Frankenstein Justice And Injustice Essay

True justice can only be awarded to those who have been treated with injustice.When it comes to the act of justice and injustice in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, there is one major character who suffers from injustice and yearns to be justified throughout the entire novel. This character is Victor Frankenstein’s creation, the Creature. The Creature suffers injustice from everyone he ever meets and it is how he learns what justice is or should be. These experiences with injustice are what urge and drive him through the entire novel, from birth to death, and what shape him into the figure of a monster. Throughout the novel, however, the readers will begin to question if the monsters are in fact inside of man. The Creature was never instructed

what was revenge and what was justice and thus he lives his life in pursual of a justice that paints him as the monster.
The Creature attains his understanding of justice through the people he encounters and observes. The first person he witnesses justice from, or lack thereof, is Victor Frankenstein.

Victor rebukes the Creature immediately and says, “it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived,”(Shelley 44). The Creature has the knowledge that Victor wants to hurt him, too. It is later when the Creature confronts Victor that he says, “You would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why should I pity man more than he pities me,” (Shelley 173). If it’s own creator wants nothing more than to hurt the Creature, why should the Creature not wish to hurt his creator? He was never taught any different and only learned what he observed so it goes to say that the Creature grasped an understanding of equal justice from Victor Frankenstein. The Creature also accumulates a greater understanding of justice from the family he observes and grows to love. For months he watched their lives, he learned from them, and he helped them. The Creature would bring them wood for their fires simply because he wanted to help. In his mind, he believed that it might be possible for him to one day become a part of this caring family. He loves them and cares for them, so why would they not do the same? Of course, the family reacts in a horrific way. The father, DeLacey, is blind and does

not hesitate to converse with the Creature, but his family condemns him. The Creature recounts the interaction to Victor and says, “Agatha fainted; and Safie...rushed out of the cottage. Felix...dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick,” (Shelley 122). The Creature thought if he was kind, he would be justified in receiving kindness back. However, he is taught through this family that his kindness does not warrant equal kindness in the presence of the fear he creates. It is no fault of his, but it is the simple truth that a thing that is different will be met in a harsh manner no matter how kind that thing is. It is through this experience that the Creature learns to repay harsh actions with rash actions of his own, and so he burns down the cottage of this family he once loved. He viewed it as justification, however, for his poor treatment. The final group of people that the Creature learns more about justice from is a little girl and a man. The Creature had just saved a young girl from drowning when a man shot him in return. Where a natural man would have been met with gratitude and exaltation, the Creature was met with a bullet. He says, “This was then the reward for my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and, as a recompense, I now writhes under miserable pain of a wound,” (Shelley 129). He had only wanted to help the girl so she might live, but was still treated like a monster. It was then that the Creature gave into a hatred of mankind. It is then that the Creature decided he was justified in inflicting pain and fear on any human, for they had inflicted pain onto him even when he had helped. He had suffered injustice all his life, and now it had finally resonated within him. The creature takes these moments where he learns what he believes to be examples of justice and proceeds to live out his life in pursual of justice from man.
The Creatures pursual of injustice is successful in the way that he beats Victor, but unsuccessful in the way that he loses all the hope he once held in receiving justice.

The Creature successfully wins justice over Victor by outliving him. Victor tells the reader, “I dare not die and leave my adversary in being,” (Shelley 189). It is his last wish to kill the Creature, but the creature is granted this instance of justice when he is the one to live while Victor is the one to die. Victor is truly the only one the Creature ever wanted to hurt. Now that Victor has died, the Creature feels like that desire of his is justified. The Creature says, “The completion of my demonical design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim,” (Shelley 207). The Creature’s desire to hurt has been received justice. This transitions into an area in which the Creature is partially successful in receiving justice and partially unsuccessful. This occurs when the Creature hurts others. At first he does not intend to hurt people, but he soon realizes the power that he holds in his ability to hurt people. The Creature says, “I too can create desolation; my enemy is not vulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him,” (Shelley 131). He knows that by hurting people close to Victor, he might also hurt Victor himself. It is justified to him as he is simply hurting someone who has hurt him since the moment he

was brought to life. It is justified. It is justice. The Creature is unsuccessful in achieving justice for himself when he loses hope of ever having someone with whom he would spend his entire life with. The only hope the Creature had to obtain a companion depended on Victor. He was the one who had to create the companion to be exactly like the Creature, only female, but when he died he took that hope with him. It is said by the Creature, “For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires...I still desired love and fellowship,” (Shelley 208). The Creature successfully destroyed Victor, but in doing so he also destroyed himself. Victor was meant to create a female monster, but he previously destroyed it and his death means there is no hope of a new female creature being created (Brooks) . The destruction of the female monster negates any hope that the Monster might gain access to a "chain of existence and events" that would offer him relation and the possibility -- even the phantasmatic possibility -- of satisfaction for his desire. He gained justice, and committed himself to never being justified with a companion. The monster’s vengeful acts of murder suggest that so long as revenge motivates justice, the result, conversely, will likely be more injustice (wordpress). The creature seeks justice, but is equally successful and unsuccessful.
The significance in the Creature’s search for justice throughout the novel is that it allows the reader to decide who is truly the monster in this story. Justice is something given to someone who has been wronged and that is all the Creature has ever experienced. So then can he truly be called a monster if he was simply seeking justice for all he had been through? He was never given justice, always hate. The Creature said, “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear,” (Shelley 173). The Creature was also never taught right from wrong. He was never taught good ways to seek out justice and bad ways to do it. He learned from experiences. The creature learned to stay away from people because he would be met with injustice. “Some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country, and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel,” (Shelley 94). He simply did what he observed and learned how to do. He was beaten when people saw him, so he stayed away. He was beaten when he saved a girl's life, so he stayed away. He learned that the justice for his good deeds were always injustice and unfortunately that caused in his mission for justice to look like an attack from a monster. Shelley suggests forgiveness and repentance as the only viable, just response to injustice; the only response that doesn’t lead to more injustice(wordpress). Finally, the Creature’s suffering of injustice highlights the faults of mankind. He says to Victor, “you had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind,” (Shelley 127). He categorizes mankind as a terrible and judgemental group of people because that is all he has felt even though he is kind and simply wants to help. The Creature is claiming it is in mankind’s nature to judge and to refuse justice, no matter what. His search for justice is significant in that it gives the reader insight to decide who is truly the monster of this story.
The Creature’s understanding of justice was aught to him through the continuous injustice he suffered from. He wanted nothing more than to fit in and experience life, but he has never given the opportunity. The only moments of normalcy occur when people do not look at him. It is only rational that he seeks justice for his fowl treatment. He is equally successful and unsuccessful in his search for justice, which causes the reader to take a moment and think if he truly is a monster. He may look like a monster, but he is like any other human, if not smarter. This hideous and deformed creature, far from expressing himself in grunts and gestures, speaks and reasons with the highest elegance, logic, and persuasiveness (Brooks). He is smart, human like, and seeks justice the same as any natural-born man did in this story. So if the monsters’ search for justice is the same as man’s, who is to say that man is not the monster?