How do you feel in loneliness? What do you do when you're alone? How do you act alone? The definition of solitude is the state or situation of being alone. We see solitude a lot in “Frankenstein”. The function of solitude in the novel is to show how being alone can drive you to do certain things, how things affect you and what you do with loneliness.
In “Frankenstein” both Victor and the creature face solitude but react to it in different ways.
Victor shows the function of solitude by how he acts when he was little when he did the opposite of what his father told him about the books he read, this shows the effect of being alone when Victor was little is what he read and what he grew up learning about and how he thought about the world.
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The creature was rejected by his “creator” when he knew nothing at all, this leads to his first act of loneliness which is leaving and going to Geneva, and when he gets there his next act is killing William. Then he learns to adapt to being in the wilderness alone so he learns to drink from the stream and eats berries, and then learning the “magic” of the fire. After this, we read he finds a cottage in the woods beside another cottage which a family lives in. The creature wants to be accepted so much he learns as much as he can about the family. For example, he tells Victor how he learns how the family works the garden, how it looks to be in a family, how everyone has a certain role to keep everyone alive and the idea of sacrifice. In learning this he decides to help the family and get wood for them when they're asleep at night. So here we see loneliness affected the creature different and how he did a good deed. Throughout the book, we see the creature is actually really caring he’s just been rejected, beat down and alone so much that he thinks the only way he cannot be alone is if he does humankind as they do
Being isolated and separated from other people for a prolonged amount of time, can gradually make a person miserable. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a martyr for Shelley’s view that a lack of human connections leads to misery. Victor being from a highly respected and distinguished
The complete isolation he felt was what drove him to commit acts such as murdering William and later, Elizabeth and Clerval. Here, the figure of the outcast is not only longing for feelings of acceptance but is also a person who begins to despise the people who don’t include it. The Creature begins to demonstrate the consequences of not getting the acceptance and embarks on a different route: to conflict pain on others, particularly Victor.
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
One way in which isolation is used in the novel is to present or describe the character and how they deal with their environment. For example, Walton describes in his letters that he is far north of London and without friends. He goes on to say, “I shall certainly find no friend on the Wide Ocean, nor even here in Archangel," being overly pessimistic. Victor copes with the monster and his surroundings after creating him, "I was as a child when I awoke… and half frightened as it were instinctive finding myself so desolate.” No matter how much knowledge he possesses, he somehow manages to feel like a child, and he is still human no matter how monstrous he is.
...s creation as a way of revenge and payback for all the distress he brought to the creature. The creature, beginning as the most innocent, is alienated by his creator and every individual who witnesses his presence. Finally, Victor isolates himself from his beloved ones in order to fulfill his ambitions. All these misfortunes are caused by the lack of moral decision making. Unfortunately, these decisions ruined the life of many people involved in Victor’s life. All these events are the proof of what people’s actions can result into when isolation is a major theme in one’s life.
Victor is negatively affected by his isolation from the world. His isolation has caused him to become addicted
In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the main theme revolves around the internal and external consequences of being isolated from others. Being isolated from the world could result in a character losing his/her mental state and eventually causing harm to themselves or others. Because both Victor Frankenstein and the creature are isolated from family and society, they experienced depression, prejudice, and revenge.
Victor’s initial isolation as a child foreshadows the motif of detachment that occurs throughout the novel. As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that combined with insufficient parenting Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most
While Dr. Frankenstein my be lonely in the sense that he is so utterly bound by worry that he cannot interact with those whom he loves, the monster is forced to endure absolute isolation and censure from all people. Throughout history, hum...
Through her exceptional use of the previously stated elements she educated the readers on the dangerous effects of solitude, a theme that is still in play today. Isolation can be felt by anyone who feels alone or forgotten in today 's society. Just as the monster felt alone many people across the world feel as though they do not fit in, they feel like they have been left behind and abandoned. This is why isolation is an everlasting theme in the world, because it will always be apart of
The next character that we meet who is lonely is Victor Frankenstein. At first he doesn't seem to be because, since he was a child he has had Elizabeth as a constant playmate and friend, along with Henry Clerval. But when he leaves to go to college in Ingolstadt, he feels all alone because he has left all his friends behind him. Although his professor, Waldman, befriends him, there, at Ingolstadt, he spends many hours secluded and alone, working on his creation, the...
Victor avoids association with his family and many others during the time which he is developing the creature, and solely interacts with professors at his time at Ingolstadt. The theme of association with others goes hand in hand with the theme of isolation, as Victor seems to prefer keeping to himself. Many compare the creature to Victor and the way they are similar, but the creature longs to be apart of society, and to be loved by others, or by a family. The opposition is Victor’s inability to grasp a relationship with those who seek one with him, while the creature is kept from associating with anyone from the outside world due to the way he looks. Shelley ties together the theme of association with others to isolation, and family as many of the people Victor hides from is his family. The importance of associating or communicating with others for Victor is the less likely chance he will fall ill when isolated. Shelley provides many instances, which she places the importance of associating with others on both Victor and the
The creature did not decide to come into the world being so different that no one will be near him. When the creature did good deeds, he gets shot in return. Any other person who would be in creature shoes would be just as confused and angered as he was. He has never felt where he belong to anyone. When he was created, Victor couldn’t look at him and wished that he would be gone or dead. All living species all have a natural instinct to belong to someone. This means have a relationship such as family and friends. The creature knows he is destined to be lonely and knows Victor is the cause as he says to Victor, “ I was not even of the same nature as man...When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me… I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me”(102). The creature knows he is the only one of his kind which makes sense when he was a female version of him. The agony also causes him to be not gentle to humans, and he resorts to murder to get back at his father. The creature gets the title of being worthy of getting sympathy because no one wanted to be near him even his
Mary Shelley in her book Frankenstein addresses numerous themes relevant to the current trends in society during that period. However, the novel has received criticism from numerous authors. This paper discusses Walter Scott’s critical analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in his Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Review of Frankenstein (1818).
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