The creature’s narration in the novel Frankenstein demonstrates through his experience with mankind the underlying theme of rejection from society. He is even rejected by his own creator, Victor whom “beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom [he] had created” with disgust. The creature seeks to find acceptance by man but instead is faced with the cruel reality of rejection. It can be seen by his encounters with man, all of whom react with abhorrence to him, his sufferings: “The creature’s alienation, isolation, and eventual rebellion also correspond to the romantic concept of the self, which involves the struggle of individual consciousness against an insensitive universe” (Howes). His creator who spent almost two year constructing him, …show more content…
villagers, and youth alike all reject him. The creature is tarnished by the world’s harsh treatment of him. The monster exclaims his “benevolence” before being miserably rejected by his creator, although, the only evidence for this is that he says so. He blames his irrational behavior on his treatment by mankind. In secret, the monster had labored to understand the ways of man through observation and reading, but his eventual attempt to befriend the cottage dwellers was cruelly repulsed. He attempts to create relationships through language and by acquiring the ability to speak in hopes that it will allow him to overcome the barrier created by his physical appearance and become a part of human society. It is further portrayed as he reads the story of Adam and his creator, God, who in contrast to the creature is cared for and accepted. The monster likens himself to Adam, the first human created in the Bible as he pleads, “I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather thy fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” This infuriates the creature and fills him with rage because he seeks that relationship in which Victor will not give him. The creature’s alienation from human social relations begins at the moment of his birth: “as he is brought to life, Victor becomes revolted, and then terrified, by his own creation.” (Petsche) The creature, still desperate in his lonliness, encounters William (Victor’s younger brother) next in hopes that his youth will allow him to accept the creature because he is not yet prejudiced.
He believes that the prejudice against him is something that is learned or taught by society. He continues to form William into his companion, “Urged by his impulse, I seized the boy as he passed and drew him towards me.” William reacts with the same repulsion as all those previously, “Let me go, monster! Ugly wretch!” The creature tries to explain he intended no harm, but William’s reaction is that of strong rejection. William’s rejection of the creature implies that it is not only society that teaches people to be prejudice, but there is an instinctual prejudice among human society. He cannot overcome this inherent characteristic of humans that appears to reject …show more content…
him. In another attempt to be accepted, the creature approaches De Lacey, whose judgment of him cannot be clouded by appearance. He sympathizes with the monster's unhappiness, telling him not to despair, (optimistically) insisting that "the hearts of men…are full of brotherly love and charity", and saying that it will "afford [him] true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature". Aside from the warm and fuzzy juxtaposition to the monster’s isolation, De Lacey gives both the reader and the monster hope for humanity. De Lacey is at first persuaded of his benevolence and the sincerity in his voice but is soon interrupted by the return of his son who casts the creature away from De Lacey. The image of blindness is pure of rejection; however, it does not seem so in the scene where Felix, the son, counteracts the creature’s allegation of good intention despite his hideous appearance. This is the turning point in the novel as the creature realizes the cruel reality of his fate. Physical appearance becomes the main barrier for the creature. The creature’s ability to reason and communicate does not allow him to be a part of human community. After his “protector” rejects him, the creature seeks to find Victor for acceptance.
Along the way he is shot in the shoulder after he saves a girl from drowning in a river. Recognized and shot as a villain, he is not seen as the savior he really is. The creature is a victim of injustice once again. His encounter with the girl and her father is thus bitterly ironic: at a moment in which the creature permits himself to be happy and to hope for an end to his sufferings, he is once more confronted with people's unreasoning horror of him. This scene further demonstrates the creature’s desire for acceptance and also the visual prejudice that causes his rejection. The fact that he saves the child from certain death indicates that, at least at this moment, he still has sympathy for mankind; if he loses it afterwards; the reader can scarcely blame him. His suffering feeds his desire for revenge and begins to develop him into the monstrous character he is seen
as. Despite all the creature’s attempts to be good, he is faced with the abhorrence of man. The monster complains that his maker and mankind are moving his nature from goodness and benevolence to wrath and violence. The creature’s rejection in the novel is due to the nature of his being. People are instinctively prejudiced against those who are different. When he attempts the company of men he is rejected with horror, fear and abuse. He transforms into a monster because he cannot receive understanding and compassion in society. The creature was outcast by mankind solely because of his appearance. Shelley suggests in Frankenstein that identity is a process not by knowing or recognition, but by seeing. His alienation from society becomes that of his misery contributing to the underlying theme of rejection.
