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What do you know about the story of Frankenstein?

Here is an extract from the beginning of the story by Mary Shelley.

A man named Victor Frankenstein has gone to university to study science. At first he writes frequently to his friends and family, then the letters stop. His close friend Henri (the narrator of the story) goes to visit him.

Listen to the text andanswer the questions.

1 How do you think the narrator (Henri) feels at the end of the extract?

2 How does Frankenstein feel?

3 What was in the bath?

Here is a diagram of Frankenstein's flat. Label the diagram using words from the box.

Frankenstein led the way down a long, dark passage to a book-filled room. A bed stood on one side, looking as if nothing had been done to it for days; and on a table near the window were the remains of several meals. There was dust everywhere, and the last of the evening sun shone with difficulty through the dirty windows. There was a rather unpleasant smell.

After I had given him news about his family and told him the reasons for my coming to Ingolstadt, Frankenstein got up and walked about the room excitedly. He didn't seem to be thinking at all about what I had just told him.

'Henri, ' he said at last. 'You have come just at the very moment when I need your help. The great work which I have been doing for the last year is coming to an end, and I shall soon know whether I have been wasting my time or whether I have pushed scientific discovery to new heights.' His eyes burned with a strange light. They were like the eyes of a madman.

'My preparations are nearly complete. All I need now are the right conditions for the great experiment to take place. Come, ' he said, and led the way to a door in a corner of his living-room. 'You will see what no other man has seen.'

He threw open the door, and at once the strange smell which I had noticed before became stronger. It was like the smell of bad meat. I could hardly bear it, but my friend seemed not to notice it, and led the way in.

The room was dark, and at first I could only see a mass of wires, glass bottles and jars, and copper and glass pipes. Here and there the blue light of the burners made holes in the darkness. And from those places the sound of boiling liquids could be heard.

As my eyes began to see better in the half-darkness I saw that this stuff was arranged round a kind of bath in the middle of the room with a wooden work-table that went all the way round it. Frankenstein was watching me. There was still this strange excitement in his eyes. 'Go on, ' he said, 'look inside. See what I have made.'

I bent over the table and looked into the bath. It was filled with a clear liquid. I tried to see deeper into the liquid, but at first all I could see was what looked like hair - fine hair. I bent lower, and as Frankenstein moved a lamp nearer I drew in my breath sharply. It was hair - spread out in a golden ring around a face, a head. More. Yes, there was a body in the bath - the body of a man!

Listen to the text and analyse it from the phonetic point of view:

1. Divide the text into intonation groups, determine their structure in each case.

2. Watch the Nucleus in each of them and the tone used.

3. Analyse the head in each intonation group: type, number of rhythm groups.

Practise its reading. Make the recording of your reading on a tape.