Frankenstein's Monster is a character played by Robert De Niro in the 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The creature was built by Victor Frankenstein based on his professor's notes. Victor gave his creation life, but he is repulsed by the creature's hideous appearance and tries to kill him. Frightened and confused, the creature steals Victor's coat and flees the laboratory, and is later driven away by the townspeople when he tries to steal food. The creature finds shelter in a family's barn and stays there for months without their knowledge, gradually learning to read and speak by watching them. He attempts to earn their trust by anonymously bringing them food, and eventually converses with the elderly, blind patriarch after murdering an abusive debt collector. When the blind man's family returns, however, they are terrified of the creature and chase him away. The creature finds Victor's journal in his coat and learns of the circumstances of his creation. He burns down the farm and vows revenge on Victor for bringing him into a world that hates him. The creature abducts Victor and demands that he make a female companion for him, promising to leave his creator in peace in return. Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists that he use Justine Moritz's body to make the companion, a disgusted Victor breaks his promise. The creature exacts his revenge on Victor's wedding night by breaking into his fiancée Elizabeth's bridal suite and ripping her heart out. Desperate with grief, Victor races home to bring Elizabeth back to life. He stitches Elizabeth's head onto Justine's body and reanimates her as a disfigured, mindless shadow of her former self. The creature appears, demanding Elizabeth as his bride. Victor and the creature fight for Elizabeth's affections, but Elizabeth, horrified by her own reflection, commits suicide by setting herself on fire. Both Victor and the creature escape as the mansion burns down. Victor spenth months pursuing the creature to kill him, and ended up being rescued by a ship in the Arctic. He dies, and the creature weeping over Victor's body, having lost the only family he has ever known. The ship's crew prepares a funeral pyre, but the ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship cracks. The ship's captain, Robert Walton, invites the creature to stay with the ship, but the creature insists on remaining with the pyre. He takes the torch and burns himself alive with Victor's body. Walton, having seen the consequences of Victor's obsession, orders the ship to return home.