Analysis Of 'The Mis-Education Of The Negro'

Victor Frankenstein’s monster educates himself which shapes the role of his character in the novel. The monster receives the majority of his education through watching humans speak and the actions they portray. He finds books in the woods, including Paradise Lost and reads them. The story of the monster can somewhat be related to the reading from our textbook, “The Mis-Education of the Negro” by Carter G. Woodson. Several sources go about in different angles about the monster’s education. A blog about Frankenstein, The Monster of Literary Theory, mostly discusses the monster’s education through a literary sense by reading. Another source from a University of Pennsylvania English website talks about Mary Shelley and how the monster learns from observation, not just texts. The monster is abandoned and left uneducated. He goes about on his own to give himself an education through reading and the observation of others. The story of the monster can be compared to many realities that this world has faced over many years. He is said to be an evil monster because of his actions, but how would he really know what evil really is without the proper education?

Frankenstein’s monster read Paradise Lost, a novel about the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, living in the Garden of Eden and how living there is taken away from them. He admires

Woodson. In this reading Woodson explains that African American’s were not receiving the education that they deserved. When reading this article by Woodson, the story of the monster may come to mind during some parts such as when Woodson writes, “Unlike other people, then, the Negro, according to this point of view, was an exception to the natural plan of things, and he had no such mission as that of an outstanding contribution to culture. The status of the Negro, then, was justly fixed as that of an inferior (Jacobus