A journal entry that Frankenstein writes as he pursues the Monster. This idea came from my thoughts about the Monster, and how Frankenstein might have changed the situation if he had taken responsibility for his creation and showed it any affection. I, personally, think that Frankenstein was a bit of an idiot to treat the Monster as he did. What did he expect to happen! Anyway, I own no rights to anything to do with Frankenstein, but this is an original work by me. Enjoy!
From the journal of V. Frankenstein
68th day in pursuit of the monstrous being that torments my existence, moving ever farther north, always north. The climate grows colder and the air bites and ravages my skin like fire. I am alone, and yet of all that I fear, I fear the monster, my creation, not at all. I have no thought for him but determination to destroy him, no emotion for him but hate. I cherish no ambition, no desire, but to see him meet his end at my hands. All of the destruction that has occurred because of that loathsome being leaves me no duty left that can be fulfilled, but to undo that which I should never have done, to take from him that spark of life which I planted within him.
Not a day goes by, that I do not curse my own hands for having wrought such a deed. That monster which now leads me onward took the lives of all those I held dear to me – O, Elizabeth! Sweet and gentle creature! If only you had loved someone who could not bring upon you the horror which was my doing. I see myself, a ragged and worn shadow of the man I was, and question whether it makes a difference that the monster took your life, when I was the author of his being – am I therefore your murderer, and he only the instrument which I wielded to destroy you? My wife – would that it had been me instead!
But no, it is not me who lies cold in the ground, for I must live in hell itself, never able to rest for fear that he shall ruin another as he has ruined me. I must destroy him – I must! He, that hideous wretch that cannot be called a man, he does not deserve my pity. Though I authored the physical form, the soulless craven heart that beats dully in his chest was not mine to form. His is a devil's heart!
I have just woken, my fire dying beside me, from the most nightmarish of dreams. I saw his face, looming over me as it did on that first evil night, when I looked down at his unnatural form, animated with life, and recoiled to see what I had done. I relived that moment again just now, seeing him as I saw him then – possessed with the strangest passion, the most fervent and twisted expression imaginable on an earthly face. And in this dream, I saw not what in my fevered delirium I saw then, but the face – clear to me for the first time. He had come to me for – what? Guidance? Surely a demon such as he never cherished a hope of humanity, though he may have said as much – surely he knew within himself that he was destined for evil, predetermined through no fault of mine for works of terror and death. And yet his face, as he looked upon me, seemed to hope for some welcome, some acceptance.
Did he see my disgust as I laid eyes upon him for the first time? Did he remember that moment as I did? Did he understand why I fled from him, as he lay newly alive within my working-space? I had intended to understand the source of life itself, to give life and animation to that which was lifeless. I had not intended to create a man with the ability to question his origins, to feel hate or vengeful emotion. What would he have felt for me if I had not run? And what power within him drove him to such pure hate for me in the months that followed? I gave him life! Surely any mortal man would have felt only gratitude.
But perhaps it seemed to him that I abandoned him there, and in this frightful dream of mine, I saw for a moment through his eyes, and force myself to ask now: had I remained in that terrible room, had I viewed him not as a monster but as a child, would his thirst for blood have been extinguished? Had I kept him at my side, hidden my disgust, and taught him what was right, would it have prevented him from doing wrong? Was he, in some way unknown to nature, my child, to be loved as a child should be loved? O God forgive me if, in my quest for what was in the interest of science and of good works, I created a murderer by my own neglect! He might have been not a devil but an innocent, without possession of the knowledge of what was right and what was wrong. Was my duty not only to give him life, but to guide his soul's formation as a human soul?
But now I see, through my sleep-misted eyes, the apparition again – his leering face, his vile features contorted into that strange, desperate expression, and my heart grows cold to him. That it should ever have felt a flicker of sympathy – O hideous monster! Wicked, possessed soul of evil! It is my weakness towards the work of my own hands that has allowed this terror to endure. I will stamp out the embers of the fire, for dawn is coming, and my quest will yet see its completion! Northward, north, to the creature's destruction! If I perish in the attempt, then I will have died nobly, doing the only work left to me that is done in a noble cause. Soon I will have no ink or pen, and my records will be lost when I am forced to burn them to keep myself from a frozen death, but still I will press on! Onward, I challenge you, demon! My hate will keep me alive. On!