Frankenstein

At the end of the novel, Victor Frankenstein dies aboard Robert Walton’s ship after chasing the monster into the Arctic. Victor has lost everyone he loves: the monster murders Elizabeth on their wedding night, Victor’s father dies from grief soon afterward, and Victor becomes consumed by revenge. He pursues the monster across frozen wilderness until he collapses and Walton’s crew rescues him. Even as he is dying, Victor urges Walton to continue the revenge, warning him against dangerous ambition while still clinging to his hatred of the creature.

After Victor dies, Walton discovers the monster mourning over Victor’s body. The monster insists that it has suffered terribly too, saying, “The fallen angel becomes the malignant devil. Yet even the enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” The creature explains that rejection, loneliness, and Victor’s abandonment drove it toward violence and revenge. It asks why it alone should be judged evil “when all human kind sinned against me?” The monster expresses remorse for the deaths it caused and admits that revenge never relieved its misery.

The novel closes with the monster declaring that Victor’s death has ended its purpose. It says it will travel north and destroy itself on a funeral pyre. Walton watches the creature leap from the ship onto the ice and disappear into the darkness.

Mary Shelley ends Frankenstein without triumph or reconciliation. Victor and the monster have both been consumed by pride and revenge, and they’re both left completely alone. The ending also leaves Walton standing at the edge of the same destructive ambition that ruined Victor, though unlike Victor, Walton ultimately turns back before nature destroys him too.