Isolation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

When dealing with harsh judgement from society it can change one’s perspective on life and determine the actions one goes about. When dealing with gender, social status, and appearance, civilization can steer one away and create alienation and isolation within the society. The chaos and immorality of Victor’s actions display the truths of how society reacts to beauty and perfection and what is bound to happen when one becomes overly obsessed and focused on fame and knowledge. Throughout the Gothic Romanticism novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley successfully illustrates society’s corrupt assumptions and moral values through alienation and isolation through Victor’s creation of the creature.

Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein’s craving for knowledge

and fame ultimately isolates them from society and family. The strong desire for knowledge and discovery steers Walton into isolation and loneliness. In his letters to his beloved sister Margaret, Walton states “nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose-- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye,” (Shelley 2). The reason behind his long journey and excursion revolves around the pursuit for knowledge and fame. This in result isolates him from society and those whom he loves. Being overly ambitious, one tends to put themselves first, and become overly focused and invested in success that they become blind to the fact that they are isolating themselves from what truly matters, family and friends. Despite the recent tragedy of Caroline’s death, Victor proceeds to attend The University of Ingolstadt, and leaves his family weak and fragile in order to benefit his own being and knowledge. Victor states “It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the respose, akin to death, of the house of mourning, and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me,” (Shelley 29). Victor is completely aware of the weakness within his family right now, after the death of Caroline, but decides to abandon what matters most to him in a time when they need his support. Being blind to this, and only focusing on his knowledge, his education, and his success, he devotes himself to his studies, forgetting about his family and manly duties. This reveals Victor as a fame seeker and demonstrates how one’s obsession can potentially alienate one from society and family. Victor continuously struggles with the craving for perfection in all life and strives to construct the impossible. He isolates himself in a room for an abundant amount of time while creating the creature, and when it is complete and comes to life it is not what he wished or had planned. Upon setting his eyes on the creature, James A. W. Heffernan in his critical article “Looking at the Monster” proposes that “the monster's ugliness of face and form blinds Victor to the beauty of his soul, which is revealed in words that Victor cannot or will not understand because they come from one who seems to him nothing but a repulsive killer” (Heffernan). This reveals that due to the ugly appearance of Victor’s creation, he is unwilling to look past appearance and focus on whom he has created. Instead ofthinking positive thoughts about the creature, his mind if filled with negative and crude comments, that steer him to believe that nothing good can come from such an imperfect being. Ultimately Victor is immensely guilty of judging a book by its cover. The ultimate feeling of his creation drives Victor to believe that “the beauty of my dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43). Victor’s response to his creation displays society’s ideal image of beauty and how one tends to judge based on appearance as well as revealing how society is so focused on perfection and beauty that one may isolate another due to not meeting the ideal standards that society deems to be right. Critic Anne Mellor states that Victor is entirely consumed with the idea of perfection that “He never once considers how such a giant will survive among normal human beings. Nor does he carefully contemplate the features of the creature he is making” (Mellor). His blindness reflects the idea that Victor is very self-centered and egocentric. Victor’s mind is engulfed with the idea of perfection and beauty that he is ultimately flabbergasted when he sets eyes on what he has created. When consumed and obsessed with the ideas of perfection, one tends to only think of themselves and what benefits them in the conclusion. Like Victor, society gives the creature this same response when eyes on laid on it.
After the creation comes to life, Victor as well as society suffer consequences that reveals society’s corrupt moral values.

Society immediately alienates and rejects the creature due to its frightening and unappealing appearance and grotesque features. The creature is initially born to be good but the way it is treated and neglected by society creates chaos and a murderous creature out of something that had no initial desire to be that way. When trying to do a good deed and save a drowning child, a man “on seeing me… he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body, and fired”. (Shelley 129). This reveals how society reacted to the creature, when he was doing something good, due to his unappealing appearance. When one is triggered by fear, they quickly jump to conclusions and tend to act absurdly in order to protect their safety. When threatened, society tends to result to weapons. After numerous accounts of being bashed by society, critic Anne Mellor concludes that by being “Deprived of all human companionship, the creature can never recover from the disease of self-consciousness; for him, no escape, save death, is possible” (Mellor). Due to the lack of being beautiful, the creature is ultimately alienated from all humankind and the constant disapproval and fear projected towards the creature leads to the self-consciousness. After being accustomed to the constant repetition of disapproval, one can only view society as evil which deems a negative outlook on all life and hope. Due to Justine being a woman, the justice system's treatment towards her ceased the possibility of proving her innocence. Upon entering the prison chamber, Victor states “we entered the gloomy prison chamber, and beheld Justine sitting on some straw” (Shelley 72). The conditions that Justine dealt with were unbearable and awful due to the fact that she was a woman. Struggling to prove her innocence, Justine proclaims “I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and

