Hanat Samatar
Period 5
3/8/17
Societies Demoralization
Did societies actions toward the creature lead to the ill nature of the creature? The answer is revealed through a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who is fascinated by reanimation. In the novel Victor, does what he has always aspired to accomplish, creates life. The rest of the story afterwards shows the backlash of these actions; the repercussions of these actions are begun at the birth of the creature. They lead through the creature’s experiences and what he learns through society and it shows what impact society itself has had on the creature. After experiencing with society already he eventually learns how doing good deeds, regardless of how harmless it is, lead to pain and suffering
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due to his appearance. And finally, it introduces the impact these events had on the creature morally and how he becomes unstable. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley dabbles around the idea that societies impact on the creature caused his ill nature, doing this by showcasing the creature’s violent actions throughout the novel. Before the creation of the creature, Victor spends some time fantasizing about how he will create the perfect being.
When Victor fantasizes about what he will create, “a human being in perfection ought to always preserve a calm and peaceful mind.” (44), he invites us into his mind and introduces us to how the creature is seen through Victors eyes. After the birth of the creature Victor is immediately disgusted by the creature’s physiognomy using words such as “catastrophe.” and “wretch.” (56) to describe it. This shows how the monster is born to Victors disgust, which he will soon be accustomed to. When Victor eventually flees leaving the creature alone, he enables the creature to roam through towns and be terrorized into leaving. What the creature experiences through being shunned from the towns people is a segregation that he will b faced with throughout the entire novel. By introducing it at the beginning Mary Shelley is foreshadowing what we should expect throughout the novel. The significance of this is that as the creature absorbs knowledge from his surroundings, he becomes wary his appearance and is constantly faced with being a monster because of his …show more content…
appearance. Throughout the novel, society repeatedly disappoints the creature by punishing him for his good deeds. For example, while observing the poverty of the De lacey’s the creature steals from the family not knowing any better but as he becomes weary of their penury, he begins to provide for them “brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (106). After a while he approaches the older man, who is coincidently blind, and is accepted because of his respectful attitude, but as soon as the others return they shun and scare him away. It’s also shown when he saves the little girl from drowning “when her foot suddenly slipped into the stream… I rushed from my hiding place and with extreme labor saved her.” (134). However, instead of being rewarded he instead gets shot by the girl’s father. During this event, he thinks, “This is the reward of my benevolence!... now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone.” (135). In the wake of rejection after reading Victors journal on how he created the creature he swears revenge on all humans. These events impacted the creature my teaching him that doing good hurts him rather than do him any good. It can be assumed through all these events happening around the same time that it’s as if Mary Shelley is emphasizing on the rising action of the story and is showing the monster changing quickly After constantly being punished, we begin to see the creature shift from being innocent to a monster.
This is shown through the murders he commits. Upon meeting William, he ignored the boy’s taunts until he blurts out how his father is Alphonse Frankenstein. This enraged the creature and he, “...grasped his throat to silence him.” (136). The reason for this is because of the creatures’ deep hatred for Victor which he takes out on the entire Frankenstein family. It could be said that this specific murder was more emotional than rational and intentional as it is suggested when the creature says, “Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy.” (136). This quote changed the view point of the monster because it shows us how he personally sees Victor as his enemy and shows how he harms anyone related to his enemy. After Victor retreats from his promise to make the second creature and instead destroys it, the creature takes his pain out on those close to Victor: Henry and Elizabeth. When Victor, who is being accused of murder of Henry Clerval, he thrusts himself on the corpse and says “Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry of life?” (169). Here is seems as if Mary Shelley is saying that Victor is becoming wary of how the creature he made is ruining his life by depriving his loved ones of life. The biggest change in the creature’s attitude was when he killed Elizabeth. After the murder Victor says that, “A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to
jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.” (187). This is very significant because it illustrates how he went from the kind creature who saved a little girl from drowning and provided for the poor family, to a cold-blooded serial killer. On top of that when Mary uses the word “jeer” it illustrates how the monster has literally become a monster and changes the reader’s viewpoint on the monster. These murders were the result of Victor abandoning the creature at the beginning and how the attitude of others changed his own personality. The points shown correlate to the developing ill nature of the creature in this order for a reason. Starting with the birth of the creature, he is born into the world experiencing immediate disgust from Victor. Being shown the face of disgust, which he encounters numerous times throughout the novel, was a type of foreshadowing that guided the creature in his development. Following this is when he begins to understand the world and knows what’s good and what’s bad. This is shown through actions such as saving the drowning girl or providing for the poor family rather than steal from them. However, through each good deed he does he’s repaid through pain either physically like when he gets shot or emotionally like when he gets shunned away from the other members of the Delacey family. Finally, after going through these experiences it portrays how he takes the pain he endured through the harassment of humans, and becomes a literal monster through the deaths of William, Henry, and Elizabeth. After learning that his appearance impacted how he was being treated, Mary Shelley portrays how the creature took this knowledge and with no mentor/parent to guide him, went towards a path of ill nature. Related to this, today many people are treated based on appearance. Racism was alive in that time and even alive today and its specifically directed towards minorities. Society could end this if everybody participated and saw each other as equal but as we continue to hate on those who look different then us we are continuously making enemies, just like how the creature saw Victor as his enemy. It’s almost as if Mary Shelley was gathering plots of the story from her surroundings in life and implemented them in her story.
