Summer reading? - ‘Frankenstein’

by Michael Hartland

THE EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL Frankentein, written by an 18 year old young woman, Mary Shelley, explores what happens when a scientist’s experiments get out of hand. 

It's a text studied at A Level and GCSE, and I've found that younger students also enjoy reading selected extracts.

Here is one of my favourite extracts, as Victor Frankenstein (the scientist, not the monster) at last uses the newly-discovered power of electricity to infuse “a spark of being” into the creature he has made:

“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

It’s a perfect example of what I call a “black hole” in a narrative - a moment of crisis.  You can find out more about how I use this concept to help students with their creative writing in my ebook But I’m No Good At Creative Writing! - NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.

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