perdition” (Shelley 73). Since Justine is a woman, she is unable to defend herself, and society already deems her guilty. Even with Elizabeth’s speech on how good of a person Justine was and how she believed she was innocent had no worth to the court and jury. Gender depicts Justine’s fate in the trial of William’s murder and this reveals according to critic Anne Mellor that this was “Mary Shelley's attack on the injustice of patriarchal political systems and how it leads to much of the evil in society” (Mellor). Throughout Justine’s trial and conviction, leading her to death is one of the ways Mary Shelley successfully attacks the justice system in her novel Frankenstein and reveals how society treats one differently due to gender and social class. In tough and conflicting times, Victor tend to result to nature in order to isolate himself from human nature and to self reflect. The “sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that i was capable of receiving” (Shelley 83). In nature and isolation, Victor is satisfied and feels at peace but that does not take away his guilt. This reveals how in hard times, one tends to alienate oneself from society in order to gain composure and a moment for self reflecting.
The request for a companion from the creature essentially sparks a consequential downfall surrounding Victor’s life. The creature’s yearning for a companion portrays how one does not want to constantly be rejected, but society persistently does it. A key aspect of humanity is the desire for a friend who one is able to relate to and the creature, after being aware that he is “shunned and hates by all mankind” (Shelley 133), realizes that he craves for a friend that treats him with respect and can relate to all the struggles he goes through on a daily basis. This reveals that despite being the ideal image of perfection, every human being does not wish to be alone and treated with disrespect. To begin the new creation, Victor travels afar which conveys how when one is ashamed they tend to isolate themselves from civilization. Victor states “I expressed a wish to visit England; but, concealing the true reasons of this request, i clothed my desires under a guise which excited no suspicion” (Shelley 140). Victor reveals in this statement that due to his own disapproval of his actions, he is unable to tell the people that he loves and that are the closest to him. With concealing the truth comes sneaky behavior and isolation. When accused of his best friend's murder, Victor nonetheless is treated superiorly in prison due to his social class and family name. When admitted in jail, Victor discusses how Mr.Kirwin “had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me; and it was he who had provided a physician and a nurse” (Shelley 166). When Victor is arrested and placed in prison, he is treated the complete antithesis of how Justine was treated while in prison and he was treated superiorly due to gender and the Frankenstein name. Critic Anne Mellor states that “The Frankenstein family embodies a masculine ethic of justice, one in which the rights and freedoms of the individual are privileged” (Mellor). In society, a higher social class led to better treatment in the justice system. This reveals how corrupt the justice system was and how family name, gender, and social class play a major role in depicting one’s fate.
The ultimate decline of Victor and all those around him convey the consequences for his actions. Victor’s constant hoax of sickness deduces to his plan to deceive others away from his guilt and remorse he is engulfed with. Upon acting sick, Victor stated that his father “did not know the origin of my sufferings” (Shelley 172) and Victor proceeded and “convinced my father that my ideas were deranged” (Shelley 173). Victor’s madness was a way for him to somewhat reveal the truth of his wrongdoings to his father. By getting sick on numerous occasions, Victor was able to alienate himself from society in order to avoid questioning and have to deal with the chaos and death that he has caused around him. This demonstrates how when in trouble, one will devise a scheme in hopes of deviating the blame away from them. Victor’s constant vanity concludes in Elizabeth’s death. When aware of Elizabeth’s death, Victor proclaims “Why am i here to relate the destruction of the best hope and the purest creature of earth?” (Shelley 183). This conveys how the innocent are always at risk and are the ones who suffer the most from one's consequences. The creatures murderous actions portray how alienation and constant rejection lead to absurd acts that end up harming the most innocent. The deaths in the novel “are of course directly attributable to Victor Frankenstein's egotistical concern for his own suffering and his own reputation” (Mellor). Victor dedicates his life to nothing else than the pursuit for revenge. Victor states “My revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while i allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul” (Shelley 188). Victor’s desire for revenge over the creature blinds him from everything else going on around him and he only adverts his attention and energy to one thing, vengeance. Revenge and the lack of remorse and forgiveness can completely dictate and encumber one’s life, essentially isolating them from everything.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley demonstrates the truth behind alienation in society. When dealing with gender, social status, and appearance, civilization can steer one away and lead to alienation and isolation. Mary Shelley depicts the true human nature and the ability to judge immensely and when it comes to obsession, one tends to focus on themselves and potentially excludes themselves and becomes fully devoted to their obsession. The justice system is entirely based off of social class, family name, and gender and is overall immensely unfair and unjust when depicting one’s fate. The pursuit and craving for perfection and success can fundamentally lead to destruction amongst a society and can ruin initial goals, turning them into something far more consequential than originally thought.