The Importance Of Appearance In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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People are constantly being judged for their appearances. The world takes in these first impressions to allow people to form opinions of their own. Unfortunately, these appearances play a big factor in people’s lives. An appearance is the first thing someone can judge before actually understanding one’s personality. Sometimes an appearance will define one in a way they do not like, for example, the creature in the book Frankenstein. Along with many other characters, the creature plays an important role in the book since his appearance is unlike so many others. Because of this, the creature tries to overcome his struggles that are solely based on judgments that people made based on his looks. In the book Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses appearances …show more content…

The more Shelley uses appearances and is overly detailed, the clearer the reader can picture the scene as what Mary Shelley had is her own mind. Appearances play a significant role in this book because the creature has a foreign body figure. This part of the book is incredibly unrealistic, so it’s necessary to have detailed characterization to develop the physical appearances in the book. Mary Shelley described the complexity of the creature by saying, “His yellow skin scarcely covered with the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…" (Shelley 43) to define his appearance that Victor was fearful of. This creature was dreadful to look at and Victor was ashamed to have created such a ridiculously ugly person. Shelley establishes Victor’s feelings about the creature by continuously describing his ugly appearance and personality. Not only did she use appearances to describe the monster, but she also included several descriptions for all the other characters as well. When the opportunity presented itself, Shelley also …show more content…

The descriptions push the readers to connect the beautiful characteristics with goodness and the horrible ones with evil with each character. Shelley used the fundamentals of love, care, and kindness when she introduced Elizabeth into the book by saying, “Elizabeth Lavenza…my more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all in my occupations and my pleasures” (Shelley 21). Shelley describes her so pleasantly to draw the purity within Elizabeth and establish her appearance. Because Shelley described her in such a positive manner, the reader is able to connect her with goodness. In society it’s common to assume the people that do kind things are good people. Shelley also does this for the creature and his behavior, but in a different way. Unlike the positivity in Justine’s description, most of the creature’s descriptions were negative, and can be seen when Victor said, “…the beauty and dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43), to point out that his creature was a horrible mistake and he could tell this simply by looking at his appearance. Shelley used the creature’s ugliness to resemble his actions, which excuses his murderous behavior. From the beginning, the creature’s appearance was negative, which foreshadows his poor actions, simply because of how his appearance was described. Most of the time a character’s actions and

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