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  • Hi! I’m John Green, this is Crash Course Literature, and It’s alive!

  • Mr. Green? Mr. Green? That’s my favorite part of the movie

  • No. No. No. No. Me From The Past don’t you dare. That line is not in the book. And Frankenstein

  • is the doctor not the monster. Also, there is no Igor in the book or in the movie for

  • that matter. His name was Fritz. Let’s move on!

  • [Theme Music]

  • So, way before you actually read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you probably heard about it...

  • I mean the novel is almost 200 years old now, but we can’t seem to get away from its story and its ideas.

  • Its been adapted into plays, and books, and comics, and more than 100 moviesfrom your

  • classic Boris Karloff picture toBlackenstein,” “Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster,”

  • The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein”...

  • And of course 2013’s “I, Frankensteinwhich has a resounding 4% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com

  • By the way I wanted to blow Crash Course’s entire budget on licensingThe Erotic Rites

  • of Frankensteinbut Stan said we couldn’t!

  • Anyway, after all those experiences with he story, reading the novel is kind of surprising because

  • it opens not with the story of Victor Frankenstein, but with a series of letters from an Arctic explorer.

  • Also, the monster, who as previously noted is not named Frankenstein, he doesn’t have

  • a name that’s really important actually, but he’s a pretty articulate guy. I mean

  • he readsPlutarch’s LivesandParadise Lost.” He’s better read than most of us.

  • So genre wise, Mary Shelley’s “Frankensteinis kind of a triple threat. I mean it’s

  • often recognized as the first work of science fiction. It’s one of the greatest horror

  • novels ever. And it’s often called the greatest capital “R” Romantic novel.

  • I mean like Lord Byron romantic not Danielle Steele romantic. You know the idea that like

  • emotions like awe and terror and horror - the modern emotions - can be the center of an

  • aesthetic experience. Also, Percy Shelley romantic which reminds me to talk about Mary Shelley’s biography.

  • Mary Shelley’s father was an anarchist author, and her mother was Mary Walstonecraft, a famous

  • early feminist who died just 11 days after Mary was born.

  • Her mother’s death was a huge influence on Mary Shelley and if youre into biographical

  • readings, then you can look at Frankenstein as a story of a monstrous and disastrous birth.

  • Anyway, when Mary was 14, Percy Shelley, one of the great lyric poets of the age, came

  • to visit her father after being thrown out of Oxford for writing a pamphlet on atheism.

  • Percy Shelley was already married, but two years later, when Mary was just 16, they eloped

  • to the continent along with Mary Shelley’s stepsister Claire Clairmontare these names made up?

  • By then Mary was already pregnant with their first child. So, it’s 16 and Pregnant, the

  • British Romantic Literature edition.

  • So a couple of years later... oh it must be time for the Open Letter 'cause my desk just moved.

  • An open letter to Percy Shelley’s heart. Metaphorically, you were complex.

  • I mean after you fell in love with 16 yr old Mary Shelley you repeatedly threatened to

  • commit suicide even though you were already married to a different person named Harriet.

  • After leaving Harriet for this teenager, Mary, Harriet would go on to commit suicide while

  • pregnant with Percy Shelley’s child.

  • And another woman who was in love with you, Mary Shelley’s half-sister Fanny also committed suicide.

  • But I want to talk about your literal heart Percy Shelley, because when you drowned in

  • a sailing accident, your friends burned your body and were stunned to see that your heart

  • did not burn. Somebody grabbed it from the fire, it traded hands a few times, it ended

  • up with Mary. And it was eventually buried with Mary and Percy’s son 67 years after Percy died.

  • And some people think the reason the heart didn’t burn is because Percy Shelley suffered

  • from calcification of the heart which turned his heart almost into a bone-like structure.

  • In short, you were literally, hard-hearted. Best wishes, John Green.

  • So a couple years later Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron (with

  • whom Claire was having an affair -- although who wasn’t having an affair with Lord Byron),

  • and Byron’s doctor were all hanging out in Geneva.

  • And despite all the lakes and chocolate, Geneva was pretty boring, and also the weather was

  • unrelentingly terrible so there was nothing to do all day except sit around reading creepy German ghost stories.

