Explore How Certain Characters in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ Are Deemed as ‘Outsiders’ as a Result of Their Physical Appearance.

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Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” was written following the Age of Enlightenment and during the Romantic period, one factor of this period in time was Gothic themed novels. The “Gothic” genre includes the idea of loneliness and isolation, which could explain why Shelley’s novel contains characters who could be considered “outsiders”. Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel “Brave New World” first published in 1932 which was written way ahead of its time; scientifically and when referring to social problems, the novel has an almost prophetic awareness of the ‘nightmarish’ future the Nazis and Soviet Communism were yet to inflict. In both texts there are several characters perceived as “outsiders” those being; Frankenstein, the creature, the De Lacys, Safie, Walton, Justine, John, Bernard and Linda, but for various reasons. These include; those who purposely refrain from outer society and those who are prejudiced by others, this is mostly due to their physical appearance. An outsider – a person who is seen as a threat to normality or isn’t perceived as the ‘norm’ and is therefore shunned into being a minority by a majority, not belonging to a particular group of people; in Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ for the creature’s case this would be the whole of society as he is seen as the “ultimate outsider” and he is subject to many of society’s demons. For instance, prejudice. This is one of the most significant reasons for most of the outsiders within Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’. The creature is rejected from society starting from his creation because of how different he looks to the rest; Shelley uses “abhorred” to describe the creature and throughout the novel this reinforces the fact of how despised he is by others. The harsh plosive sound of the 'b' also reinstates this. Frankenstein describes him as a “demonical corpse” which has connotations of
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