Previously portrayed through Frankenstein’s letters as the sole cause of both his and society’s despair, the monster’s use of the word “abortion” instead demonstrates Victor’s individual contribution towards his creature’s destructive path. Since the definition of abortion serves as the premediated act of terminating life, Frankenstein’s deliberate decision to desert his artificial creature exhibits society’s lack of sympathy for those with uncontrollable differences such as the monster’s physical deformities. Nevertheless, the textual irony of the monster’s frustrations eventually becomes apparent when the creature exclaims “Was there no injustice to this?”. Setting off a chain reaction of several more questions, Shelly’s text further mirrors the monster’s bafflement with the careless actions of Victor Frankenstein. That is, although Frankenstein gave his creation the “gift” of life, the monster has been perpetually denied every chance to live happily because of mankind’s relentless and inescapable hatred. More so, explained as the abandonment or failure of a process, Frankenstein’s ultimate refusal to love his own creation typifies how the creator’s ironic choices remain accountable for failing both the monster and
Rejection is one of the issues associated with social prejudice in Shelly’s novel. The monster in Frankenstein is abandoned because of his hideous features. Victor, who was his creator, cannot look upon what he has brought to life. Victor explains, “I beheld the wretch-- the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs” (Shelly chapter 5 p 43). The monster responds to Victor as a child who looks to his father for reassurance and acceptance. Though the monster was not a child in his physical appearance, his emotional state was that of young child. Since the 1890s, researchers have conducted studies called Parental acceptance-rejections t...
In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the Creature executes extreme and irreversible acts due to his isolation from society. Although the Creature displays kindness, his isolation drives him to act inhumanely. The Creature, pushed away from his creator because he is an abomination, and indicates his isolation as the only one of his species. As the Creature gets more comfortable with the De Lacey ’s, he approaches the old man as his children are gone but before he can explain himself, the children come home and see the Creature, “Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me?
The monster is the only character who has compassion even though compassion is never shown to him. Even before he knew had any role models to teach him, the monster shows that he is born with compassion by helping unknown others. His time watching the cottagers taught him what true kindness is. His benevolent actions of helping the cottagers without them knowing proves that he did not need to learn compassion from a creator. The monster is horrified to learn that his good nature does not show on his physical appearance, and he was “...unable to believe that it was indeed [the monster] who was reflected in the mirror; and when [he] became fully convinced that [he] was in reality the monster [he] was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.”(Shelley 417). He is kind to the blind cottager in hopes of getting the compassion back that he always craved; however when he is rejected by even his ‘cottage friends’ he realizes how unjust it is that “no entreaties cause [them] to turn a favorable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion,” (Shelley 360). Though the monster, who is human-like, is born with compassion the hum...
The creature displays his hatred toward Frankenstein for leaving him immediately and not providing guidance and protection in this harsh, new world by murdering his family and friends. While seeking his creator, the creature first murders Victor Frankenstein’s youngest brother William and exclaims, “I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him” (Shelley 144). The creature wishes for Victor Frankenstein to suffer taking his own companions away, forcing him to be miserable as well by destroying his personal relationships with others by murdering loved ones. Through the rejection of the creature because of his physical appearance, he learns what is accepted as well as how you can treat another being as he succumbs to his anger and proceeds with his crimes. The creature tells Frankenstein, “your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish your happiness forever.
