Nothing else to receive the life of its creator, Victor Frankenstein, is abandoned by this one to its luck, disgusted by its physical aspect. For several days, the monster, scared, saddened and ignorant of his identity, roams the forests, surviving as he can with wild berries and river water. As the weather gets worse and food becomes increasingly scarce, he seeks refuge in a nearby town, where all his attempts to contact human beings end in a violent and disastrous way, to be rejected by all. Finally finds shelter in an abandoned shed on a remote farm, inhabited by a family, the De Lacey, originally from France. Over the course of the following months, the monster learns to speak, to read, to write and to begin to better understand the world around him, and by observing without being seen the inhabitants of the house, with whom he becomes fond of himself. . He becomes cultured, eloquent and refined. But he also becomes aware of his own physical deformity and the abnormality of his birth, which sets him apart from people. Thanks to some papers that he finds in a pocket of some clothes that he took from Frankenstein's laboratory, and that are his diary, he ends up knowing the history of his creator and the details of his birth, which leads him to experience a growing rejection towards himself.
However, he does not renounce the possibility of befriending the family, and one day when the children are absent, he tries to approach the father, who, being blind, can not see him and is not aware of his deformity. However, when the rest of the family returns, it is again the object of rejection and horror, and expelled from the house.