Loneliness In Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein’s creation, the nameless creature in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, displays countless characteristics of physical monstrosity; he is described as “ugly”, “demonical” and a “hideous… wretch” (Shelley 36). However, the creature expresses that his only desires are acceptance and love, but he is seen as a monster regardless of his true intentions. When the creature is abandoned by Frankenstein, he is forced to find acceptance on his own and eventually comes across a cottage in the woods. As an attempt to gain approval, he waits to approach the home until the only character home is a blind man, to whom he explains his desire for friendship. The creature says that he is afraid to become “an

"We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves-such a friend ought to be-do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures,” writes the narrator of Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein. Without a companion of some sort, people will only suffer more. However, without the supervision of parents, children altogether are greatly affected for the rest of their lives. An innately good and sympathetic creature, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster struggles to survive in the human world. After creating and abandoning his creature, Dr. Frankenstein is the juxtaposition of a monster, portraying humans as shallow, judgmental, and uncaring. The monster simply wants humans to accept him as one of their own. Facing rejection in different forms, he becomes truly monstrous and evil, giving up hope of companionship as a result of his abandonment. Modern case studies of abandoned children report similar ideas. Children who are abandoned do not learn about morality, yet only people with morality are accepted by others as human. Children who are abandoned are frequently not accepted by others as human ultimately.

Victor Frankenstein engulfed in the dedication of creating a god like image of himself creates a monster. Upon its creation, the monster’s entire perception of the world was around Victor Frankenstein resembling an infant perceiving its surroundings through its parents. Victor was the monster’s “father”. The monster tried to learn more information on its creator by staring at Victor Frankenstein laid out on the bed. The monster is displaying the behaviors of the attachment theory. All of us have a predisposition to “instinctively and immediately seek to attach ourselves to someone who will keep us safe” (Lines 51). Victor Frankenstein is the first one who outcasts the monster. Victor shuns the monster for being hideous, from the moment he is resurrected. His aspirations of a creature worth admiring was plunged down the drain. Ostracized by Victor Frankenstein, the monster left the humble abode of Frankenstein. Child abandonment, in

<br>Mary Shelley portrays the monster as being the new Adam, as he is the first being of a new species. Due to his fresh outlook on life, the monster is characterised by benevolence and innocence, as well as an unbiased perspective. However, as the monster learns more about man, he discovers that there are many injustices in today 's society, and realises that his looks which filled Victor with ‘breathless horror and disgust ' (page 56) will never be accepted. The reader feels sympathetic towards the monster when he is rejected numerous times by society. He is rejected by Victor, the angry villagers, the De Lacey family and the father of the girl who he saved from drowning, before he fully understands that he will not be accepted. It is then that the monster decides to get revenge on his creator. He states that ‘I am malicious

The monster being confused by this, seeks to find Victor but is entirely rejected as Victor doesn’t want anything to do with him. Left to fend for himself, the monster begins to learn more about himself and adopt human characteristics including compassion and knowledge in which he learns from the De Lacey family. After being rejected from society because of his appearance he feels lonely and turns to Victor to create him a mate and promises to never seek him again. When Victor doesn’t keep his promise, the monster turns to anger and hopes to bring agony to Victor. “Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone? You my creator abhor me”. (chapter 10 page 89)

Bond states in his essay that the looks of the monster caused “disgust in his creator, who rushes from the room, henceforth leaving his child to face the world unguided and unprotected. Furthermore, it is a child of monstrous appearance, for whom 'the human senses are insurmountable barriers ' to integration into society, as the monster later explains to his neglectful father” (Bond). In that moment, Victor realizes the mistake he had made and an immediate feeling of remorse for his actions. Traumatized by this being’s physical characteristics, Victor is terrified to sleep at night reflecting on all the bad he had brought into the world and what might happen to him as a result of making this creature that will soon be excluded from society. The solitude leading to Victor’s mental destruction and sanity literally made him afflicted and sick for months, where his best friend, Henry came to take care of him in pure secrecy. Henry makes him write to his family because he has ignored them for so long before due to an obsession with reanimating dead human tissue. However, since the moment the monster was created, Frankenstein has detested his creation. When the monster asks Frankenstein for his respect

To begin his revenge, he decides to kill his creator’s wife on their wedding night. The creature violently kills his creator's wife so that he will feel the pain of loss and loneliness. “She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair” (Shelley 144). The monster gets revenge on his creator because Victor refuses to create a companion for him and so he wants his creator to feel the loneliness he feels. He kills her while Victor is in the other room and leaves without a trace. Victor is full of sorrow and loneliness just as the creature is. He ruins Victor's life by making him experience the feeling of having nobody to love. The creature’s anger ultimately leads to his own death. The anger he previously felt is now his satisfaction of

