-Prometheus- the Nogar

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“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.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus was written by Mary Shelley in 1818. It was known as the first science fiction book ever created, which is extra amazing because it was written by a teenage woman.

Frankenstein is the story of a young, headstrong scientist (Victor Frankenstein) who sought to divine the secret to life. Victor becomes obsessed with this idea since his own mother died of scarlet fever when he was just 17. Since then, he aggressively drove himself into the sciences but was disappointed in what he found and all the push-back he received from his professors and peers. On his own, Victor experiments on non-living tissues and develops a secret, life-restoring procedure.

In the original source material, it's not explained how Victor came to collect the parts he used to craft his approximation of a man. It is said that he selected each feature to be as beautiful as he could find.

Upon seeing his creation come to life, Victor is awash with the terrifying realization of what he'd done. The beautiful man he made was hideous once animated; large, and grotesque. Victor leaves his apartment to wander the streets. When he returns, his creation had managed to escape.

Victor travels back home to Geneva after a brief illness brought on by stress. He comes to his family home, where his young brother is found to have been killed. Victor witnesses his creation at the scene of the crime and, in shock, he allows the blame to fall on the house nanny. He can't bring himself to admit that he made the very monster that killed his brother, and so the nanny is hanged for the crime.

In grief, Victor flees to live in the mountains, only to be accosted by the creature. The beast demands, with more eloquence and intelligence than Victor knew him to possess, that Victor build him a bride so that he would no longer be lonely. He wanted a being similar to him, another birthed by a storm and as ugly as he himself. He explains to Victor what he had been subjected to since he left the apartment that fateful night, trying to find a friend and learning that he was repulsive to look upon. That it caused people to flee from him, and that'd he'd never have companionship without the scientist's help.

The creature threatens more death upon Victor's family and friends, including his betrothed, should he deny him a bride, so Victor agrees to do the work.

As Victor begins arrangements, he has multiple nightmares of the next creature being wickedly evil, or that she would make a terrible race between herself and the first creature, one that would endanger all mankind. Victor destroys his work so that these visions could never come to pass, and in a rage, the creature vows to become a bane upon him.

When Victor returns to Geneva to be with his own bride-to-be, Elizabeth, he finds that the creature has killed his best friend. Aggrieved, Victor arms himself with weapons and proceeds with his wedding to Elizabeth. The creature had threatened to be with them on their wedding night and Victor was prepared to battle the beast. The night after the wedding, the creature manages to slip in and strangle Elizabeth, and though Victor shoots at him, he escapes once again.

Chasing after the creature, they both wind up at the North Pole. The narration from that point becomes the beginning of the book, as Captain Walton, a man on his own scientific journey to explore the Pole, rescues the emaciated and frozen Victor from the snow. Captain Walton also notes that he's seen the odd sight of a large man traveling in the distance by sled. As Victor, weak and ill, begins to tell the tale of everything that had come to pass, Walton passes this information on through a letter to his sister. He has the time to do so as his ship has become trapped in the ice.

Victor implores Walton not to seek the fame of his dangerous journey, to not be like himself. He still vows to stop his creation, but soon passes from pneumonia. Shortly after, Walton stumbles upon the creature, mourning Victor's death. Struck by grief, the monster tells Walton that his creator's death brings him no peace. That it was his own ugly, violent behavior that caused his loneliness. He pledges to leave, to rid the world of his evil self, and is last seen walking away from the ship.

The story ends with Captain Walton deciding to head back south, abandoning his treacherous path northward.
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