Frankenstein Human Development

The Creature ran away and tried to turn to other people. It did not want anything bad but simply attention and support. Nevertheless, his appearance made people feel disgust and everybody tried to hurt him. The Creature could not understand why it was treated so cruelly and suffered so much. It was completely isolated and nobody cared for this living being who wanted to be loved so desperately! Such

In a world of continuous external forces and the impact the society has on human growth and development, we have to analyze Erik Erikson developmental theory as it relates to the “monster” in Frankenstein. Erikson suggests that social interaction and experiences play an important role that shape the development and growth of human beings through eight different stages. Throughout the book, the “monster” goes through each stage, which impacts his development as a living being.

He longs for a companion who will understand him and who will not mistreat him. The last moments of compassion dies within the creature when his creator destroys the companion he promised to create, and the revenge continues from there. Even though the creature commits awful crimes, he also commits acts of kindness.

The creature began to converse freely with the blind father who addressed him with kindness. However, when his two children returned, the daughter fainted and the son "dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick" forcing the creature to "quit the cottage and escape unperceived to my hovel" (115). These acts of cruelty emphasize how often humanity stereotypes individuals. Just because a creature looks monstrous does not mean his intentions match his appearance. After this heartbreaking event, the monster decides to stop seeking love and instead to seek revenge against his creator and attempt to force Victor to create a companion for him. The creature attempts to explain his cruel ways when he exclaims, "There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my

Human nature is unchangeable. Human nature also applies to just about every living thing. Human nature isn’t so human, is it? In Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking novel, Frankenstein, it is shown just how universal human nature is. In Frankenstein, Robert Walton tells the story of Victor Frankenstein through a series of letters to his sister, Margaret Saville, in different perspectives. Upon his ship on an expedition to the North Pole, Robert befriends a scientist, Victor Frankenstein. He reveals that he is looking for his creation, a being that was never truly alive, whom he bestowed life upon. He then tells an account of his life until it switches in perspective to the monster’s, followed by a switch to the present. In his tale, Victor tells of his early childhood, where he was an avid bookworm, and became enraptured by science. This led to him delving deeper and deeper into the world of science until he became a man obsessed. He dedicated himself to science and conducted an experiment to see whether he could bring life to a being that never had life in it before. Rather than being overjoyed at his successful experiment, he was disgusted. He came out with a humanoid resembling a monster. This disappointment led to Victor abandoning the Creation, leaving him to find his own way in the world. Given the proper care, the Monster could have succeeded, but Frankenstein's monster will not because the neglect from Victor, treatment by others, and the internalized self-hatred deign a

Easily one of the most notable themes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the role of nature versus nurture in developing children, recurs throughout the novel with the two main characters, Frankenstein and his creature, believing in opposite sides of this theme. Favoring nature, Frankenstein maintains that the creature was always evil from the moment of creation, regardless of the creature’s experiences. However, the creature, in his narrative to Frankenstein, argues that “[he] was benevolent and good; misery made [him] a fiend” (106). In adherence with John Locke’s concept of tabula rasa, the creature was born with a blank slate, and only through his experiences does he gain knowledge and personality. Struggling to persevere in the human world, Frankenstein’s creature merely wants humans to welcome him as one of them. The change of the creature from looking “upon crime as a distant evil” because “benevolence and generosity were ever present” in him to seeking revenge on Frankenstein results from a culmination of horrible experiences (103). While it may be hard to see the creature as a trustworthy narrator because of how he has acted and his ulterior motives, he does present physical evidence to support his tale. Facing rejection in different forms, he becomes truly evil, giving up hope of companionship as a result of his trials and lessons. From the moment of his creation, the creature encounters abandonment, violence, isolation, and rejection everywhere he turns.

In the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the character Victor Frankenstein can not be identified as purely evil or purely good. An interest in science leads Victor to create an evil monster, however midway through the book Victor develops sentimental feelings for the monster, even though he has committed many acts of pure evil. Victor abandons the monster which contributes to the overall theme, regarding nurture vs. nature. Throughout the novel, Victor is faced with challenges and hardships as a child that causes his character to become morally ambiguous.