Another reason as to why the readers feel sympathy for the monster is because when asked for a partner, he is told that such a thing will not be presented to him because of the wretchedness of his kind. After realizing that the monster is the only of his kind and that he may never be accepted by society, he knew that he may be alone for the rest of his life. When he recognizes this, he sets out to find and ask Victor to make a female partner for himself to live alongside. When asked, Victor replies “I do refuse, .... and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world.” (Shelley, Pg.174) Victor explains that even at his worst, he may never create another horrible creature just as he had before. Readers

He experienced the same type of reaction as he looked for shelter, causing first a man to flee his presence, and eventually the whole village. Just based on looking at the monster, these people were making a judgment on whether or not his intentions were good. The constant feeling of abandonment caused the creature to feel more and more alone, as he observed other people enjoying company. The true sensitivity of the monster is displayed when he finds the cabin in the woods with other people in it. As he spends time observing them, he sees that they are sad because they are poor. The monster does his best to care for the family without them knowing by trying to help them with their supply of food and wood. The reader can draw from this that the monster really just wants to be integrated as a part of the society he was created to live in, and he can show affection and his intentions are good. As he begins self reflection, the monster begins to feel agony and pain in his isolation. The monster found one of Victor's journals one night and for the first time witnessed the opinion somebody else had about him. He saw the absolute horror and disgust that he was regarded with and resolved to

Victor does not feel lonely until the monster kills all of his loved ones. The monster did this so that Victor could feel what the monster has felt his whole existence. The monster has felt like he has no one and he displays this when he cries, "And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man." (Shelley 128). These feelings pointed the monster to begin kill the people that Victor cares about the most so that he could feel the same way as the creature. All of the people screaming and running away from the monster has lead him to feel completely alone makes him feel as though he is shunned and an outcast from the rest of society. He explains that "I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever." (Shelley 143). Throughout the whole book the monster feels this way; like he has no friends and that he is an outcast forever. Mary Shelley uses literary elements to make a social commentary about the issue of

Isolation and dissatisfaction exist as two of the many characteristics that people try to avoid in order to achieve the life of enjoyment and happiness. Many individuals want to avoid suffering and own miserable lives. Fear of becoming the “outsider”, or outcast of the species, plenty try to look for qualities greater and of more significance to accomplish, a hobby, an interest, or a romantic lover. Everyone tends to consist of a “hole” that cannot be filled. One of Frankenstein’s themes about the concept of the outsider portrays importance in the idea that every human looks for recognition and love to be accepted into a community, and that the human can occasionally be conceited for wanting to achieve the satisfaction so far from most individuals’

He longs to be accepted among not only humans in general, but also his creator. Upon finding out Victor abandoned him, he says, “Cursed, cursed creator! Why do I live?”(Volume 2, Chapter 8, pg 161). Then after another negative experience with humans, he states, “The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few months before, gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth,”(Volume 2, Chapter 8, pg 168). These statements show that the monster is upset by the fact that not even his creator can accept him, let alone other humans.

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible” (C.G. Jung). In the novel, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley emphasizes Gothicism and her experiences reflecting both Dr. Frankenstein and the creature. Mary Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, she was a well-known author for the Gothic novel she wrote. She faced many gothic events which includes the lost of her half-sister and many other deaths. With such misfortune in her life it demonstrates the tragedy and fragmentation contribute to Dr. Frankenstein and the creature’s past experiences which lead to isolation, loneliness, and self-destruction.

It lives inside people, like a disease. It wants to stay like a parasite, fighting every part of your body to stay. It wants to make you feel better, and feel loved, but only by them. It wants to make you feel like everyone is against you, expect for them. It wants you to fight for it to stay. Within the monster, it creates more. It creates rage, jealousy, depression, and many more. The monster takes a lot of things. It takes your money, life, and even your soul, but the most hurtful is.. It takes your family. It tells you it cares, whisper to you “I only want the best for you,” but this monster is selfish. It is like an abusive relationship, only if you are happy with it, it cares. If you try to leave it, it always gets revenge. It tries

In the book Frankenstein one of the conflicts is with frankenstein having a not so pleasant appearance that does not attract those around him. Which you could understand would make it hard for him to make friends. He is not liked and feels unwanted by others. The monster doesn’t mind other but others tend to shun him more then likely cause his appearance. So both are pretty much isolated characters in the story.