Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

Many people base their opinions about others on first impressions. We do not take the time to get to know someone and create a relationship with them. With a first impression many usually look at fashion. We judge people 's social status based on looks. At times, we apply the same idea of judging a book by its cover to other humans even without noticing. We examine their every move trying to find something different about them. Just

He chose to "avoid a crowd and to attach [himself] fervently to a few [schoolmates]" (Shelley 36). Characteristics like isolation can lead to an unhappy future and cause a person to totally remove himself from society. Though "[Frankenstein's] father had wished him 'to seek amusement in society [he] abhorred the face of man.' ... 'I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse,'" he admits (Goldberg 31). From the knowledge of Frankenstein's past the reader is able to understand the character's behavior and how it develops. Through the years Frankenstein has kept to himself, with a few exceptions, and is heavily involved in his studies. These conditions evolve to a more serious state over time. "Now, he reveals only the 'desire to avoid society' and fly 'to solitude, from the society of every creature.' . . . He is 'immersed in solitude,' for he perceives' an insurmountable barrier' between him and his fellow-man" (Draper 3206). This state of seclusion only adds to Frankenstein's deterioration and to the condition of his creation. Frankenstein's creature takes on the characteristics of his creator, just as children do with their parents. Due to the creator's reclusive habits and characteristics the Creature becomes as isolated and lonely as his creator. After being shunned by Frankenstein, the Creature wonders about lonely, "searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger"

In Frankenstein, the reader is presented with two main characters of which are both monsters. Nevertheless one must be crowned as the true monster. The Creature is a monster who posses the free will and consciousness of a human. Victor is a human being trying to play God. They both have felt pain and anger; they were driven to do unspeakable things. However one is worse than the other.

The monster was once good. He has the mental capacity to feel lonely enough to change into the monster he is currently portrayed to be.

     The monster did not like performing the horrible deeds that he did, but he was provoked by Victor’s irresponsibility and his ignorance. The monster reveals his feelings to Walton while they stand over the corpse of Victor. He stated, “Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine”(238).

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is very much a commentary on the Enlightenment and its failure to tame the human condition through reason. The human condition can be defined as the unique features which mold a human being. The creature is undoubtedly a victim of this predicament. He grapples with the meaning of life, the search for gratification, the sense of curiosity, the inevitability of isolation, and the awareness of the inescapability of death. These qualities and his ceaseless stalking of his master conjure up the metaphor that he is the shadow of the Enlightenment. Indeed, the Enlightenment is represented through Frankenstein whereas the creature is the embodiment of everything it shuns. These include nature, emotion, and savagery. The two characters are understood as counterparts and yet strikingly similar at the same time. The creature is considered a monster because of his grotesque appearance. Frankenstein on the other hand is a monster of another kind: his ambition, secrecy, and selfishness alienate him from human society. He is eventually consumed by an obsessive hatred of his creation. Both characters also commit primordial crimes. Although rationality pervades through Frankenstein's endeavours, it can be argued that he becomes less human the more he tries to be God. The secret of life lies beyond an accepted boundary from which none can return. By creating life Frankenstein ironically sets the stage for his own destruction as well as that of his family. The

Although the Creature in Frankenstein is often referred to as Frankenstein’s Monster or simply, The Monster, he is not necessarily a truly monstrous creation. But rather the true monster is determined by the reader as Mary Shelley raises the question, “Who is the true monster?”. Although this question is never directly posed to the reader, it is something that one thinks about while reading. Upon beginning the novel, the reader believes that they already have the answer to this question as it has been popularized that the creature is the truly monstrous being due to his portrayal in popular culture. However, Mary Shelley offers many answers to this question throughout the book through many subtle statements.

The Creature in Marry Shelley’s “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” is not a human because it came to the world in unnatural and some sort of disgust way. Also the Creature did not have a normal human way of developing. “No father had watched my infant days; no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses. What was I?” (Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus”, page 88) This example demonstrates that the Creature did not have a normal human life, because the Creature is not a human, the Creature is a monster. He is a monster not only because he looks like one, but also he acts like one. He is monster because people treat him like one and the most important that the Creature considers himself as a monster.

These incidents that have come about were all not intentional but self-inflicted on Victors part. By the creation killing William, this was not an act of the creation using his own free will to kill but by underestimating his own strength. This view of the creation being considered a ‘being of whom bad things originate’ was not a sign upon him being “natural” or “who the monster was created to be.” But this was all the cause of Victor continuing to neglect the more important things in life and staying ignorant to events that are presented in front of him.

The imperious rule of Dr. frankenstein over the monsters life was slowly driving the monster towards complete insanity. Frankenstein forces the monster into a life of solitude telling the monster “there can be no community between you and me; we are enemies” (Shelley 83). After this, the monster is unable to integrate into the society of humans that surrounded him. For a period of time, he was able to fight off the power of isolationism by finding comfort through written texts, but this artificial human interaction was short lived. Soon the monster became obstreperous, his only wish being that Dr. Frankenstein make him a companion. The monster makes his wishes clear to Frankenstein, “you must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (Shelley 115). Just like any human, this desire for companionship was innate within the monster. When Dr. Frankenstein does not grant this companionship to the monster, he begins to kill Frankenstein's family to sway his opinion. Once again, readers find a human (or “human-like” creature) going insane due to forced isolation. Like Bigger, the forced isolation the monster is subjected to reveals the truth behind his insanity.

In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley one may find many examples of themes expressed throughout the entire work of literature. A very important one you will find throughout the book is who, in this structured chaos is the true monster. This thought should make you wonder. Is the creation the monster or is he just a misunderstood creature searching for love and understanding, but is instead immediately judged and shunned. With that in mind it is your choice to decide if the monster is the victim or the victimizer in this suspenseful novel.

Due to his observations, the creature had yearned for nothing but family and companionship. But the creature’s reunion with Frankenstein brings rejection and disappointment once again. When asked for a “monster” like himself --although agreeing at the beginning-- Frankenstein eventually disregards this proposal, thinking that it is better for the creature to be isolated from everyone and everything. However, it is only natural for us to feel lonely without companionship. After the betrayal from his own master, he promises to destroy everyone and everything that Frankenstein loves to make him feel the same way that the creature felt.

In Frankenstein, specifically, the real monster is the creator not the creature. In his quest to create his creature, Frankenstein allowed his emotions to control his actions and became consumed with a lust for power. Frankenstein’s pursuit of scientific knowledge and power began with the works of ancient alchemists that he read as a young boy. When Frankenstein attended college in Ingolstadt, his mentors replaced the books of alchemy with textbooks of natural philosophy.

Once his creation is completed, he flees realizing how he made the creature is hideous to society and mankind but that’s not how the creature really is, going back to the quote from Paradise Lost. The creature never asked to be created, he came into the world because if Frankenstein’s actions and really can’t do much about it. He feels depressed that Frankenstein did all this work to bring him in to this world but won’t even take responsibility for what he did, what he created. That’s the big connection between the Creature and Adam in Paradise Lost, the connection of being shunned by your creator, that’s why the creature empathizes so well with this story thinking that it is his story, that this was his destiny to read

Everyone wants to feel accepted in life and has a want to have a spot where they belong and feel comfort. In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein or the Modern Day Prometheus, we see this want in the monster that Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates. From the very beginning, this monster can see that others relate to him differently and are scared. He becomes more aware of his differences and begins to want the social acceptance and belonging that others have. As the story continues we see the monster wishing for a relationship like those he watches in town. He wants to feel the love of others. Unfortunately it is this deep want for companionship that leads to his fall.