Mary Shelley, 1818

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's 1818 novel of a maker and his abandoned creation, read closely and charted from its own words.

71,876 words in 23 chapters, about 5 h 02 min of reading.

Read it free at Project GutenbergHow we drew the plates

Frankenstein in six sentences

In our own words, after reading the whole novel, and checked against the text. Spoiler-light: no ending is revealed.

  1. Frankenstein is less a monster story than a book about responsibility, asking what a creator owes the living being he makes and then refuses to love.

  2. It is built like a set of nested boxes, with an explorer's letters to his sister framing Victor Frankenstein's confession, which in turn frames the creature's own account of his life.

  3. The central tension runs between Victor's hunger for discovery and his horror at what he has made, a gap that leaves his creation abandoned, articulate and increasingly bitter.

  4. Shelley keeps returning to loneliness and exclusion, showing how a mind that begins open and eager is shaped by the way other people react to its appearance.

  5. Our sentiment arc starts bright in the letters and the Geneva childhood, then drops below zero in 14 of its 40 slices, the most of any book on this site.

  6. Begun as a ghost story during a cold, rainy summer near Geneva, it still shapes how we argue about science and ambition, and its creature remains one of fiction's most eloquent outsiders.

Three plates from the text

Every plate is computed by our scripts from the 71,876-word Project Gutenberg text. None is copied from a study guide.

Plate IThe mood of the wordingAbove the dotted line: brighter
Emotional arc of FrankensteinSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Frankenstein, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Vol 1 Ch 1: a Geneva childhood; Vol 1 Ch 4: the creature wakes; Vol 1 Ch 7: grief and a trial; Vol 2 Ch 4–5: watching the cottagers; Vol 3 Ch 6–7: the bleakest stretch.Vol 1 Ch 1Vol 1 Ch 4Vol 1 Ch 7Vol 2 Ch 4–5Vol 3 Ch 6–7OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of FrankensteinSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Frankenstein, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Vol 1 Ch 1: a Geneva childhood; Vol 1 Ch 4: the creature wakes; Vol 1 Ch 7: grief and a trial; Vol 2 Ch 4–5: watching the cottagers; Vol 3 Ch 6–7: the bleakest stretch.Vol 1 Ch 1Vol 1 Ch 4Vol 1 Ch 7Vol 2 Ch 4–5Vol 3 Ch 6–7OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of FrankensteinSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Frankenstein, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Vol 1 Ch 1: a Geneva childhood; Vol 1 Ch 4: the creature wakes; Vol 1 Ch 7: grief and a trial; Vol 2 Ch 4–5: watching the cottagers; Vol 3 Ch 6–7: the bleakest stretch.Vol 1 Ch 1Vol 1 Ch 4Vol 1 Ch 7Vol 2 Ch 4–5Vol 3 Ch 6–7OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of FrankensteinSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Frankenstein, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Vol 1 Ch 1: a Geneva childhood; Vol 1 Ch 4: the creature wakes; Vol 1 Ch 7: grief and a trial; Vol 2 Ch 4–5: watching the cottagers; Vol 3 Ch 6–7: the bleakest stretch.Vol 1 Ch 1Vol 1 Ch 4Vol 1 Ch 7Vol 2 Ch 4–5Vol 3 Ch 6–7OpeningMiddleEnding
  1. Vol 1 Ch 1A Geneva childhood
  2. Vol 1 Ch 4The creature wakes
  3. Vol 1 Ch 7Grief and a trial
  4. Vol 2 Ch 4–5Watching the cottagers
  5. Vol 3 Ch 6–7The bleakest stretch

We split the novel into 40 equal slices of about 1,800 words and score each by the average VADER sentiment of its sentences, from −1 (most negative) to +1 (most positive); the line is a five-slice moving average, and the dotted line is neutral. Computed from the 1818 text, which runs in three volumes after four opening letters. It measures the tone of the words, not what happens.

Source: our count from the Project Gutenberg text (71,876 words), scored with VADER.

Plate IIWho is named whenNames per twentieth of the book

This chart counts how often five central characters are named in each twentieth of the book, about 3,600 words, including nicknames and titles such as Henry for Clerval. The creature has no name, so we count the words others use for him, such as monster, fiend and dæmon, and Victor looks quiet because he narrates most of the book as I.

Source: our count from the Gutenberg text, in 20 slices of about 3,600 words.

Plate IIIWho shares a paragraphLine width: paragraphs together
Character network of FrankensteinEight most-named characters. Strongest links: The creature and Elizabeth (16 paragraphs); Clerval and The creature (12 paragraphs); Elizabeth and Justine (12 paragraphs); Felix and Safie (12 paragraphs).The creatureElizabethClervalJustineVictorFelixWilliamSafieCharacter network of FrankensteinEight most-named characters. Strongest links: The creature and Elizabeth (16 paragraphs); Clerval and The creature (12 paragraphs); Elizabeth and Justine (12 paragraphs); Felix and Safie (12 paragraphs).The creatureElizabethClervalJustineVictorFelixWilliamSafie

Lines join the eight most-named characters, and a thicker line means more paragraphs that name both of them; pairs named together in fewer than three paragraphs are left out. Felix and Safie, from the cottage the creature watches, connect mainly to each other.

Source: our count of paragraph co-occurrence in the Gutenberg text.

Dramatis personae

The eight most-named characters we counted, with how often each is named in the text (names and titles, not pronouns).

  • The creaturenamed 98 timesVictor's nameless creation, who teaches himself to speak and read.
  • Elizabethnamed 91 timesVictor's orphaned cousin, raised as part of his family in Geneva.
  • Henry Clervalnamed 80 timesVictor's cheerful school friend, drawn to languages and travel.
  • Justine Moritznamed 56 timesA young servant much loved by the Frankenstein household.
  • Victor Frankensteinnamed 52 timesAmbitious Genevan student of natural science who makes a living being.
  • Felixnamed 50 timesYoung man of the exiled cottage family the creature secretly watches.
  • Williamnamed 26 timesVictor's little brother.
  • Safienamed 25 timesFelix's beloved, a merchant's daughter who arrives from abroad.

Key terms

Frame narrative
A story told inside another story; here, Walton's letters wrap around Victor's tale, which wraps around the creature's.
Epistolary
Told through letters; Walton's letters to his sister open and close the novel.
Natural philosophy
The older name for the physical sciences, which Victor studies at Ingolstadt.
The Modern Prometheus
The subtitle compares Victor to the Titan of Greek myth who defied the gods for humanity's sake and was punished for it.
The sublime
A feeling of awe mixed with fear in front of vast nature, such as the Alpine glaciers where Victor and the creature meet.

What we read to write this

  1. Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus (1818 text) by Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyProject Gutenberg
  2. Plot Summary of the Novel (Based on the 1818 Text)Romantic Circles
  3. Frankenstein: history of the text (Pennsylvania Electronic Edition)University of Pennsylvania
  4. FrankensteinEncyclopaedia Britannica

Our own explanation and plates, written with AI assistance (Claude, by Anthropic) after reading the sources above and checked against the novel’s text. No text or images were copied. Published October 18, 2026.

Frankenstein is free to read.

It is public domain in the US. Project Gutenberg has the full text as a web page, an ebook and plain text.

Open the free text

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