The Modern Prometheus. Prometheus was a Titan in Greek mythology who both created the first man and then stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Both Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein are creators who are ‘playing with fire’.
The word ‘scientist’ first appeared in print in 1834, and referred to the Scottish mathematician and astronomer, Mary Somerville. Before then, scientists were usually called ‘natural philosophers’.
Frankenstein is usually accepted as a Gothic novel, but some people also suggest that it is one of the very first science fiction novels.
Numeracy
The Creature and Frankenstein both meet Captain Robert Walton in the Arctic.
In the distance, a sledge was moving across the ice, pulled by a team of dogs, and driving it was a creature like a man, but huge and hideous beyond belief. And pursuing it – always in pursuit but never catching up – was a man on foot.
Do you think Frankenstein would have ever caught up with the Creature?
Health and Wellbeing
Resilience is the ability to cope with stressful and challenging events and adapt to them so that you maintain your mental wellbeing.
Do you think the Creature shows resilience when Victor Frankenstein rejects him? Does he remain resilient?
Rights Respecting Schools
The Monster is a new creation. He has to learn about life in the way a newborn baby does.
Do you think the UNCRC should apply to him?
Developing the Young Workforce
Victor is obviously a talented scientist and highly intelligent but does he have the qualities required to be successful?
What skills does he lack?
