3/31 HOMEWORK

The first three chapters tell us about Victor Frankenstein's childhood and youth; the fourth, about his "discovery" of the principle of life. For movie fans, these chapters may seem irrelevant: after all, we want to see the Creature being created and—amid bursts of smoke and flashes of lightning—”born.” Why, then, does Mary Shelley devote so much space to Victor's childhood environment and his education?