The Creature Is a Victim in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay

Every encounter the creature had with mankind resulted in violence towards him. His isolation and rejection from society created his violent persona, “[he] is violent, because [he] is miserable” (104). The creatures rejection from society left him - what he believed - one option, to become a plague to the society that exiled him. Rejection from the rest of society is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges a being can face. Interaction is an essential “human” need, as much as food, water, and shelter, and isolation can destroy a person’s psyche. Frankenstein’s creature is a prime example, he lived his whole life in the shadows, afraid of others. He had four conversations with other people! Because society rejected him, he became violent towards them, which only distanced him further from the ones he sought to

The creature began to converse freely with the blind father who addressed him with kindness. However, when his two children returned, the daughter fainted and the son "dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick" forcing the creature to "quit the cottage and escape unperceived to my hovel" (115). These acts of cruelty emphasize how often humanity stereotypes individuals. Just because a creature looks monstrous does not mean his intentions match his appearance. After this heartbreaking event, the monster decides to stop seeking love and instead to seek revenge against his creator and attempt to force Victor to create a companion for him. The creature attempts to explain his cruel ways when he exclaims, "There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my

In Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein, Shelley introduces a Creature who represents many symbols throughout the story. Such as the war between passion and responsibility, the effects of a corrupt society, and the Creature is a symbol of nature vs. nurture . through this Creature we see mainly the effects of society on an abandoned, innocent being and how it matures in the story fending for itself against society as a whole.

While Creature is full of humanity and has a thirst for knowledge, his longing for acceptance in society is met with constant rejection. Through this rejection, it sparks anger into the Creature for his irresponsible creator, Victor Frankenstein. Creature’s anger leads to greater tragedies for Victor. The greater of the tragedies are the murdering of innocent people including Victor’s family that is seen to be the fault of Creature since he is the one who murdered them. If Victor did not abandon the Creature and had taught him murder was not morally correct, Creature would not have committed the heinous acts.When Creature was first theoretically born, he was introduced into the world in a very harsh way. Metaphorically, Creature starts out into the world as a newborn, needing a parent 's guidance and teachings. Victor abandons him immediately with no sense of direction. Creature, after his “birth”, approaches Victor with a hand of longing for compassion. “He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they maybe called, were fixed on me...He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out” (Shelley 35). Victor instead of showing acceptance immediately runs away at the sight of him.

Now the creature knows that it is not only his creator, Frankenstein, who rejects him, but an entire village. He was left “miserable …. from the barbarity of man”. He is not only learning that society dislikes him, but that it is ‘normal’ to attack others. He hasn’t known kindness in his entire life. He doesn’t even know that it exists. The second contact he has with humans, they are being violent. They are not demonstrating any sort of reason, teaching the creature that it is normal to be violent and impulsive.

The Creature’s words and final testament set aside the view of him as a monster and fully embrace sympathy and compassion for his misery. His final words before declaring his death, call out the bias in Frankenstein’s telling as he begins to affirm the benevolence in him: “Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal when all human kind sinned against me?” (214). The Creature pleas for understanding and compassion for his own misery caused by humans, he presents his experiences as being no less of an injustice than his deeds against Frankenstein. His words present a view of him that was previously missing of his monstrosity as a reaction to the misery placed on him by his creator and other humans. Hatch notes the fact that the Creature’s “last words [are] addressed to his dead creator” and thus “the monster's solitude is complete” (7). Without any further suffering or misery, the Creature decides to kill himself, and even after the creature leaves the scene, his disappearance is described as “lost in darkness and distance” as a reminder and final call for compassion for the Creature and his

Easily one of the most notable themes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the role of nature versus nurture in developing children, recurs throughout the novel with the two main characters, Frankenstein and his creature, believing in opposite sides of this theme. Favoring nature, Frankenstein maintains that the creature was always evil from the moment of creation, regardless of the creature’s experiences. However, the creature, in his narrative to Frankenstein, argues that “[he] was benevolent and good; misery made [him] a fiend” (106). In adherence with John Locke’s concept of tabula rasa, the creature was born with a blank slate, and only through his experiences does he gain knowledge and personality. Struggling to persevere in the human world, Frankenstein’s creature merely wants humans to welcome him as one of them. The change of the creature from looking “upon crime as a distant evil” because “benevolence and generosity were ever present” in him to seeking revenge on Frankenstein results from a culmination of horrible experiences (103). While it may be hard to see the creature as a trustworthy narrator because of how he has acted and his ulterior motives, he does present physical evidence to support his tale. Facing rejection in different forms, he becomes truly evil, giving up hope of companionship as a result of his trials and lessons. From the moment of his creation, the creature encounters abandonment, violence, isolation, and rejection everywhere he turns.