Rage and vengeance are very familiar emotions that are expressed by the creature. Because these feelings are human flaws in character, the creature allows these hurtful emotions to hurt his character of “kindness and gentleness”. Deeply hurt by such an attack for his good deed, his ire is provoked and like a human would, he reacts impulsively. A spectrum of
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly explores the concept of the body, life, ‘the self’ and most of importantly humanity, which is repeatedly questioned throughout the novel. The definition of humanity is the quality of being humane or in other words someone that can feel or possess compassion. Despite all the facts against the “monster” in “Frankenstein” he is indeed what one would consider being human. Humanity isn’t just about ones physical appearance but also includes intellect and emotion. Some people argue that the “monster” is not a human for he was not a creature that was born from “God” or from a human body. That being said, the “monster” is not only able to speak different languages, he can also show empathy - one of many distinct traits that set humans apart from the animals. Both the “monster” and his creator, Victor, hold anger and feel a sense of suffering throughout the novel. Victor is a good person with good intentions just like most individuals, but makes the mistake of getting swept up into his passion of science and without thinking of the consequences he creates a “monster”. After completing his science project, he attempts to move forward with his life, however his past – i.e., the “monster” continues to follow and someone haunt him. While one shouldn’t fault or place blame on Frankenstein for his mistakes, you also can’t help but feel somewhat sympathetic for the creature. Frankenstein just wants to feel accepted and loved, he can’t help the way he treats people for he’s only mimicking how people have treated him, which in most cases solely based on his appearance. Unlike most of the monsters we are exposed to in films past and present, the character of the “monster” ...
The first rejection he experiences comes from his creator, Victor Frankenstein. Victor states, “Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived” (Shelley 58). Victor is repulsed by the monster. This leads the monster to go and find someplace where he could be accepted. He wants to rid himself of the feeling of loneliness. This becomes the first step in the monster’s path to complete
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein centers around a creator who rejects his own creation. The plot thickens as Victor Frankenstein turns his back on his creation out of fear and regret. The monster is cast out alone to figure out the world and as a result of a life with no love, he turns evil. Shelley seems to urge the reader to try a relate with this monster and avoid just seeing him as an evil being beyond repentance. There is no doubt that the monster is in fact evil; however, the monster’s evilness stems from rejection from his creator.
The world today is filled today with multiple types of people, but no one like Victor Frankenstein’s creature. If Frankenstein's creature existed in modern times he would have a difficult time fitting in and adapting because of his upbringing, appearance, and his lack of social experience.
The creature’s failure to blend in with society creates hatred in the creature’s heart for his creator. The only option for the creature is to seek revenge. This shows that the creature’s determination of destroying his creator was far greater than the creatures determination to fit in.
At the moment of his birth, the creature is entirely innocent; he affectionately reaches out to Frankenstein, which is interpreted as a hostile movement, only to have the latter violently abandon him. Despite his appalling appearance, his “wrinkled” grin is as guiltless as a newly-born child which, in a sense, is precisely what he is to Frankenstein (61). With the rejection of his monster based solely on a personal appearance that epitomizes everything Frankenstein fears in his life, the reader begins to recognize the profoundly unethical character of Frankenstein's experiment and of Frankenstein himself.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein (sometimes also known as The Modern Prometheus) is the classic gothic novel of her time. In this eerie tale, Dr. Victor Frankenstein – suffering from quite an extreme superiority complex – brings to life a creature made from body parts of deceased individuals from nearby cemeteries. Rather than to embrace the Creature as his own, Frankenstein alienates him because of his unpleasant appearance. Throughout the novel, the Creature is ostracized not only by Frankenstein but by society as a whole. Initially a kind and gentle being, the Creature becomes violent and eventually seeks revenge for his creator’s betrayal. Rather than to merely focus on the exclusion of the Creature from society, Shelley depicts the progression of Dr. Frankenstein’s seclusion from other humans as well, until he and the Creature ultimately become equals – alone in the world with no one to love, and no one to love them back. Frankenstein serves as more than simply a legendary tale of horror, but also as a representation of how isolation and prejudice can result in the demise of the individual.
The monster is so hurt by what Victor wrote about him, that it wounds him deeply, in a way that only his creator can inflict. In this passage, Mary Shelley so articulately illuminates the theme of rejection. In this moment of vulnerability, the monster describes to Frankenstein that his desire to be loved is so strong that he must either be loved or he will inflict rage. Through the monster, Shelley explicates the theme of rejection and the truth that someone can only be rejected so many times before they begin to act out.
However repugnant he was on the outside, when Frankenstein’s creature begins to tell his tale of sorrow and rejection the creature does not seem to be monstrous. Although rejected multiple times by the humans around him when he finds a family in poverty and “suffering the pangs ...