  • So naturally enough, a novel-writing contest ensued.

  • It was basically like the most productive NaNoWriMo of all time. The doctor wrote a

  • story that would later be a huge influence on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” and Mary

  • Shelley wroteFrankenstein.”

  • She was still a teenager. It’s just not fair! Anyway, in the introduction to the 1831

  • edition of the novel, Mary Shelley explained, “How I, then a young girl, came to think

  • of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea.” She wanted to write a story that

  • wouldspeak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror.”

  • The idea that art could awaken that horror and awe and connect us to the broader natural

  • world was really key to the romantics.

  • But she couldn’t figure out how to turn ideas into like a plot until she stayed up

  • late one night listening to Percy Shelley and Byron discuss new developments in electricity and the

  • possibility of the dead being brought back to life. That night she went to bed and had a terrible waking dream.

  • She wrote, “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put

  • together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working

  • of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.

  • Frightful must it be.”

  • Uggh. it’s so creepy. Anyway, that’s Mary Shelley’s story of the creation of Frankenstein.

  • Let’s talk about now what she created, the upshot of which is: Don’t re-animate corpses.

  • Alright, Let’s go to the Thought Bubble

  • So the novel opens with with the aforementioned boring letters that arctic explorer Walton

  • sends to his sister in England. Walton is sailing toward the North Pole when he sees

  • a man cruising by on a dog sled.

  • The man is Victor Frankenstein. Once upon a time, he was a nice Swiss boy with a couple

  • of younger brothers, a dead mother, a best friend, and a cute cousin. But then he went

  • to university and took organic chemistry and became obsessed with reanimating the dead

  • which is why you should never go to college. Just kidding, go to college.

  • So eventually Victor figures out how to make dead flesh live and he assembles this huge

  • creature out of dead bodies and farm animal parts , hooks up the juice, and animates it.

  • Only he’s so horrified that he runs away and conveniently develops a bad case of brain fever.

  • Rejected by his creator, the monster wanders into the wilderness where he seeks shelter

  • and then eventually learns to read and write.

  • The monster returns to Victor and he’s likelook I’ve done so much book learning

  • but that doesn’t convince Victor that the monster is not a monster. So the monster becomes

  • a real monster. He kills Victor’s youngest brother and then when Victor rejects the monster’s

  • request for a mate, the monster kills Victor’s best friend and then his cousin -- to whom Victor

  • is getting married, because, you know, that’s what they did back then.

  • The creature flees to the Arctic and then Victor pursues him which is how he ends up

  • on Walton’s ship where he dies. The creature, who theyve found, is so distraught that

  • he says he’s going to die too. And then Walton has to turn the ship around and never

  • achieve his sublime goal, and everything’s terrible. Because this is what happens when

  • you major in Organic Chemistry like my brother, Hank, instead of something healthy and good

  • like film or history or literature.

  • Thanks Thought Bubble. So Frankenstein is fundamentally a story about creation, about

  • new and terrifying ways to bring light and life into the world. And in that sense, it’s

  • loosely tied to two other creation stories, which Mary Shelley acknowledged in the text.

  • The first, is right there in its subtitle, “The Modern Prometheus,” which is taken

  • of course from Greek mythology. Prometheus is a Titan, he’s best known for giving fire

  • to Mankind - an idea that Zeus of course hated.

  • I don’t know why Zeus thought we couldn’t be trusted with firecome on, Stan, please

  • stop having my head blow up.

  • Anyway, to punish Prometheus, Zeus has him chained to a rock and he has an eagle show

  • up every day to peck out Prometheus’s liver, which then grows back every night, until Hercules

  • stages the ultimate prison break.

  • Read one way, this myth is a cautionary tale. If you overreach yourself, if you share secret

  • knowledge, youre going to get you liver pecked out everyday, but that’s not how

  • the Romantics read it. To them Prometheus was a hero. They saw Prometheus as a figure

  • who never gives up even when faced with incredible suffering.

