Isolation In Frankenstein Essay

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an attempt at connection—a narrative woven by its three principal narrators that attempts to share their legacies, dreams, and destructive secrets. The novel begins with the sea captain Walton writing to his sister about his longing for a companion, a wish paralleled by the other characters in the story: namely Victor Frankenstein and the monster he creates. The whole narrative, therefore, is an effort to connect with others and alleviate loneliness and seclusion. It is fitting then, that this very notion of isolation is the greatest destructive force in the novel, as it facilitates and prompts monstrous behaviors. Emotional isolation from both family and society drives Frankenstein and his creation to dangerous

and vengeful behaviors, which ultimately cause their destruction.
Victor’s emotional seclusion in the creation of the monster causes him to become of unaware of nature and emotionally neglectful towards his family, thus prompting him to “monstrous” action. While at Ingolstadt, Frankenstein devotes himself wholly to the possibility of creating artificial life, going so far as to ignore his the changing seasons and his family’s letters, thus pursuing his self interest over human connections. Though the natural world passes by around him, Frankenstein’s “eyes were insensible to the charms of nature” despite it being a “most beautiful season” (37). This observation serves as a metaphor for Frankenstein’s relationship with nature, demonstrating the extent to which his isolation has alienated him from the rest of the world. His “insensible” eyes blind him, therefore showing a detachment from basic natural connections.
Further, it is these “same feelings which made [him]…forget those friends who were so many miles absent” (37). It is evident here that Frankenstein’s lack of connection with nature correlates with his lack of human connection, which he similarly detaches from, causing him to cease writing to his family. He wants to “procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of [his] nature, should be completed” (37). The intensity of his language in the diction of “swallowed”—implying how all other components of Victor have been seemingly consumed—demonstrates the encompassing nature of his task, far more important than his affection towards others, which he disregards flippantly as a mere “procrastination” of events. Frankenstein’s self-imposed isolation from human society facilitates his fixation upon the creature, which corrodes at his ability to care for others, even his own family. His isolation is destructive, therefore, because it enables his neglect of familial bonds and allows himself to be consumed with his own desires over those of a society.
Additionally, Frankenstein’s relationship with his creation is damaged by his emotional isolation, which causes him to neglect and abandon it.

Victor initially aspires to take on the role of a caretaker to his creature, claiming that as its “creator and source” he shall take on the role of a father who “should deserve…[to] claim the gratitude of his child” (36). Although Victor imagines himself in the role of a father, the use of biblical references in the connotations of “creator” and “father” suggest that he is incapable the relationship of a domestic family but rather desires that of a god to his worshiper. This incapacity for domestic affection can be traced to Victor’s emotional isolation and detachment from his own family relationships. Hence, Frankenstein refuses to make emotional connections with the monster after its creation. When the monster first comes to Victor, “he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear…I escaped and ran downstairs” (40). In this passage, the monster’s mannerisms recall those of newborn babies; though inexperienced, his babbling represents an attempt at connection with Victor. However, Victor does not listen to the monster, and instead runs away, denying both himself and his creation human

connection.
Frankenstein continues to be emotionally distant from his monster, as he begins to avoid him physically as well, such as when he ensures that the monster is not in his apartment by “thr[owing] the door forcibly open, as children as accustomed to do when they expect a specter awaiting them” (42). The comparison of the creation to a “specter” shows that Victor does not think of the monster not as his creation but as an evil sent to torment him—thus justifying his attempts to distance himself from it. Frankenstein further attempts to distance himself from his creation by denying his former aspiration of being like a familial father figure and instead comparing himself to a scared child, thus exemplifying his lack of attachment to the monster and incapacity to take on a parental role. This emotional isolation from the monster causes him to neglect it, thus destroying any attempts at a familial bond between Frankenstein and his creation.
Frankenstein’s creature, like himself, is corrupted by isolation in the form of alienation from society and family, which spurns him to revenge.

After being abandoned by Frankenstein, the monster wanders the countryside seeking connection in society and nature. After being rejected from society because of his physical appearance, the monster becomes fascinated with the De Lacey family while observing them from afar, inside a hovel. The monster regards the family as “superior beings” and wishes to “restore happiness” to them, so that he could “win their favour and…love” (91). The monster’s professions of feeling towards the family demonstrate his empathy, which is kindled by the presence of their domestic affection and his hope to one day be a part of this union. Though he is physically separate from the De Lacey’s (he makes no direct interactions with them), he is still able to make an emotional attachment to them, and is therefore not isolated. However, the monster becomes truly “alone” when the De Lacey family rejects him, causing in the monster emotional isolation that fuels a destructive and vengeful rage. This is exemplified best in his burning of the De Laceys cottage soon after their departure. The monster describes how he “lighted the dry branch of a tree” and set fire to the cottage, watching as it “was quickly enveloped by the flames” (113). In setting fire to the cottage, the monster destroys not just a reminder of the De Lacey family, but a symbol of domestic

society, from which he has been shunned. He exerts his revenge, not just on those individuals who have wronged him, but on the societal structure he can never have himself: familial affection. Anger over his isolation destroys his capability for empathy turns him purely to vengeance.
In both Frankenstein and his monster, it is internal emotional isolation and a lack of companionship that drives both parties to their ends. When Victor proves unable to make a female companion for his monster, the creature laments that though “each man shall find a wife for his bosom...[he will] be alone…while [he] grovel[s] in the intensity of [his] wretchedness” (140). The monster in his quest for companionship has been thus far driven by one singular pursuit: to escape its eternal isolation and alienation. The realization that his hopes have been in vain is a damning one, the severity of which is shown by the monster’s tone of despair. However, the monster yet asserts that his capacity for “revenge remains” and tells Victor that he shall again with him “on his wedding night” (140). Frankenstein, due to his emotional disconnect with his family, perceives the target of this threat to be himself, but instead on the fated night finds Elizabeth, his own companion, “lifeless and inanimate…[with the] mark of the fiend’s grasp on her neck” (165-166). Elizabeth’s murder causes Frankenstein “the agony of despair,” to the extent that he is made to feel “the heat of fever” in recollection of the event (166). In killing Elizabeth, the monster effectively mirrors onto Victor the pain of a lack of companionship, thus ensuring that Victor’s emotional isolation from his family becomes absolute—just as the monster is absolutely alone, after the abortion of his own companion. The monster’s vengeance is to finish the cycle of isolation between Victor and his family, which began with his own creation. It is this act that sets off a cycle of revenge between the two, and causes Frankenstein to isolate himself from the world both socially and geographically in hopes of finding and destroying his monster. The effects of isolation, in multiple terms, are what drive Frankenstein and his monster to their ends.
Isolation is the most destructive force for both Frankenstein and the monster, as it prompts rash and self-corrosive actions, which are disparaging to familial and societal bonds. Because isolation is what begets these horrible actions, it is evident that this pervasive force is the true “monster” of the novel, because it is what elicits monstrosity in the two dynamic characters whom it affects.