Frankenstein begins his story in Geneva, at home with his family, during chapter three, his mother dies of scarlet fever after attending to Elizabeth, whom she contracts it from. After she dies, Frankenstein's father "resolved" it "necessary for the completion of" his "education for" him "to be made acquainted with other customs than those of" his "native country" and so he makes plans to study at Ingolstadt. His mother's death causes a morbid ambition in Frankenstein to create "life from dead matter", which he does eventually. When he moves to Ingolstadt, Frankenstein has already studied the works of the likes of "Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus", because of this Frankenstein thinks he has surmounted ample knowledge to build on at university, but Krempe counters his studies with unnecessary enmity. Shelley presents Frankenstein in this way to show his ardent "thirst for knowledge", he has taken his time to discover the thoughts of those before him but now he had been subjected to a modern world which has increased Frankenstein's intrigue in his unwarranted aspiration. This world Shelley created in the novel ran parallel with the world in which she lived; many scientists were working toward new discoveries so Frankenstein's discoveries were warranted in the real world.
Thus Frankenstein begins his morbid craft, he "collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secret of the human frame", and this morose degradation of the science shows how far Frankenstein will go to create "life from dead matter". The monster is brought to life in Chapter five, "on a dreary November night, again this adds to the stereotypical image of the horror genre. Before he gives life to the monster, Frankenstein shuns the creature because of his appearance but he continues to give life to "the breathless horror" of the monster.
