Frankenstein - a cosy horror story
- Mary Shelly (Reviewed by Surendra Nath)
- May 9, 2017
- 2 min read

A great classic written in the eighteenth century by Mary Shelly, Frankenstein, is a masterpiece in the genre of horror. But, what might have been horror in that period is but a ghost story for school children in the present century. I am not referring to the style and language; in these the novel is worthy of post graduation studies in pre-Victorian English literature. The horror is so mild that a kid will not be scared. But that was horror then, no gore and no explicit killing scenes. There are only reports that someone has been strangled. I could term it as cosy-horror.
The style of writing stands out as novelty – narrative within narrative and yet again within narrative. The 284-page story begins with a series of letters written by Robert Walton, the captain of a ship, to his sister in England. Walton is describing the frozen arctic conditions while he is heading north on some kind of deathly adventure. He rescues a man named Frankenstein who was floating on an ice block. From then on, it is a first person narrative by Frankenstein, who says he created an ugly monster which is out to destroy him. Within this narrative, Frankenstein reports through direct speech the monologue of his creation, which lasts for about 60 pages, with some interruptions. And then Frankenstein’s first person narrative resumes and continues until the last but twenty pages. The final twenty pages turn up as letters by Walton to his sister.
In modern literature all this would be condensed to half its length. But there is a kind of beauty in this lengthy prose that would go missing in modern writing. What struck me most was the emotional outpour of the monster that is without a name. He began as a sympathetic creature making every effort to befriend humans and even helping them incognito. But as soon as he was sighted, people would either run away terrified or would attack him. That’s why he felt justified about his vengeance towards his creator who made him so grotesque and abominable. Even so he gave a chance to the scientist to create another creature like him so that he may find company and love, and would not set foot on human habitation. The scientist refused to oblige the monster for other considerations, after which the monster caused him to... (let the ending not be out).
I am not too sure, but this was perhaps Mary Shelly’s first serious writing, and it turned out to be masterpiece in literature. It started as a small talk between Mary and three well-known writers (one of them Mary’s husband and great author and poet P. B. Shelly, and another was Lord Byron), that each would write a ghost story. It was something like we impose in a writers’ circle or club, these days. While the three others did not complete the task, Mary Shelly a relatively unknown writer, who was but twenty and was dabbling at writing poems, went the whole hog and wrote a horror story titled ‘The Modern Prometheus’ that was to be better known as ‘Frankenstein’.
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