Theme Of Loss In Frankenstein

The Darkness of Death and Loss

Mary Shelley wrote the novel Frankenstein in 1818. That same year she lost her only daughter. This explains why the theme of loss appears so often throughout the novel. Frankenstein gives a glimpse into the personal life and the struggles of Victor Frankenstein. The novel also gives a unique perspective on the Creature’s life through the three-chapter frame narrative he has. Frankenstein and the Creature both experienced countless tragedies during their lifetimes. These experiences come to define the two men and shape them into who they were at the ending of the novel.

Victor has been faced with loneliness and hardship since an extremely young age. When he was little his mother passed, leaving him with his father

This quote on the feeling that follows loss is almost universal and helps to show just how deeply affected Victor is by the passing of his mother and most others he loses throughout the novel. The pattern of loss that follows Victor throughout his life explains why he is so dead-set on bringing a man to life. After so much loss constantly following him throughout his life this was his chance to correct and expunge all the death he has experienced thus far. This also explains why he feels such a deep depression when he realizes the Creature has not lived up to his expectations. The one redeeming factor of life he was trying to create backfired, sending him into one of the worst depressive

The Creature has his first sense of loss on the day he was created. Victor views him as hideous and deformed. This is heartbreaking to the Creature because he feels as if he were losing a master, creator, and father. He repeatedly loses companionship during his frame narrative in Chapters 11 – 16. He finds himself growing attached to the family who lives in a small cottage. When he tries to approach DeLacey he is thrown out of the cottage by the family. Most of the Creature’s personal losses deal with someone’s reaction to his personal appearance. Whether it is a wandering villager or the family in the cottage the same seems to happen again and again. The superficial loss stops with the death of Victor. The death being much more deep for the Creature makes it much more meaningful. After Victor’s passing the Creature feels so many conflicting emotions. Everything builds up inside him and leads him to say “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames.” (24.166). The contradictory ways of the quote lend to the scattered brain of the Creature and show the affect the loss of on