Frankenstein - an Analysis of Character

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Sharon Kua Mr. Morano ETS4U1-01 19 March 2012 Frankenstein – Chapter 13 Passage Analysis “The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist on a coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” (Shelley 108). The self-analytical and reflective words of the monster are important to chapter 13 of Frankenstein as readers are able to understand the character development of this creature. Essentially, this specific chapter is meant to display the contrast between the monster and his creator, and how he has evolved from living in the shadow of society. For instance, this passage affirms the magnitude to which the creature idealizes his highly regarded De Lacey family and all that is affiliated with them. Through his new found worship for them, he longs for their love, and most importantly, acceptance, as he says “[w]as I, then, a monster, a blot upon earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” (Shelley 108). Through these lines of the monster’s, his essential humanity now becomes clear to readers; as
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