After being abandoned by Dr. Frankenstein, Creature wanted to be accepted by mankind. However, his grotesque appearance was enough for society to isolate him. The physical and psychological characteristics that a society finds difficult to acknowledge as “normal” is what monsters embody. Because people made snap judgements about who Creature was, Creature started thinking of himself as wicked and evil. The circumstances he was placed in incited fury within that turned into physical violence. Creature referred to Dr. Frankenstein as a “cursed creator”, and “For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled [his] bosom, and [he] did not strive to control them; but allowing [himself] to be borne away by the stream, [he] bent [his] mind towards injury and death” (Shelly 138 and 140). He became a powerful and threatening force. Creature fed the evil wolf and became more of a monster than just his physical semblance showed. By murdering innocent victims, he only fueled the monstrosity within him causing it to be his paramount

The creature witnesses the worst in humanity when his creator and every person he encounters, abandons him and leave him isolated from the rest of society. Desertion leads to the conflict because no one accepts and stand by the creature which in turn, fuels his need for revenge. Frankenstein lives to create this new, glorious discovery, however the very person he gives the creature life, leaves him companionless. The creature curses his creator and asks “why did [Frankenstein] form a monster so hideous that even [he] turn[s] from [the creature] in disgust” (130). In this situation, the parent abandons his son. The one person who is there to support and love one throughout all, leaves his creation due to the regret and revulsion he associates the creature with. Moreover, the creature stands alone with no understanding of where he comes from and where to go next. He is “absolutely ignorant [of his creation and creator], but [he] kn[o]ws that [he] possess[es] no money, no friends, no kind

In doing so, Frankenstein condemns the creature to loneliness and persecution. The creature's hatred and violent acts are not an inherent part of his character, as he explains, "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous" (81). If Frankenstein had raised and cared for him, the creature would have experienced compassion, and had someone to support him and be his advocate. Instead, the creature is left to learn about the world on his own, and develop a set of morals based on the way society treats him. Because he grows up outside of, and shunned by, society, he feels very little moral obligation towards other human beings. "...and tell me why should I pity man more than he pities me?" the creature asks Frankenstein. "Shall I respect man when he contemns [sic] me?" (122) The creature is not a monster in his own eyes; he is behaving rationally given the treatment he has received. If he were taught a better way to act, he would almost certainly behave in that way. The monster is not born a monster, his ugliness notwithstanding; he becomes one because society behaves monstrously towards him.

Like most horror stories, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has a wretched monster who terrorizes and kills his victims with ease. However, the story is not as simple as it seems. One increasingly popular view of the true nature of the creature is one of understanding. This sympathetic view is often strengthened by looking at the upbringing of the creature in the harsh world in which he matures much as a child would. With no friends or even a true father, the creature can be said to be a product of society and its negative views and constant rejections of him. Although this popular view serves to lessen the severity of his crimes in most people’s eyes, the fact remains that the creature is in fact a cold-hearted wretch whose vindictive nature

In his interactions with society, the Creature often reacts aggressively, because “[their] purpose [is] to kill [him]” and “do [their] duty towards [him], and [he does his] towards...the rest of mankind” (Shelley 68). As Victor Frankenstein feels a need to end the life of his Creature, the Creature’s reciprocating duty is in turn to defend his life by eliminating the lives of his adversaries. This conflict between Creature and Man generates a state of war which is carried out by the Creature’s following acts of extreme violence: the murders of William Frankenstein, Henry Clerval, Elizabeth Lavenza, and finally, Victor Frankenstein himself. Although the Creature behaves violently in many instances, this cruelty is not the most prominent aspect of his inherent nature. Upon further inspection, Shelley’s stronger support of Rousseau’s theories becomes more apparent. Shelley clearly reaffirms the noble savage idea that “savages are not bad…because…[of] the peacefulness of [man’s] passions, and [his] ignorance of vice” (Rousseau) through her Creature’s

The creature is renounced by Victor throughout the book, which removes any positive role model that the creature might have had. The two encounters that Victor has with the creature when it is first created are evidence of his rejection. The first is when Victor finishes creating the creature. During the process of creation, Victor dedicates himself so greatly that he "pursued [his] undertaking with unremitting ardour" (32). He puts aside everything else in his life, and concentrates completely on his purpose, which is to bring a being to life that would serve him. In order to do so, he spent an entire summer "engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit" (32). Because of the hard work that Victor puts into his work of creation, he never really examines the fruits of his labour. He is too caught up in his work, and has "lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit" (32) of finishing his work on making the creature. So in the process of his creation, Victor is never really aware of what he is creating because he is too focused on the actual act of creation. However, when Victor finally finishes the work of making the creature, and takes time to look at what he has done, he is horrified by his accomplishment. As the creation opens an eye, and

It seems as if all that the creature really wants is companionship and to be an accepted member of society. In the beginning the creature did not harbor any mal-intent, but society could not see who he was on the inside; they could only see his monstrous outward appearance. In the creature’s second experience with alienation he innocently wanders out into the city. The citizens of the village were truly horrified by the sight of the hideous creature. Some pummeled him with stones while others fled in fear. For Victor’s creation this was just another sign that he could never be