As a result of Victor's neglect and rejection of the creature, society also denies the creature acceptance which creates a life of loneliness for it. The creature, after being rejected by Victor, is left helpless, wanders into a forest, and experiences what hunger and pain are for the first time in life. The creature longs for acceptance, especially from Victor, but is denied. For example, the creature first learns of its rejection from society when it enters the house of an old man that is cooking; it as at the sight of the creature that the man "shrieked loudly" (90) and runs out of his hut. From that moment the creature realizes it is deformed and unlike anyone else. While the creature is roaming through the woods one day it comes upon a cottage. The creature notes the inhabitants of the cottage, the DeLacey family, as being beautiful in comparison to its

Throughout the novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley, the creature is subjected to countless acts of violence and rejection. For a monster to develop, one must have been formerly exploited either by an individual or their society. The creature is not only a physical product of science, but his atrocious behavior is also an explicit result of Victor’s actions toward him. The creature was not born a monster, but slowly morphed into one as he experiences violence and rejection from his society.

What makes us human? Is it a beating heart and living flesh? Is it encompassing advanced psychological and social qualities? The classic gothic novel, Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley and the modern horror novel, Warm Bodies, written by Issac Marion have lead many readers to question the complexity of human nature. Both novels explore several principal themes that develop the reader’s understanding of what it means to be human. We are miraculous creatures who are capable of both good and evil; humans are intricate beings who depend on love for survival, some can be troubled by or lack remorse, and in some cases, our actions can be motivated by fear. Throughout both novels, the main characters struggle with these aspects of human nature.

The Creature becomes enraged when he discovers that the family wishes to move because they feel endangered by the Creature. Despite the creature’s past rejection, he still longs to love and be loved by others, and although he has faced past abuse, his kind heart remains in tact. This is proven by his willingness to help others solely out of the goodness of his heart. He comes across a woman drowning and rescues her, but then gets shot by a man who has come looking for the woman. The creature pleads to society why “this was, then, the reward of my benevolence”(Shelley 161). The creature is repeatedly facing punishment for good deeds; therefore, the creature figures that society has already decided that his heart is cold and bloodthirsty, just by one glance at him. The creature was born with a compassionate heart; however, society's predetermined judgement on the definition of “normal”, labels the creature after society takes a glimpse at the creature. Nobody in the start of the Creature’s life, was willing to look past his appearance and examine his heart and

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we are able to see a full on journey of a human creation. A monster is created by a individual named Victor Frankenstein. As the monster lives out his life, he evolves from a simpleton to a knowledgeable figure. In the beginning of the novel the monster is created and immediately is intellectually unintelligent and confused. As the novel goes in he becomes curious to learn and enjoys the world around him because of his curiosity. During the conclusion of the novel the monster is more intelligent and knowledgeable of the world around him. The evolution of the monster goes from unintelligent, to curious, and lastly intelligent.

Towards the latter part of the novel, the Creature symbolizes the point in the human psyche when Man starts to become inherently bad when he gains more reward from doing wrong than he does from doing what is right. It is seen in his final moments with De Lacey’s family. For a period of several weeks, the Creature waits patiently as he observes De Lacey’s family in order to connect with them and embody their language as his own, but they eventually abandon him due to his grotesque form. In their first interaction with each them, he sees their expression as a “horror and consternation on beholding [him],” (Shelley 122)[.] Agatha and Safie faint and scream at the sight of him next to their father as Felix proceeds to attack the Creature. At this point, the Creature is at the point of no return as he realizes that he will never be accepted by any human and he is destined to live a life of damnation. At this very moment, the Creature’s innocence becomes so engulfed by a feeling of hatred and spite for humanity that he believes he can, with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted me with their shrieks and misery,” (Shelley 124). Irving Buchen describes this stage in the creature’s life as an emergence of, “limited evolution of a human animal who exists solely in the hermetic seal of his individuality within a natural, not a human, environment”(Buchen). This is another way of saying that the Creature has resorted to his savage instincts: the thirst

During man’s development, he expands his knowledge of the world by observing, learning, and applying information given to him by his surroundings. From the creature’s point of view, his thirst for knowledge at first presents itself as the need to understand the human psyche. Unfortunately for him, one of the first discoveries of man that he deduces is the fact that he elicits fear within them. He experiences two occasions that provide him with this conclusion: his encounter with the secluded old man in his cottage and his interaction with the villagers. He first attempts to find food from the inside the old man’s cottage but is met with complete fear and abandonment from the man. He then ventures off to find food within the confines of a village but his grotesque frame provokes the villagers to drive him out of their community by attacking him verbally, physically, and emotionally. He is eventually forced to leave their abode and seeks fortunately seeks solitude in an abandoned cottage on the outskirts of society. In his solitude, he reflects on these occurrences, feeling, “happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man,”(Shelley 94). Further down the novel, as the Creature indulges in Paradise Lost by John Milton, he learns about the contrast between Adam and Satan. In Irving Buchen’s own words, he describes the Creature as, “so deprived of a sense of paternity, family, and humanity that he feels