The Monster had done nothing to deserve what Victor has put him through, so the fact that the Creation turns on Victor was perfectly normal. Victor has no respect for his creation, abandoned him, and causes him to turn on his creator therefore, making him the real monster. The monster does not deserve the behavior he gets from Victor. He treats his creation like property when the Monster deserves to be treated normally. If parents would respect their children more then cases like Victors creation would be much
Victor represents society intent on pushing the boundaries and themonster represents the product of this curiosity; of technology gone wrong;technology without ethics. “Accursed creator! Why do you form a monster so hideousthat even you turn away from me in disgust?” The monsters constant rhetoricquestioning addresses these ethics and illuminates the monster as a symbol of innocence in the face of corruption. Victor’s relationships also allow insight into themoral dilemma of creation. Victor’s positive family relationship is juxtaposed againsthis spite for the monster, a somewhat child of his.
He tells him ‘do your duty towards me and I will do mine towards you,’ and if Frankenstein refused, he threatened him by saying he would ‘glut the maw of death’. This shows how the Creature’s abandonment and lack of nurture leads him to become a murderer. Further proof of this is when, during the Creature’s tale he tell Frankenstein ‘I could not conceive how one man could go fourth and murder his fellow’ showing that he was ‘benevolent and good’ and had Frankenstein full filled his duty he may have remained so. The Creature admits to Frankenstein ‘misery made me a fiend’ implying that Frankenstein’s actions, or lack of action, lead to this misery. Primarily it is not Frankenstein who has to suffer the consequences of his creating life, it is the Creature.
All the humans in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are quick to form judgments about each other. Particularly, prejudice against physical ugliness becomes evident as society continually alienates the creature out of disgust for his appearance. Society’s response to the creature’s deformed figure proves that prejudice inevitably serves as a roadblock in using reasoning and rationality to develop opinions based on one’s actions rather than one’s looks. The creature originally tries to rely on the power of communication and language to compensate for his deformed appearance; however, this turns out to be an unsustainable method. ¬¬The first time the creature encounters spoken words, he immerses himself in the vernacular language, intending to use
In contrast, the monster appears to be a nasty, unapproachable beast but actually appears to be well-educated and is knowledgeable about the world around him. It can be said that the monster is the antithesis of Frankenstein. Both characters also show a disregard for women. The creature makes promises on behalf of the female companion without consulting her and Victor simply destroys her. From a feminists point of view like Shelley’s this would be seen as wrong how a man can simply just
To the reader, it seems that Shelly consistently reminds us of the lack of responsibility on the part of Frankenstein, and the monster’s inherent innocence, who is only made evil by his circumstances. But like the reader, Shelley too, is unclear about whose behaviour is most unjustifiable and unpardonable. With reference to David Punter’s essay “Gothic and Romanticism”, Victor Frankenstein can be compared to the ‘Wanderer’, the Wanderer’s essential characteristics being that he is hero and victim both, who defies God by crossing the laws of mortality and dares to touch the untouchable. The Wanderer is never satisfied with the restrictions placed on him by an ordered society, and he ultimately suffers for his disobedience. Victor clearly fits the description of the Wanderer, as his obsessive need to create life and be its sole creator has a hint of an unnatural desperation to satisfy his ego and attain gratitude.
The writer’s use of pathetic fallacy through “rain pattered dismally against the panes” and “glimmer of the half-extinguished light” reflects on the dull, macabre atmosphere surrounding the event of Victor trying to “infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing”. Shelley’s use of negative words such as “dreary” and “toil” implies to the reader that the act of giving life that Victor is about to carry out will have an adverse conclusion. When Shelley describes the monster, her use of colour imagery incites the image in the reader’s mind of this abominable creature Frankenstein has erected. One would expect that since each of the monsters features were so carefully selected, the monster would be the “beautiful” being Frankenstein had previously exclaimed about. However in fact, the monster’s “hair [was] of a lustrous black” and his “teeth of a pearly whiteness” in contrast with his “dull yellow eye” ,“yellow skin” and his “shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.” evoke the opposite effect on the reader.
For example, if you look at serial killers and bullies, the reason why they are so angry towards society and innocent people is because that is probably how they were treated while they were growing up. The case is the same in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the theme isolation motivates destruction can be seen when Victor abandons his creature after creating it, when the creature is rejected by the De Lacey family, when William rejects the creature in the woods and
Frankenstein wanted to recreate his mother, but instead he made a creature comprised of the socially repressed elements of Frankenstein (the monster) and his wish for his mother. Frankenstein's creature comprises all of the unacceptable traits of humans, those we usually suppress. These traits may actually be a representation of those traits that Frankenstein wishes he had. Mary Shelley tries to humanize the position of the impossible monster to imagine what it would be like for a monster to sustain personhood when everybody around him treats him as an utterly outcast to society. Shelley is trying to show that the creature is not inherently monstrous, but
When ‘Frankenstein’ was first published, the response to the idea of creating life would have been different to the reaction of the present readers as in comparison to the present year there was little scientific knowledge. The description of the Creature then creates a further element of fear within the reader; his looks are illustrated as abnormal yet still resemble the frame of a man. Frankenstein labels the Creature as a ‘wretch’, this description frequently appears throughout the novel emphasising his harsh appearance, the reader is able to build a clear image of the Creature, his ‘yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles’ reintroduces the truth of the circumstances that he is barely human and has been created from a dead body, this evokes further fear and horror as