At the end of Shelly’s novel, the creature which Dr. Frankenstein has created decides to kill itself.
When it finds its creator dead aboard discoverer Rober Walton’s ship, the creature feels that it has
now lost its central reason for living. It tells Walton that it plans to “…shall seek the most northern
extremeity of the Norther extremity of the Globe; I shall collect my funeral pile, and consume to ashes
this miserable frame,…”

The creature embarks on a journey to the planet’s northernmost point.
But the intended suicide never occurs.

The creature’s ability ot survive the Artic’s severe cold – a capacity which further highlights its
essential monstrosity – condemns it to remain alive at the North Pole.

The North Pole – today:

Two centuries after this event, the creature continues to roam alone at the “Northen extremity of the
Globe”. Hate, guilt and unending grief paralyze the creature’s inner and outer worlds. Its life is
characterized by the utter absence of love.

The creature is surrounded by the blinding glare of the sunlight, the relentless cold, the incandescent
whiteness of the snow and knife-sharp Artic wind.
It deliriously stammers fragment of words, phrases and texts.

During the flight that followed its creation, the creature learned to read and write from a human family.
Introduced to language by Volney’s “Ruins of Empire”, the creature later accidentally discovers three
additional books which, together with Frankenstein’s Diary (the story of the creature’s life) form its
memory. Alongside Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, Goethe’s “Werther” makes the
strongest impression upon it.

Fragments from these texts, which the creature once read and now desperately recalls, plus verbal
responses to what it has seen, form the contents of the monologue which the creature now endelssly
intones in the icy wilderness.

“…my spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell”.