The Portrayal of the Creature in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

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Recommended: Humanity in Frankenstein

The creature in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein is portrayed as a

monster.

Consider the presentation of the creature in the novel and the origin

of the monstrous behaviour conveyed in the novel.

Frankenstein’s monster is by instinct good but through watching the

behaviour of humans he learns from their violent rejection of him,

what it is to be human. He learns about the emotions of hate, anger,

revenge and does not see the advantages of happiness and love.

The message of Shelly’s novel is that through upbringing and

socialisation, humans become monstrous and full of prejudice toward

others different to themselves.

Shelly’s trip to the Alps gave her the idea of “the sublime” and

granted her inspiration through huge and beautiful surroundings. The

competition proposed by Byron spurred Shelly on and the reading of

Gothic genre stories gave her a repertoire and inspiration to help her

write her novel Frankenstein.

The book Frankenstein was influenced by the myth of Prometheus in

which Prometheus “played God” and faced the punishments resulting from

this act, Similarly Frankenstein played God by bringing the monster to

life. The book Frankenstein was a breakthrough being the first science

fiction novel ever published in English, it was greatly inspired by

the developments during the “enlightenment” and the new philosophical

ideas from Rousseau and Edmund Burke.

As Frankenstein becomes interested in creating life, his enthusiasms

as a student start to get out of hand. He describes his research into

chemistry as becoming “nearly my sole occupation” and “the stars often

disappeared in the light of the morning whilst I was yet engaged in my

laboratory,” This is one of the first signs that Frankenste...

... middle of paper ...

... in the Alps make the creature become evil and so the narrative

switches again.

My sympathies lie with the creature because he has endured so much

hatred which gradually destroys the good side of his nature. Human

kind have caused this damage. The underlying message is that having

too much ambition like Frankenstein and Walton can consume your

reasonable sense, pull you away from friends and family and if you are

intending on immoral tasks will lead to your eternal punishment, one

way or another.

The ending of the novel is one of hopelessness as Frankenstein kills

himself whilst trying to find the creature that he has created and

revenge his loved ones’ murders. The creature is oblivious to this

emotion and does not understand so, as his parent dies trying to kill

him, he is eventually overcome with emotion and will die a hopeless

and loveless death.

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