  • ButFrankensteinhas a more ambivalent relationship to the myth. I mean you can definitely

  • read the novel as a story about what happens when humans overstep. After all, that’s

  • what Mary Shelley says when she tells the story of her dream, that Frankenstein’s

  • creation would be horrifying because quote

  • supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous

  • mechanism of the Creator of the world.” My god, she could write a sentence.

  • And Victor Frankenstein is certainly punished for his actions, right, I mean he see’s

  • the murder of his friends and family and then he dies a tragic icy death at the ripe old age of 25.

  • Which for the record high school students, is not old.

  • But you can also readFrankensteinanother way. As a celebration of ambition and super-human

  • effort. I mean, why is that whole arctic explorer frame a thing?

  • Frankenstein only begins to tell Walton his story when Walton suggests that he is willing

  • to risk his own life and that of his crew for knowledge.

  • So it seems like Victor’s trying to share his own experience as a cautionary tale.

  • But then, at the end, when crew demands that Walton turn back SO THAT EVERYONE DOESN’T

  • DIE, Victor is furious. “Oh! be men, or be more than men,” he says. “Return as

  • heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”

  • But Walton defers to the crew, writing his sister, “Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice

  • and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed.”

  • So I don’t think the novel is arguing that like the heroic human life is one that lives

  • in a quiet bubble of ignorance.

  • That kind of ambivalenceWe shouldn’t overreach! Wait, except at sometimes maybe

  • we should! — is typical of the novel and it’s also typical of Mary Shelley herself. She

  • once wrote in her journal, “I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counterarguments too strongly.”

  • The other creation myth with whichFrankensteinis intertwined is of course the biblical one

  • as recounted by John Milton in the very good, very longParadise Lost,” which we aren’t

  • reading in Crash Course Literature because I didn’t wanna.

  • One thing to pay attention to in books is what books the characters are reading and

  • it’s no coincidence that the monster conveniently readsParadise Lost”.

  • Plus the novel’s epigraph comes from Milton in a scene in which Adam says to God:

  • "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee

  • From darkness to promote me?"

  • It’s essentially the same thing as when you say to your parents “I didn’t ask

  • to be born!” but of course that doesn’t make as good of an epigraph.

  • So in this interpretation Victor is playing God and the creature is the sinning Adam.

  • But it’s hardly so simple I mean Victor refers to the creature as a devil and the

  • creature seems to support this at times.

  • Plus, In the middle of the book they have this intense argument about moral philosophyyou

  • know as you do with monsters, Godzilla was into Immanuel Kant, King Kong, of course,

  • huge fan of Thomas Hobbes - anyway, the monster says, “I am thy creature; I ought to be

  • thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.

  • Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.”

  • It’s hard out there for a monster and it’s important to remember that God did not expel Satan for no misdeed.

  • But part of what makes this so rich is that bothFrankensteinandParadise Lost

  • defy easy readings. I mean, “Frankensteinallies the creature with Satan but that doesn’t

  • mean the creature is all bad. There are readings of Milton’s poem that perceive God as sort

  • of a stick in the mud and Satan as the really interesting character who struggles undaunted

  • despite his exile from heaven.

  • Anyway, that was the view the Romantics took and part of why the poet Robert Southey referred

  • to Byron and Percy Shelley and their circle as belonging to the Satanic school of Romanticism.

  • But anyway, all these allusion to Milton bring up some pretty tough questions: I mean Does

  • Victor see himself as God? And if so is he a good God? Does the monster deserve his exile?

  • Is he inherently sinful or is sin something that God allows to enter, as in Milton’s

  • poem? Just as we wonder whether Victor and Walton should be praised or damned for their

  • pursuit of knowledge we have to wonder that about the monster as well.

  • Whether were talking about mad scientists or the monsters they create or arctic explorers,

  • seeking knowledge is a way of becoming human. Both in the best and worst senses of the word.

  • And to me the great question of the novel is: Who’s more human - Victor of the monster he has created?

  • Next week well continue our discussion ofFrankensteinby examining those questions

  • through different lenses. Until then thanks for watching.

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  • and as we say in my hometown, “Don’t forget to be awesome.”

Hi! I’m John Green, this is Crash Course Literature, and It’s alive!

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