Collection of Short Stories

Ernest Frankenstein

An assessment task from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

I watched the familiar landscape sweep past. The snowy mountains rose above the blue lake, its ever placid water still. A pang of sadness fills me. I was all alone in this world. The last Frankenstein left, the only one to survive the unfortunate plague that had befallen upon my family. This misfortune took everything and everyone I loved away from me. First William, poor little William, I was meant to protect him but I had failed. Then Justine, Henry, Elizabeth, Father and finally Victor. The news of Victor's death had shocked me; he had been the only one I had left. I had rushed home at once from my military campaign, when I had received a letter from a man named Robert Walton informing me of my brother's demise. He would meet me at my family home in Geneva in a weeks' time. As I reached my home, my heart began to ache at the sight of it. The once laughter and love filled house, now stood empty and silent. I had had a happy childhood, I knew my family cared and loved each other and I knew I was loved. Flower buds were beginning to shoot up, spring was being to wake. A new season was blooming.

The following week passed in a blur and before long Captain Robert Walton was at my door and with him my brothers' dead body. I had seen enough dead bodies to know what one looks like; the skin would be pale like stone and cold like the ice it had been surrounded by. He would be buried with the rest of our family, their graves still fresh, like their memories and horrid, shocking deaths.

"Thank you for bringing my brother home." I said, tears threatening to fall. Walton looked as miserable as I felt inside. I invited him inside and he looked around in interest, admiring the house.

"Your brother, in the short time I knew him, became one of my dearest friends. We shared a similar mind, a similar taste of finding knowledge. Knowledge that is dangerous. Your brother taught me a lot in the short time we spent together." He told me as we sat comfortably in the parlour.

"You were with my brother when he died? Why was he there? What was he doing?" I asked, all the questions that had been on my mind for the last month came forth, questions to answers that I hadn't been told when the letter arrived notifying me of the terrible news. Walton looked troubled.

"It's a long and complicated story, one not easy believed..." he started, "Tell me." I insisted. He nodded reluctantly and began his tale, the tale my brother had told him before he died.

Long after Captain Walton had left, his story still played in my mind. It was so unbelievable, so foreign and yet made so much sense. It explained Victor's actions and mood in the last few years; it explained our family's misfortune. At that moment I didn't know whether to hate or forgive Victor. I sat long in the night, the silence of the empty house was deafening.

Thump. I woke with a start. Flashes of lightening played on the mountaintops of Mont Blanc outside the window. I watched it, mesmerised. I recalled Victor being so entranced by the lightening, how he wanted to study and learn about its uses. I had always thought that 'study was an odious fetter', it never interested me as it did Victor, who wanted to 'learn the hidden laws of nature'. Another thump on the roof broke me out of my thoughts. I climbed out of bed and reached for my pistol by my bedside, as I heard footsteps on the rooftop. I went outside to investigate, though it was spring the nights were still cold. The darkness around me made it hard to see anything except shadows.

I turned around, before me stood the most horrendous monster I had ever seen. A 'daemon' stood before me, a monster of 'gigantic stature'. Its yellow skin was scarred, the hair was lustrous black, and pearly white teeth. In contrast its eyes were watery in hallow sockets, its lip a thin black line. I screamed in terror, reaching for my pistol and shakily pointing at the monster.

"I mean you no harm, Frankenstein." I didn't lower my weapon.

"What are you? How do you know my name?" I said in a shaky voice, not wanting to look at it directly. The monster sighed looking forlorn as if it had nothing left in the world.

"I am the creation of your brother." It responded.

"So it is true." I whispered. My mind reeling at the thought of what my brother had done. I lowered my weapon and looked the monster in the eye, trying not to squirm in disgust, "Why are you here?"

"I was on my way to the most northern extremity of the world and be consumed with fire and end my miserable life, but I remembered that Victor had another brother. I came to ask for your forgiveness." The creature said. I stared past the creature, and towards the distant mountains, where the occasional lightning bolt seared across the sky. The occasional thunder rumbled in the distance.

"I am sorry for Victor's mistakes," I said after a moment of silence and I truly meant it. It hadn't been right of my brother to abandon his creation, it hadn't been right to create it in the first place. He wasn't God. "I forgive you." I added without thinking, this creature had killed my younger brother and yet I forgave it. The creature looked relieved. I suddenly felt sorry for this hideous looking creature that my brother had so carelessly created; my brother never did learn to accept responsibility.

"Thank you." It said, "Thank you for finally setting me free, I can now go die in peace, knowing to have reached redemption. I return to you Victor's notes, I do not want them." It added handing me a bunch of yellowed papers and I recognised Victor's scribbled handwriting. I stared at them wondering what they contained, what knowledge Victor had learned.

"Farewell." The creature said, and before I could respond, it ran off in the distance.

I watched the creature run off which inhumanly speed. Lightning still dancing in the distance. I still stood there long after the creature had gone. Perhaps, I thought, the lack of knowledge is better for humans then too much knowledge. The knowledge Victor had acquired was not natural. And so I burned the pages, watching them dissolve into nothing but ashes. In the distance the lightning finally stopped.