Grieving his mother and resenting his abusive father, Victor becomes a brilliant, arrogant surgeon obsessed with “curing” death through science. He is expelled from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for reanimating corpses, which a disciplinary tribunal denounces as sacrilege. Arms merchant Henrich Harlander, impressed by his presentation, offers Victor unlimited funding and an isolated tower to continue his experiments under an unnamed condition. Enlisting William’s assistance in building his laboratory, Victor becomes smitten with Elizabeth, Harlander’s niece and William’s fiancée, who declines his advances. The Creature escapes the explosion and takes shelter in the mill gears of a family’s farm.