Explore Shelley’s presentation of the impact of the Creature in the light

Explore Shelley’s presentation of the impact of the Creature in the light

of this comment.

The Creature is described as ‘ a fiend of unparalleled barbarity’, yet

many modern readers may sympathise with him.

Explore Shelley’s presentation of the impact of the Creature in the

light of this comment.

It is my view, that the Creature may be seen from two main

perspectives, on the one hand he may be seen as a “Monster”, “a fiend

of unparalleled barbarity” and on the other he may be seen as a victim

with whom the reader may sympathise.

Out of the three narratives in the book, the one which occupies that

major part of the book I that of Victor Frankenstein. It is from his

perspective that we are imparted most of the evidence which may lead

us to consider the Creature as a ‘Fiend of unparalleled barbarity.’

Throughout Frankenstein’s framed narrative, he refer to the Creature

as “daemon”, “devil” or “wretch and perhaps (one may consider) with

good reason considering the creature’s actions after his creation.

Firstly, the Creature murdered Victor’s youngest brother William, an

innocent child. However, the Creature’s true intentions when

committing the murder remain unclear, as the Creature says, “I grasped

throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.” This

statement, by the Creature, is of course ambiguous, as the Creature

could have literally been trying to silence William, whilst on the

other hand there is the more sinister aspect, that the Creature could

have grasped William’s throat with a mind to silence him permanently.

If we take Shelley’s view of her 1831 audience as “monsters thirsting

for each others blood” then we would of course condemn the Creature,

as someone who committe...

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...cism against Islam,

and particularly the Turks as something which was socially acceptable,

this prohibiting from any form of empathy with the Creature.

In conclusion, despite the Creature’s clearly appalling actions

throughout the novel, I assert that these perhaps may be a result of

the environment into which the Creature is created, just like a child

born into an unstable and abusive household may often grow into an

unstable and abusive person the Creature “born” into an abhorrent,

un-accepting, unforgiving and violent world becomes abhorrent and

violent himself, acting only the way others have acted towards him,

with the utmost hate and unjustifiable violence, and it is because (I

believe) the Creature is only a result of the environment into which

he is created, a product of nurture as opposed to nature, that many

modern readers sympathise with him.