When Victor Frankenstein breaks his promise to the monster, it threatens him by saying that he’ll return on Victors wedding. Victor assumes that it’s his life that’s being threatened but the night of the marriage, Victor finds his Elizabeth. “She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and… running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake.” (Chapter 23) This quote conveys that the monster didn’t feel bad for killing Victor’s bride, he believed that it was a justified murder because he was repaying the heartache that he felt for his lost mate. This act of cruelty helped develop the monsters sense of right and wrong. The monster was born innocent but after being treated so cruelly for so long, his moral compass was corrupted. He felt as if it was his right to do this to this to Victor.
First, Before the monster is created Victor says that he hopes this creation would bless him as his creator, and that the creature would be excellent nature and would be beautiful. After the creature is created Shelley creates sympathy for him by Victor’s description of him in a unique yet horrific way, “he’s ‘gigantic,” “deformed,” “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” this makes the creature abhorrent to typical humans. When thinking of the descriptions together, Shelley has created a vivid, unnatural image of the monster in the mind’s eyes. The language Shelley uses is powerful and emotive “shall I create another like yourself, whose joints wickedness
On page fifty-seven of the novel, the creation is first brought to life and Shelley describes the initial interaction of the two main characters, “…his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some in articulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks…rushed downstairs.” This particular quote depicts how Victor immediately shut out any connections with the creature due to his appearance. He decided to interpret the creature’s instant grin and stare to revolve around evil thoughts when, in fact, the creature was simply desiring acceptance and approval from his creator. So it was that from the commencement of his existence, the creature was shunned from Victor and ultimately from the entire society merely because of his appearance. In correlation to the song, his wings were broken from the beginning of time and it was up to his own free will if he decided to learn to fly.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor and the monster go through a journey filled with love, betrayal, and ambition. However, there are key differences between the two of them. Victor leads a good life, but has an inner spark within him that leads him to rebel against the normal world and seek glory. The monster starts off with derelict beginnings and simply wishes for the basic needs that every human gets to experience such as love, affection, and friendship. Eventually, they both face problems, and as a result, devise evil plans, and yet their motivations and rationale cause the reader to have more sympathy for the monster than Frankenstein.
Shelley 94). Victor’s various thoughts of rage and hatred that had at first deprive him of utterance, but he recovers only to overwhelm the creature with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt, as he recalled creature’s misdoings to his loved ones. However, Victor pauses to “conceive,” to “feel,” and to “reason” with monster (M. Shelley 94). As Victor follows his creation, he notices the “air [to be full] of exultation” and “the rain” beginning “to descend,” showcasing Victor’s consent to change his view. (M. Shelley 98). Chapter 10 is exemplary of the Romantic Period where story becomes an allegory for real emotions and struggles. Victor’s
The monster feels more indeed of betrayal of Victor because what he does to him. In the Novel Victor Frankenstein is a betrayal of life itself because it should be given naturally and not created by a scientist man. The monster is actually the one who is majorly betrayed, he may look like a hideous dangerous monster on the outside but, not one within himself.. From the beginning of the novel, Victor betrays the monster, and this betrayal is seen on many levels throughout the novel. The tragic figure in Mary Shelley’s horror novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, is truly the instrument of betrayal to his creation of the monster because life should be given naturally not by creation of suffering and horrific which is made by
As the monster is abused by Victor is loses its compassion, and only seeks revenge. Victor, who never had any compassion for his monster, wants to get vengeance for the people who his monster killed. The monster has compassion at first, but the more Frankenstein tries to seek revenge on him, the less compassion he has. Frankenstein was shown compassion all his life because of his loving parents and their money so he does not have any compassion. Both the monster and Victor try to get revenge on each other, but neither succeeds. Overall, Mary Shelley is trying to prove that vengeance can take the place of compassion, but vengeance is pointless.
As a tragic hero, Victor’s tragedies begin with his overly obsessive thirst for knowledge. Throughout his life, Victor has always been looking for new things to learn in the areas of science and philosophy. He goes so far with his knowledge that he ends up creating a living creature. Victor has extremely high expectations for his creation but is highly disappointed with the outcome. He says, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 35). Frankenstein neglects the creature because of his horrifying looks, which spark the beginning of numerous conflicts and tragedies. At this point, the creature becomes a monster because of Victor’s neglect and irresponsibility. The monster is forced to learn to survive on his own, without anyone or anything to guide him along the way. Plus, the monster’s ugly looks cause society to turn against him, ad...
