Isolation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Companionship is highly similar to oxygen. They are both needed to survive draw humans to them. Just like oxygen, without friendship or a place in society, this isolation creates unwanted effects. Examples of these dangerous effects can be evil or depression, which can lead to suicide. Not to mention, the novel, Frankenstein, proves these facts of solitude to be true. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley paints the picture of a monster created by a self-isolated man, but the monster is not loved or cared for. The man, Victor Frankenstein, runs away from his monstrous creation and gives his life to finding and destroying it. However, the monster tells a different story, where he keeps himself in isolation because of the human’s scornful response to

One such example occurs when Frankenstein, while travelling with Clerval, his best friend, thinks back to the monster’s violence, pondering to himself, “I felt as if I have committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime” (175-176). Here, Shelley incorporates immortal allusions to Frankenstein’s thoughts to illustrate that isolation results in selfishness. Shelley applies words like “curse” and “mortal” to emphasize Frankenstein’s selfishness to the point of unnatural and evil. Because Frankenstein isolates himself from the world and his friends and family, he has become extremely selfish, as he believes he is guiltless and is not willing to admit that he killed multiple people. Frankenstein is relating his pain and suffering to that of everyone else’s, but the monster that is causing all of the pain is his creation. In like manner, Shelley employs the same egotistic language through the monster to further prove that selfishness is not inherent. The monster strangles William, Frankenstein’s little brother, after William enrages the monster by admitting his dad is Mr. Frankenstein, when he reflects to himself, “I gazed on my victim and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘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” (153). Shelley utilizes immortal imagery to reveal the monster’s connection with Frankenstein, as they both are selfish because of their isolation from the world. Shelley portrays the monster as immortal and godlike, when he states “I too can create desolation”,