Alienation, Knowledge And Society In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

He was working so hard that his “cheeks had grown pale with study” (Shelley 29). Also the book states, “Natural philosophy, and particular chemistry… became my sole occupation” (Shelley 29). All the time Victor was spending on this monster was physically causing him to get sick. As the monster started coming alive, Victor realized it was not how he thought it would turn out. The monster was described as “limbs were proportionate… yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath… teeth of pearly whiteness…” (Shelley 35). When the monster came alive, Victor could be seen as a biblical allusion to the readers, as he could be playing God. He created a life, just a God does. When he begins to have nightmares about the monster, he begins to realize it was a bad idea for him to create this creature. Fast forward two chapters, and the readers also begin to agree with Victor’s theory that the monster was a bad idea. Victor learns of his youngest brother William’s death and assumes his creation has done it. When he later returns home he does not say a word because he does not want to be labeled ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’. The book states, “Two years have passed since… he received life… was this his first crime?” (Shelley 50). Victors knowledge prior to making the monster did not include his creation ever becoming a murderer. Victor had no intention of creating such an evil being, yet now he learned that not everything is as good as it seems. Victor contemplates suicide because he know it will not be easy to stop his creation but instead he voyages out to destroy it. While running into the monster in the woods, he now knows what the monster is capable of, and “trembles with rage and fear” (Shelley 68). The monster insists Victor sit with him in the cave and hear his struggles and how much knowledge he has

His fear inducing appearance adds to his state of isolation, so much so that even his own creator “found himself filled with horror and fear at the hideous thing he created.”(Nardo 51). His abruptly ended friendship with the blind man only worsens his painful desolation since he now understands what a true friendship is like. The monster longs for a companion and begs to Victor “You must create a female for me with whom I can live” (Shelley 144) and pleads with him for a mate of the opposite sex. When this demand is not met, the monster fills with rage toward Victor, and he vows revenge upon

The idea of pursuing knowledge clouded Victor’s mind and when his creature is born he is shocked to discover that what he has created is far off his own expectations. Not only did the monster destroy his expectations of developing a creature that went beyond human knowledge, but it also affected his life, dignity, and fears. Victor himself admits to his own mistake when he says, “The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature...but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless honor and disgust filled my heart ” (36). Victor Frankenstein realizes what his obsession with pursuing an extensive amount of knowledge has brought him. His destiny to achieve the impossible with no regard for anyone or anything but himself shows that he is blinded by knowledge when creating the monster and is incapable to foresee the outcome of his creation. Victor’s goal was meant to improve and help humanity, but instead it leads to

Victor obsession with his creation represents the dark side of ambition. By creating the monster, “darkness” follow him wherever he goes through the representation of deaths and daunting weather like lightning. After his release from prison, he saw around him “nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me” (Shelley 160). By trying to turn himself into a god through the creation of the monster, that is, the unnatural, Victor is deprived of joy and is tormented by fevers, anxiety, and stress because he had thrown nature into the state of imbalance. Rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment through his scientific achievement, he lives in fear and guilt knowing that he is the cause for the destruction of his

Knowledge plays an incredibly large part of Mary Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein. I think that Victor’s obsessive and unhealthy search for knowledge is the true cause of his suffering. Not only does he neglect his friends and family while working to create the monster he puts his own health in danger. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” In this quote we see that Victor stops at nothing to find if he would be successful with his creation. Victor has made this project such a main priority that once it is completed and the creature comes to life he does not know what to do. Since Victor has met his goals and done what he said he wanted to do he does not want to deal with the being he just created so this becomes a problem for him. We see that Victor was very troubled by this whole experience when he says, “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”

Victor and the Monster are extremely intelligent. Victor was a master in the sciences and in alchemy, which allowed him to be able to create a living human being out of disposed body parts. He delighted in studying under M. Krempe, a professor of natural philosophy, and M. Waldman, a professor of chemistry. He was gifted in being able to use his eloquence to convince people to do things. This was demonstrated when he was able to persuade the men on Walton’s ship not to perform a mutiny, but rather to be proud at successfully being able to break through the ice instead of giving up and turning around. The Monster proves his intelligence when he learns to speak French and learns human sensitivity just by observing the De Lacey family. He is then able to read notes that Victor wrote which were shoved in Victor’s jacket pocket, as well as the Paradise Lost book that he found. He discovers fire and its ability to both cook and to burn. The Monster is smart enough to be able to hide from society and to also evade Victor when Victor is hunting him down for revenge. The Monster is eloquent, like Victor, and is able to convince Victor for a short time that making a female monster would be a compassionate thing to do.

