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We speak student!

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From the beginning of time,

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many men have sought the unknown,

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delving into dark regions where lie those truths

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which are destined to destroy.

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Frankenstein a la Shmoop

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Fate versus Free Will

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[ whale sounds ]

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Fate versus free will is one of these themes

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that pops up in so much literature.

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And it's really at the basis of a lot of,

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you know, Christian doctrine.

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So let's take a look at Victor's name.

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"Victor" means, you know, "the winner."

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But it also sounds a little bit like "victim."

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So the question is

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is Victor a victim of fate?

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Was he destined to the end that he had?

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Or is he -- Does he come out victorious?

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Is he the one who is --

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Has the agency and makes the choices?

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And then we ask the same thing

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of the Monster, who, you know, again,

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we conflate with Victor.

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Where is this question of -- Kind of it comes back

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to the tabula rasa question.

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Where is, you know, was he destined to be this way?

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Or did he make these choices?

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Is Frankenstein's monster

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a victim of Victor Frankenstein having abandoned him

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or was it his own choice to kill all these people?

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You know, this is a question we can't answer.

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We can't get into Mary Shelley's brain

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and know exactly what she was thinking.

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But one way that we can use the text

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to help us determine

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is if we look at the two different editions of the book,

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which we talked about way back

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at the beginning of the course.

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We have the 1818 edition

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and the 1831 edition.

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The last line of the 1818 edition

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has the characters actively doing things.

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Pushing themselves off of the raft and

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Walton uses the word "I."

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You know, uses this kind of, we call it agency,

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that the people are acting and actively doing something.

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In the 1831 version,

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not so much.

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Everything passively happens to them at the end.

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So we kind of can see that maybe

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in the original version,

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Shelley did think, you know,

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"It's these people or these characters' fault.

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They could've done something differently.

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They made these choices."

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Then, with the help of Percy,

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who helped edit to the 1831 version,

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we end up with,

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"No. It's fate. They were destined to be this way

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and they couldn't have done anything differently."

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If we're thinking biographically, again,

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we have the woman saying

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in 1818 when she wrote it on her own,

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saying, you know, "Yes, we have agency.

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We have free will. We can make changes."

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And then Percy comes along,

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helps out a little bit, and all of a sudden,

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you know, "Nope. Whatever happens happens."

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So there's a lot you can read into that.

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Interesting. Okay.

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That was Frankenstein with Dr. Deb,

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PHD from Shmoop.

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What is fate?

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What is free will?

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Does Frankenstein take one side over the other?

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How has the message changed

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between the two editions of Frankenstein?

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Tales of Frankenstein

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