Victor had created the creature with the vision from his dreams of a strong, tall perfect being with no flaws. His years of study with the unnatural and science had come to this final conclusion and masterful idea that he was determined to finish. To his surprise, he had created the opposite, “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 35) Victor is saddened by what he thinks of as a failure. He leaves his own apartment to go sleep in his court yard outside following his creation. He begins to isolate himself from the creature because of his fear of the creature’s outward appearance. He loses all hope for the creature without even learning anything about him. The fact that Shelley begins to refer to the being that Victor created as a “creature” shows Victor’s ignorance and lack of acceptance. It is Victor’s prejudice that blinds him of the creature’s true potential due to the unwanted preconception that follows the creature as he finds meaning in
So, when he created Frankenstein “the monster” he turned out to be this grotesque and unnatural creature which was different from what Victor had imagined. However, at the site of looking at his creation, Victor is now spooked by his appearance and immediately turned off by his own creation. For example, in chapter 5 Victor says, “I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, continued a long time traversing my bed chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” (Page 35). Again, we can see Shelley’s use of Gothic elements infused with the monstrous theme. However, this causes Victor to immediately stray away from the monster because he views his creation as repulsive and upsetting. Which marks the first sign of abandonment that Victor places on his creation. This doesn’t do any justice for Victor because now the monster is trying to assert himself into Victor’s life but yet feels more and more neglected from the absence of love that Victor doesn’t want to give in terms of having a relationship with
In Frankenstein, Victor’s monster suffers much loneliness and pain at the hands of every human he meets, as he tries to be human like them. First, he is abandoned by his creator, the one person that should have accepted, helped, and guided him through the confusing world he found himself in. Next, he is shunned wherever he goes, often attacked and injured. Still, throughout these trials, the creature remains hopeful that he can eventually be accepted, and entertains virtuous and moral thoughts. However, when the creature takes another crushing blow, as a family he had thought to be very noble and honorable abandons him as well, his hopes are dashed. The monster then takes revenge on Victor, killing many of his loved ones, and on the humans who have hurt him. While exacting his revenge, the monster often feels guilty for his actions and tries to be better, but is then angered and provoked into committing more wrongdoings, feeling self-pity all the while. Finally, after Victor’s death, the monster returns to mourn the death of his creator, a death he directly caused, and speaks about his misery and shame. During his soliloquy, the monster shows that he has become a human being because he suffers from an inner conflict, in his case, between guilt and a need for sympathy and pity, as all humans do.
Rather, it is others who alienate it because of its grotesque appearance. The monster is quite literally ‘born’ into perpetual isolation beginning with Victor’s abandonment of it. He denies it domestic safety when he flees to his bedchamber. Victor disregards the monster’s utterance of “inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled his cheeks,” then escapes its outstretched hand “seemingly to detain [him]” [Shelley 49]. Examining the monster’s body language as though an impressionable infant, its actions can be read as a child-like plea for its father though the absence of speech not yet learned. Instead, its unattractive appearance causes Victor to run, leaving the creature alone with no information about himself or his surroundings. Therefore, Victor’s abandonment is a crucial justification of the monster’s negative experiences with society and nature and actions in desiring community. The monster’s alienation from family is the missing first school of human nature, and the first lesson where he learns he does not belong. The creature leaves into the wilderness to learn about the world and himself on it own, only to understand his interactions are
Victor, out of horror of what he had created leaves the monster in isolation. The monster describes what it was like, “It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were instinctively, finding myself so desolate… I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept,” (Shelley 87). At this point the monster is just an innocent child, who in his first hours has faced abandonment and such strong emotions. However, he is pure, like most babies. While he looks like a monstrosity he shows himself to be anything but. His first encounters with humans are all very negative. A man runs away screaming just at the sight of him. Villagers pelted him with rocks and chased him away. This makes him very fearful of humans. However, when he comes across the De Lacey family in their little cottage he sees how peaceful they are and he regains some hope. “What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching, and endeavoring to discover the motives which influenced their actions,” (Shelley 93). He is curious little
As previously mentioned, Victor’s childhood was full of parental support, and even included his parents “adopting” another child into their home (Shelley 35). The creature’s “parent” Victor, abandons him, leaves him to fend for himself, which results in the creature feeling angry toward Victor. The creature had a resentful, distant relationship with his creator, while Victor’s upbringing could not have been more different. Shelley uses the story of Victor’s childhood; the adoption of Elizabeth, the stories of the De Lacey children to compare to the creature and the “upbringing” Victor is denying him. The opposition in parenthood is displayed between Victor and the creature are displayed by the way Shelley writes the creature’s last quotes after Victor’s death “Once I had falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities I was capable of unfolding” (Shelley 239). The opposition lies in the monumental difference in parenting between Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein, and Victor Frankenstein. Perhaps if the creature had been cared for more adequately, the story would’ve ended much
Shelley provides numerical examples in which we see that the creature learns to hate Victor. Victor and the creature did not get along because Victor sees the creature as “the other” therefore the creature begins to view himself as such and begins to hate. The creature was born into the world and he was thankful for that and his creator. Victor sees the creature as an ugly monster. Therefore, the monster is the other in Victors eyes and feels superior to him.