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We speak student!

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Why had the world condemned me?

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Because I was the first man to create another living being.

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The first unnatural man.

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Frankenstein a la Shmoop

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Who is the protagonist in Frankenstein?

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This is a question that you'll get asked all the time.

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Who's the protagonist? Who's the antagonist?

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And the answer's always just that it depends

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on what you think.

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So, you know, yes there are wrong answers.

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But with Frankenstein, we have basically three possible answers

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for who the protagonist is of the book.

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We have Walton, the one who's telling the story.

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In reality, it is his story.

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It starts with him and ends with him.

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And Walton is the only one in the entire book

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who turns back when he realizes

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that his pursuit of knowledge is getting out of hand.

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He's on his way to make big discoveries,

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and then he realizes it's not gonna end well

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and he turns back.

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He's the only one in the story to make that realization.

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We could call Victor Frankenstein the protagonist.

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He is the one who created life,

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so we can kind of say he's the one who created the story.

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This is the story about how his actions are going to turn out.

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And he does go out on a semi-admirable note.

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We could say that the Monster is the protagonist.

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He, in the end, is really the one we're rooting for.

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And, you know, that's kind of a big part of the protagonist.

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Is the person, even if they're terrible and evil

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and Satanic in this case --

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If we can get behind them and root for them

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as the hero,

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then they can be called the protagonist.

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We can also, in order to determine the protagonist,

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try and figure out who the antagonist is.

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Is the antagonist science? Is it fate?

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Is it Victor Frankenstein?

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So depending on who we think the antagonist is,

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the protagonist changes.

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Why it matters is because

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if we think of the monster as the protagonist...

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He kills like eight-ish people by the end of the book.

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There's a really large body count in this book.

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We don't really notice it when we're reading,

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because it's written in fancy 19th century prose,

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but it's a pretty violent book.

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And if our protagonist is someone who kills

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Victor's entire family,

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what are we supposed to think about that?

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So it kind of does create some,

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you know, ethical issues, depending on who we think of as the protagonist.

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- Yeah. Almost an antihero. - Yes, definitely an antihero.

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Who is the protagonist in Frankenstein?

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Who or what is the antagonist in Frankenstein?

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Why does it matter?

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Why had the world condemned me?

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