Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Essay

The creature from Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" displays many different human qualities. Some of these qualities include: the creature's ability to learn, his capability to feel pain, his desire to be accepted, and his need for affection and sympathy. The need for affection and sympathy is something which the creature is unable to attain. This unrequited desire to be accepted causes the creature to be the victim of the novel. The creature is never given affection by human society because of his physical deformities, Dr. Frankenstein's denial to create him a mate, and the creature's violent behaviour.

Victor Frankenstein’s treatment of the monster is the main reason of its hatred toward human kind due to the hate he is seeing from his creator. “you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us” (68), this is said by the creature to shame Frankenstein and reveal to him what had first taken away the pure innocence he felt before discovering of the abandonment by his creator. Even though the creature acted in the wrong way to express his feelings of loneliness and neglect, it had the ability to be purely good and due to the mistreatment of the humans he had crossed paths with, he could not see his true potential for being truly

It is this ambition to be Adam rather than a fallen angel that leads the creature to extort a promise to create a mate for him from Frankenstein. It is partly because Frankenstein made the creature larger and stronger than himself that he is vulnerable to the threats of the monster. This is not all of the story, however. Frankenstein, although he resolves more than once to kill the creature and be done with it, never attempts to harm the creature in any way.

Hiding behind the trees in a forest he sees some cottagers who live in a house and for a time he had been observing them and learning their language. After learning the language of the cottagers the creature seeked the understanding, togetherness and compassion, which he expected his creator to give to him after he accepts the creature. The creature says, “ I was dependent on none, and related to none… and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them”(91). The creature at this point shows that he longed for fellowship which was why he wanted to be part of the same communion of the cottagers but that didn't work because they ran away from the place they lived and so the creature had no one and questioned himself as a being that will never be seen as a living thing which led to him feeling very lonely in this human dominated world. Through this solitude he became very mournful and seeked one’s guidance most importantly from Victor Frankenstein. The creature in chapter 16 said that, “I became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion, and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair. There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me;..”(97). The creature was

His curiosity for social interaction is energetic and capable as he educated himself through a family living in the woods and reading books he stole from his creator. With the creature’s intention to interact, it is interrupted; visually, the creature is unappealing and treated in a manner that is not kind. The creature explains in one of his experiences of interaction that he will never have the ability to be understood about his looks, "As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright” (16.32). The creature was drawn to the eyes of the woman but became conscious of the idea that he cannot belong in a world where people look at him in disgust and fear. This effect on the creature creates an image in his mind that life will never change for him and that people won’t change either. Another example representing the results of his interaction with others is the family

The Creature was so innately pure when he first moved in near the De Lacey’s house that he could not possibly conceive man 's idea of doing evil. The Creature could not believe that man, as amazing as it is, could feel something as disgusting as revenge. He believed that there was no way that someone could be driven to such an extent that they would feel the need to kill someone else.

The novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley involves the complex issues with the creation of life through an inanimate life. Shelley uses these character archetypes to develop a deeper meaning of the characters intentions. Shelley does an excellent job at allowing the reader to have a peak at the characters inner thoughts and feelings. The archetypes presented in Frankenstein allow readers to identify with the character's role and purpose.

Dark Deathlike Solitude “One can acquire everything in solitude except character” ----- Stendhal The dictionary defines solitude as a state of being alone or having no companion. The French writer Stendhal writes, as quoted above, that solitude does not allow you to have a character. Maybe solitude changes you from the character you once were and makes you a different person.

In most novels, the main topic of the story revolves around a certain theme. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” has multiple themes which are reintroduced many times throughout the story. It is seen how the creature reacts to the tragic events that take place in his life and it gives the reader a general idea of the purpose or lesson to be taken from the novel. Revenge is one of the recurring themes that gets developed in the novel when the creature feels betrayed by Victor. At the beginning of the book we see the creature as an innocent, clueless being.

From the start of his life, the creature wasn’t treated kindly. This caused him to be “...fearful of meeting with the same treatment (he) had formerly endured in the first village which (he) entered. ”(Shelley) His heart started out being “...susceptible of love and sympathy…”(Shelley), but after all the injustices he faced caused the love to be replaced “...by misery to vice and hatred…”(Shelley). The creature knew that his heart would begin to“...

He leaves the Creature with no one to support him when he needs it the most. Because of Frankenstein, the Creature is now alone and is forced to fend for himself in a world that he knows nothing about. The Creature has a very low chance for survival on his own, and this could have been prevented by Frankenstein. This is very cruel of him to leave the Creature in such an awful position. However, when Frankenstein leaves the Creature stranded on his own, he is not doing so intentionally. He has already proven his dedication to the Creature, but once he is formed, Frankenstein cannot handle everything that just occurred. He can only process enough to realize his own emotions at the time, and act on them, which causes him to run. Frankenstein is not trying to hurt the Creature on purpose, even though this is an outcome of his actions.

Similarly to Adam, the creature was created to be beautiful and to not harm those who are around. The creature states “like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect” (Shelley 116). Then the creature say that “many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me” (Shelley 117). Same to Adam, when he betrayed God for eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, he was expel from the Eden also known as the paradise. Like Victor, when he saw his own creation he was terrified, and he abandoned the creature. When the creature was abandoned, he was unhappy and he was mistreated by the society and unfortunately the monster turns into Satan. The creature is so similar to Adam, both are cast by their

He longs for a companion who will understand him and who will not mistreat him. The last moments of compassion dies within the creature when his creator destroys the companion he promised to create, and the revenge continues from there. Even though the creature commits awful crimes, he also commits acts of kindness.

A major influence in the creature’s life is Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein creates such a “great fortune [he] could [hardly believe had] befallen” the realm of science; however, Frankenstein puts so much work into his creation that he is “in reality very ill” (54-55). What seems like such an innovative addition to science actually causes great damage on the scientist. In this case, the gift of life comes with a sacrifice of life such as Mary Shelley’s mother’s life. In addition to sacrificing his life and sanity for the creature, Frankenstein prepares the monster for the harsh judgements in the real world and tells the monster about how it “cursed … the day, [appearing as an] abhorred devil, in which [it] first saw light,” (90). These harsh comments Frankenstein is constantly giving the monster prepares it for the outside world but also makes it feel unimportant and unloved even though he is the first creation of a living being. Frankenstein even goes as far as wanting to “extinguish the spark which [he] so negligently

Towards the latter part of the novel, the Creature symbolizes the point in the human psyche when Man starts to become inherently bad when he gains more reward from doing wrong than he does from doing what is right. It is seen in his final moments with De Lacey’s family. For a period of several weeks, the Creature waits patiently as he observes De Lacey’s family in order to connect with them and embody their language as his own, but they eventually abandon him due to his grotesque form. In their first interaction with each them, he sees their expression as a “horror and consternation on beholding [him],” (Shelley 122)[.] Agatha and Safie faint and scream at the sight of him next to their father as Felix proceeds to attack the Creature. At this point, the Creature is at the point of no return as he realizes that he will never be accepted by any human and he is destined to live a life of damnation. At this very moment, the Creature’s innocence becomes so engulfed by a feeling of hatred and spite for humanity that he believes he can, with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted me with their shrieks and misery,” (Shelley 124). Irving Buchen describes this stage in the creature’s life as an emergence of, “limited evolution of a human animal who exists solely in the hermetic seal of his individuality within a natural, not a human, environment”(Buchen). This is another way of saying that the Creature has resorted to his savage instincts: the thirst