Victor thought “for this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”(page). This quote demonstrates that once Victor had concluded his work of creating the monster, he realized that it may have been a huge mistake. He was not satisfied with his creation instead he was filled with terror. In result of his realization, he left the monster to fend for himself and suffer. Victor shows an evil side of himself by abandoning the monster and leaving him to be universally shunned by society. By Victor doing this one evil act, it causes the monster himself to go off and initiate evil acts of his own.

Victor has become obsessed with studying (something no one should ever be interested in) and has locked himself in his room studying for days on end. He "applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters... Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make". (7) This early application of himself is what drove him to become lonely and reclusive, shying away from all who attempted to come into contact with him. He is also inspired in this chapter to start his reanimation project. He becomes consumed in this one project spending many months alone in the top of his apartment assembling his creature. He raided slaughter houses, grave yards, and dissection rooms to furnish what he needed to create his monster. The lines between life and death became blurred

Victor uses his knowledge not for the benefit of society, but for his own purpose of experimentation which ends up turning out the opposite way that he imagines. Knowing his own vanity, Victor says "lean from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (Shelley 38). After creating the monster and all the hardships Victor had to go through, he realizes that a person should be happy with the world around him/her and not try to change it. He admits that trying to become a man greater than who he could be drove him mad and his knowledge went in tow with it. From

Victor chooses to be alienated, despite the fact that he insists many times that the only reason he is isolated from others is because of the monster. Victor chooses to isolate himself, as in all the time he is studying and creating the monster, he never once visits his family. Victor's rejection of his family, along with his fears of sexuality and natural birth may be reasons why he keeps himself isolated for most of his life. Most of Victor's sufferings in the novel are brought about his alienation. The creation of the monster, and keeping it a secret led to his downfall in the end.

He describes the monster as an ugly when it is simply a hopeless lifeless monster, but when it finally comes to life, the monster is uglier than Victor thought possible. This is the time when Victor realizes the burden of exactly what he has done. The monster gets to the point where he is lonely and isolated. He seems to go analyze the reason and he thinks to himself, "I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation.

The monster believed that Victor would accept him, but after he realized that not only did Victor not want to assume his position in the monster’s life, but society also rejected him, it became a transitory thought, and instead became replaced with his bloodthirst towards Victor and his loved ones, which he knew would hurt way worse than just killing him; making him lonely like himself. Both Victor and the monster partook in horrid acts, in which held horrendous actions; the main one being Victor creating the monster in the first place which in result caused the both of them heartbreak, loneliness, and pain. If Victor wouldn’t have created the monster, then his life would not be filled with so much grief and emptiness; Victor is the true monster, although they are both the primal protagonists as much as they are the antagonists because of the display of the emotions they both portray as lamenting humans/monsters, and the power they give to nature in order to destroy one another. Victor used nature to his advantage, although it was wrong; Victor used nature to create and destroy the monster; he used the

Victor’s creation was another character in this story that experienced alienation and isolation. The monster was subjected to alienation his entire life. Unlike his creator, the monster did not choose this life of segregation, he was born into it. It seemed as if from the very first moment that Victor had laid eyes upon his creation he was viewed as being an abomination, and condemned to a life of rejection. The first experience that the monster had in life was upon opening his eyes and seeing the look of terror in his creator’s eyes. After Victor had abandoned his creation the creature is left with only questions and no one to answer them.

These phenomena hide a danger that Victor is aware of after the creation of his monster, who illustrates this risk of connecting nature and science. Victor even warns of trying to be greater than your nature which is a consequence of a growing knowledge. To summarize, he believes in creating new life with the help of inanimate body parts and scientific approaches and creates a monster that reflects the power of nature and

This rejection by society and the creatures response to it forms him into a monster. This is apparent when he tries to communicate with a family of cottagers. He is attacked by one of the cottagers, who acts out of the fear that the creature’s wretched appearance inspires. This invokes wrath in the creature, and he swears revenge against humanity, particularly his creator. He does this because he is lonely, and no one will accept him as a result of his appearance. This leads the creature to murder just about all of Victor’s family, his closest friend, and eventually drives Victor to his death. This merciless onslaught forms the creature into a monster, acting solely out of unrestrained anger, and his desire for revenge. This is particularly monstrous because all of the violence he causes can be traced back to his appearance, something that he could have dealt with in a more reasonable manner. One might argue he was ignorant of his appearance, but this is not the case. The creature himself recognized his fear inspiring image, proclaiming “I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me.”(121) The creature’s recognition of this fact along with his intelligence would have allowed it to find a reasonable approach, such as a disguise. This truly shows that the creature chose the monstrous path in dealing with its predicament.