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An essay on depiction of monsters in literature
Monsters in modern culture
Monsters in modern culture
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We all know that the creature did some wrong actions but who is really at fault? In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelly there are many perspectives that are shown. Different factors all constitute into the creatures wrong doings which show that all three are to blame. Some can say it was the creatures fault himself, society, or Victor Frankenstein the creator. There are many different actors and can all be interpreted differently.
One way in which society influences the Creature’s behavior is their disgust and hateful attitude towards him. For example, when the creature landed upon a village, he was attacked because of his looks, “…I had hardly placed my foot within the door, before the children shrieked and one of the woman fainted. The whole village was roused, some fled, some attacked me, until grievously bruised by stones and many others kinds of missile weapons” (93). Just the looks of the creature was enough to set off the village to attack him. People fear what they don’t understand and can act irrationally. After this, it is understandable that the creature would despise and seek revenge against humans. Another example of how poorly society treats him is shown when the creature finally manages to bring up courage and talks to the blind man. They are interrupted when his family come back home. “Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father… he dashed me to the ground and stuck me violently with a stick” (122). The creature managed to have a conversation with the blind father yet when others say him; he was beaten and chased out. The fact that the family he had observed for so long shunned him at the sight of his face shows the ignorance in society. Society affected the creature by punishing and...
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...ple you to dust!’”(86). Victor did not only just leave the creature, yet he also hates him as well. He is part of the reason that the creature took out all his anger on humans. When no one, not even his creator loved him, he began building up many different emotions inside him that turned into anger.
Society saw him as a repulsive monster that had no other intention that to harm people. This led them to shun him away from everyone. The creature himself also chose some decisions that were not the best options. Victor is responsible for taking care of hi creation. Most people in the world has one person that loves them, but if not one person does, mentally they can fall apart. People need to know that they may be contributing to the problem without even knowing it. All in all, everyone was at fault in some ways or another which led to the creature becoming a monster.
After abandoning the Creature, it vows “eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind” which ends up being in direct correlation with Victor’s life (Shelley 143). The Creature is able to carry out this deed by not directly attacking his creator and abandoner, but the one’s of his creator’s affections. The Creature not only makes Victor feel pain through the killings, but also through the guilt that Victor experiences since he knows that he (Victor) is the reason that all the people are now dead. After all the killings had happened, “yet one duty” remained for Victor, to silence the Creature and all feelings of sorrow rooted from death (Shelley 176). This was Victor’s act of revenge in which only one of the two could live while the other was dead. Victor was so influenced by all the death he had experienced, that his revenge took him to his deathbed. The ending years of Victor’s life had been spent focusing and caring for the matters concerning the Creature and himself, which differs of how Zeus felt about his revenge, as it was only of current importance and had no impact on his
As a romantic, archetype and gothic novel, Victor is responsible for the monsters actions because Victor abandons his creation meaning the creature is dejected and ends up hideous and fiendish. It is unfair to create someone into this world and then just abandon it and not teach it how to survive. The quote from the creature “Why did you make such a hideous creature like me just to leave me in disgust” demonstrates how much agony the creature is in. He is neglected because of his creator. The monster says “The hateful day when I received life! I accurse my creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” Victor is wholly at fault for his actions, image and evil.
...he creature which has also resulted in death, It could be argued that Victor himself is a monster as his ambition, secrecy and selfishness that alienated him from human society is what eventually consumed him.
With nobody to reason with, Victor makes senseless decisions while he is alone. Victor begins this with his process of creating the monster. Nobody in the right mind would ever dig up graves, but that is just what victor goes and does. Once this creation is finally given life, which Victor has spent two years striving for, Victor foolishly abandons it. Victor comes to his senses to some degree after he brings life to the monster as he states, “‘now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43). Had there been companions around Victor during this creation time, perhaps someone would have been able to guide Victor away from creating the “wretch” (Shelley 43) he so hopelessly conceived. As for the monster, he makes fairly good decisions even without guidance from anyone, including Victor, his creator. The monster has the desire to learn and gain knowledge as a genuine individual. As the monster is continuously rejected and shunned by mankind, his natural benevolence turns to malevolence. In his loneliness, the monster wrongly decides to declare “‘everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery’” (Shelley 126). Say the monster was able to have comrades of some kind around him, he would not have turned to this
When Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is analyzed, critics comes to a conclusion about Victor Frankenstein's creation. The creature invokes the most sympathy from the readers than any other character in the novel. Because he is abandoned by society which manipulates the creature to do evil things despite his good heart. Therefore Shelley's message throughout the novel is that a person is not born evil, they are made evil.
