Victor Frankenstein is an aspiring scientist who hopes to make a name for himself. He quickly becomes enamored with the idea of creating life, or rather, the ability to endow life to something inanimate. Victor goes what many would consider mad, working for months at a time to bestow life upon corpses already deceased. When he finally does succeed, he immediately realizes the error of his ways, declaring his creation a monster, and fleeing. The monster, though initially benevolent, finds itself scorned by all matter of man, and turns malicious, and begins to murdur those dear to Frankenstein. Eventually, Victor reaches a decision to persue and destroy the monster, while the monster decides to do away with Victor in a final confrontation. It quickly becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse, and the novel itself opens when Victor is picked up by a ship that happens to be going in the direction of the monster he so wrongly created.