Outward Appearance In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In the novel, Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelly, there are three different narrators throughout the whole book. This is important because we get 3 different looks into the same story.  The three perspectives allow us to form our own opinions about the story. Having three perspectives helps the reader understand everything a whole lot more because they get everyone’s story and side. Shelly also uses three different narrators for the reader to be able to step in each character’s shoes. Throughout the book, the reader is able to take sides with a certain character because the author used a unique writing style.

The monster is now able to communicate with other people and it makes him happier. The creatures number one goal in life is to be like the humans and he wants to be accepted into the human world. He believes that this goal is not possible because he thinks that he is hideous and that no one would accept him as a human being. Ever since the creature was created he has been wandering around and observing people. Most of the time, people get scared of how he looks and his appearance is not very promising. All the creature is searching for is acceptance into the world that everyone else is in. As he starts to communicate and do things like a normal person he feels he is one step closer to being accepted but is still afraid he cannot get accepted because of his appearance. “How often did I impreciate curses on the causes of my being!” (Shelley 60)” He is mad that Victor Frankenstein did not make him a more physically appealing creature. The creature is like a human being through his skills of being able to communicate and read. His number one goal is to be accepted by humans. But he is afraid he can’t because of how he

The creature from Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" displays many different human qualities. Some of these qualities include: the creature's ability to learn, his capability to feel pain, his desire to be accepted, and his need for affection and sympathy. The need for affection and sympathy is something which the creature is unable to attain. This unrequited desire to be accepted causes the creature to be the victim of the novel. The creature is never given affection by human society because of his physical deformities, Dr. Frankenstein's denial to create him a mate, and the creature's violent behaviour.

While reading the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly and the excerpt “Problems of Perception” by Anne K. Mellor, I came quick to notice that most of characters in the novel judge the creature by his outward appearance and never gave him a chance to show himself good. As we all know, the creature turns out to be a vicious killer of the ones that are dear to his creator. I believe the creature is this way because he is always criticized and rejected by everyone and has never been accepted in mainstream society.

Contrary to Frankenstein, the creature does not choose his isolation, but it was immediately chosen for him. Society and especially Frankenstein excludes the creature from being accepted, based on his looks and his little ability to act as a normal human being. Within the novel he states, “What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching, and endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their actions.” (Shelley, pg. 110) The creature is aware of this exclusion and through those words a reader can know for sure. The negative effects of the creature’s isolation begins to show within the story through his horrifying acts like murder. Isolation develops to be a motif in the story, which helps a reader truly see that this is a huge similarity between both Frankenstein and his creature.

monster avoid pain again and how he is able to sit and think about how

  One of the main themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the importance of appearance and acceptance in modern society. In today's society, and also in the society of Frankenstein, people judge one often solely on their looks. Social prejudice is often based on looks, whether it be the color of someone's skin, the clothes that a person wears, the facial features that one has and even the way one stands. People make snap judgments based on these and other considerations and they affect the way that they present themselves to one, and also the way that the treat the judged person. In Frankenstein the society of that time is much like our own today. It is an appearance

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein we are introduced early in the story to one of the main characters Victor Frankenstein and subsequently to his creation referred to as the monster. The monster comes to life after being constructed by Victor using body parts from corpses. As gruesome as this sounds initially we are soon caught up in the tale of the living monster. Victor the creator becomes immediately remorseful of his decision to bring the monstrous creation to life and abandons the borne creature. Victor describes his emotions and physical description of his creation as follows:

The first incident when the reader witnesses a passage of judgment that is based on one’s appearance is when the Frankenstein family adopts Elizabeth Lavenza. Elizabeth is found living in the streets with a poor Italian family and Caroline Frankenstein adopts Elizabeth because she is a very pretty girl. Elizabeth’s beauty allowed people to judge her as pure and worthy so, despite all the other children in the streets, Elizabeth is given a great education, a wealthy family, and a beautiful home. On the contrary, when Victor creates his creature, Victor is so horrified by his ugliness that he flees his apartment. When Victor later returns and finds that the creature is gone, Victor has the audacity to celebrate and call the creature his “enemy”. It is true that in nature, the creature would be a great predator. The creature is great in stature, incredibly fast, incredibly strong, and exceedingly intelligent. Weaker animals would be smart to run from this animal. However, Frankenstein’s creature is not an animal. The creature was comprised of the most perfect human limbs, organs, and bones that Victor

When others saw him, they saw the outside apperance and not what the creature had to offer personality wise. "If the multitude of mankind knew of existence, they would do as you do and arm themseles for my destruction. (Shelley 69). " Here, the creature is explaining that his existence is not only unwanted but is hated. Which leads us back to the theme of prejudiceness, the creature feels excluded from society due to something so uncontrollable as his looks.

Frankenstein is to be “sometimes considered one of the first science fiction novels” (Fox,stacy ”Romantic and Gothic Representation in Frankenstein”). Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley. In this novel the main characters where Victor Frankenstein, his creation the monster, Robert Walton, Elizabeth Lavenza, Alphonse Frankenstein, and Henry Clerval. Frankenstein starts out with a normal boy named Victor Frankenstein who discovers an early interest in science. Victor later goes off to college to study science and ends up creating a monster. Throughout the novel the monster is stereotyped by his looks and is traumatized and goes for revenge against his creator when Victor refuses to make him a

The creature also wants to be noticed. The mountain is very beautiful, but during the storm it may look scary. The creature is can be beautiful through his acts of kindness, like helping people, but also is unattractive and can look and be grotesque. In the essay, “Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s “wet ungenial summer””, Phillips states,

(Shelley). The fact that Frankenstein fled from his creation very shortly after it came to life, proves how he refused to accept his obligations and responsibilities after his creature was created. ?The [creature] is Frankenstein?s abandoned child? (Mellor Abandonment 357). It is unfair to bring something into the world, and then not teach it how to survive. Victor was intimidated by his hideous characteristics and felt threatened by the creature. He did not know his creation at all, so he had no right to judge him. This is an example of how various people and society place too much judgment on physical appearance. The creature had just come into the world for the first time, and the first thing he saw was his creator screaming for his life as a result of his appearance. This traumatized the creation, and caused him to seek revenge on Frankenstein. This novel shows how when people are prejudice against physical deformity or ugliness, it automatically characterizes that person as bad or monstrous (Halberstam 59). Victor was the one who gave him these characteristics; so in fact, he is to blame for the creature?s appearance being so monstrous.

In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the creature is treated injusticely by Victor Frankenstein because he fears him even though he does not know how he really is. He is judged by his looks and no one wants to be his friend because he is different than anyone else. For example, the creature is abandoned by his creator due to fear of his inhuman appearance. What Victor Frankenstein did was unfair and inhuman. Victor Frankenstein also is unfair towards the creature because he refuses to make another creature.

This represents a rebellion against the social norms and customs, something that the 19th-century writers and readers never thought feasible until the Romantic’s break away from Enlightenment ideals. This parallelism in breaking away from social norms and society's backlash in doing so is further personified in the creature’s lack of understanding of why he’s hated. He means well and wants affection, but every single encounter he has with anyone is that of disgusted rejection. The significance of the hatred he receives by pretty much everyone is that it points out society’s own hypocrisy in this facade of “acceptance”. Shelley’s time hailed itself as being revolutionary and the Romantics called themselves accepting of all but social values don’t change that fast, deep down, they still wanted the status quo of everything being ordinary. Furthermore the creature itself is a rebellion to social to norms since he isn't brought to life normally and is instead summoned with science. So the people’s rejection of the creature, is therefore, a rejection of science itself since he is the embodiment of Frankenstein’s pursuit of science. What this goes to show in Shelley’s eyes