If Victor had stayed around and showed the monster the real world, he might have not have went on to perform violent actions. This portrays Victor as a selfish character and gives more of an insight on his personal life. As a child, Victor is only interested in furthering his own knowledge and not worried about anyone else. He spent much of his time “drawing the picture of [his] early days... when [he] would account to [himself] for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled [his] destiny” (Shelley 34), or otherwise a magnificent creation that would change his future. When constructing the Monster, he put all of his relatives in the back of his mind, and only focused on his own success and victory. This further explains the theme of being selfless and only doing certain things that will benefit
Victor, at first sight of the Creature, abandons and leaves him to survive on his own. This is insignificant to the creature at the time, but later causes the Creature to have bitter feelings towards Victor. After the Creature discovers Victor’s notes, he becomes enraged, and incriminates Victor for the victimization that he faces; hence accusing him as a perpetrator of cruelty. Through the accusation of Victor one can see that the Creature believes that Victor should be held responsible, and owes the Creature a favor. Additionally, Victor double-crosses the Creature after obliging to create a mate for the Creature. These actions of betrayal demonstrate how Victor is a perpetrator of cruelty and how the Creature is his victim. Victor’s unintentional cruelty reveals how he only wanted what was best for himself and human kind. Victor’s betrayal is seen as an action of cruelty by the Creature, and consequently delivers the final blow that instigates the retaliation of the
He wasn't always this angry. He did so some good or tried to, but people didn't look at it that way. They just thought he was a monster by the way he looked. The creature states "I look upon crime as a distance of evil, benevolence and generosity were ever present before me. (101)" he really wanted to be good. When he burned that families house down it was out of anger. He seen the way they interacted with each other and wanted the same. He wanted a family, so he can he happy like everyone else. So, when he told Victor to create female creature for him. I think that was a good idea. He would have someone to love and to care for him. He wouldn't have felt as much as an outsider and he wouldn't be so lonely. Then they probably would have had kids, so they would have had the family he wanted from the beginning. When Victor killed the female creature, I think he was wrong because there could have been a way better way he could have dealt with that situation. I feel as if Victor's actions were different then the creature's actions would have been different the creature's actions would have been
He not only turned away the being he had brought into the world; he also denied the creature companionship, friendship, and happiness while continuing to seek his own. Victor gained new purpose and even on his deathbed holds to the principle that he is justified in desiring the death of his enemy. Moment before his death he turns to Captain Robert Walton and says, “I feel justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable” (156). He even begins to lose the small amount of compassion he had for the creature’s struggle.
Both Frankenstein and the monster suffer greatly through the novel, Frankenstein experiment, that had gone totally wrong. The monster is not mean, in the way that he tried to fit in, into society, but was shunned and never accepted by anyone. The monster lived alone, isolated for everyone and everything, meanwhile Frankenstein suffer as well. He loss everyone around him, in a blink of an eye, in the hands of the monster, regretment as he is the creator of the thing that destroyed his life. Although many blame everything on the monster, in the way he badly behaved, he is not at total fault for his action.As in the way that when the monster commits his crime with passion; he doesn't think apon his actions, but only lives in the moment and his action are his mostly rage.
Reading the novel, it initially seemed obvious that Victor Frankenstein’s creation is clearly the “Monster, and that Victor is merely a victim of his own benevolent scientific pursuit. But after watching climatic scenes
When Victor abandons the monster he runs away and tries to forget about his failed creation. It was extremely dangerous for Victor to flee his experiment because the monster soon becomes aggressive with hate and is curious to know why Victor left him; furthermore, the monster becomes obsessed with self-learning and knowledge.
Victor has a lack of respect for the natural world that leads him on the path to becoming a monster. In creating the monster Victor is trying to change the natural world. He is trying to play the role of god by creating life.
I believe that Victor and the creature are both right about what they want and yet monstrous in their reactions. Victor is right about what he wants; one reason is because he is very committed to his work and in creating life for his creature. On the other hand he is evil because he abandoned the creature and left him on his own: "I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited" (Shelley 57). Shelley shows Victor's monstrous reaction to the creature in the way that he abandoned the creature to his own luck and he shows no responsibility for him.
He created a life, and then spontaneously he quickly decided to run away from his creation. Victor’s actions after creating what he created were really irresponsible, and did not correctly took care of the circumstance’s he put himself in. The creation was never actually evil, but he felt abandoned by what could had been called his father. Frankenstein, the monster, was only a seeker for companionship. He strongly desired to feel loved, rather than abandoned. Society’s evil behavior toward the monster is what altered the monster’s conduct and followed to how he acted.