Frankenstein uses electricity to spark new life in dead bodies. The innocent monster is corrupted by FrankensteinΓÇÖs own revulsion to his grotesque creation, and flees after killing the doctorΓÇÖs wife and brother. The creature learns to read (and learns how to be the monster that his creator sees him to be) in his flight, taking to heart the lessons of MiltonΓÇÖs Paradise Lost and GoetheΓÇÖs Sorrows of Young Werther. Frankenstein tracks the monster down, but is eventually himself destroyed in the foreboding Arctic cold, while the monster disappears across the ice.
In a lesser-known novel, "The Last Man" (1826), Shelley plays out this narrative when a plague decimates humanity at the end of the 21st century.
