Essay on Relationship Between Frankenstein and the Creature

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

The tone of dread is suggested by the narrator’s intentional diction. As soon as the creature gains life, Frankenstein quickly realizes that what he made is not a masterpiece at all. He hoped his creation would be divine, but he soon realized it was a “catastrophe.” The tone instantly shifts from steady unease to dynamic revulsion. Lost for words, the doctor can’t figure out where he went wrong. He put copious amounts of effort into making this project “beautiful,” yet somehow it turned into a “wretch.” In an attempt to make it lively, he gave it “lustrous black” hair and “teeth of pearly whiteness,” but it didn't help. The creature’s eyes had an uncanny resemblance to the “dun-white sockets” in which they lie.

Victor sees his creation as beautiful and yet repugnant, versus the creation story taken from the Bible in which God sees his creation of Adam as ‘good’. The Gothic elements that can be found in this chapter are the grotesque description of the monster's features, the eerie environment (Victor's lab at 1 a.m.), and some type of psychic communication (Victor's feeling of being followed). Also, this chapter builds fear in the reader, another big part of Gothic writing. The monsters actions are slow and juvenile. ‘His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds.’ This suggests that Victor would have felt threatened against the monster because the monster is presenting itself as strong and troublesome. Victor would have felt danger against this monster as he just created it but does not know what it is capable of. This is why when the monster stretches his hand out, Victor Frankenstein runs away downstairs. ‘One hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.’ Victor, at this point, might have felt scared and irresponsible that he can’t face up to his own actions. He would have felt regretful and stupid that he created something or someone without any thought and didn’t take paternal responsibility, like a loving father would do. He is neglecting his own ‘son’. He was too obsessed with science and didn’t think of the consequences.

A dark, historical setting is a key component in creating the tone of a real gothic theme. At a point in the story, Victor returns to his ancient family home upon his arrival he describes feeling a sense of “ grief and fear overcame [him].” (p68) This is the family historical setting. While he is visiting his family, his brother is murdered and the housekeeper is hanged. In Frankenstein, Victor’s laboratory where he creates the paranormal, shows strong evidence of gothic literary elements. Victor's laboratory is where the story begins, where his stroke of genius turns into a nightmare. This laboratory is where he kept the “collected bones from [the] charnel-houses and profane fingers.” (p45) Victor said that “the dissecting room and the slaughter house furnished many of [his] materials.”(p45) These materials were all stored in his laboratory which he had mentioned was a mess due to his busy employment. This means that his laboratory was filthy due to the dead body parts which ranged from eyeballs to limbs. Another gothic literary element presented in Frankenstein is its gloomy setting from the moment his creation lived.He begins by describing the setting as “ a dreary night of november that [he] beheld the accomplishment of [his] toils.”(p48). The author associates the lifeless, and dark weather with the disappointment and fear of accomplishing the

At the first glance, Victor Frankenstein and his Creature appear as complete opposites with little to nothing in common. Victor seems intelligent and humane while the Creature’s actions insinuate that he possesses uneducated and monstrous qualities. After becoming more familiar with the characters and their actions, the pair still seem to have a few differences; however, they share some key characteristics. Finally, after analyzing Frankenstein and the Creature’s personalities and habits, it becomes obvious that the two experience a shocking amount of affinities towards one another. These similarities include loneliness and persistence. Other more specific examples involve their inclination towards playing God and their hunger for knowledge. Demonstrated by the many examples provided throughout the novel, the identifiable common traits between Frankenstein and the Creature continuously develop as the reader obtains a greater understanding of their monstrous personalities.

For the most part the creature and Victor Frankenstein share an unusual bond that helps to reveal their similarities and differences. While neither want to take the blame for the creature's action they both go down a path that starts out well enough and soon takes a turn for the worst. Overall the strange connection between the two fuels their later encounters and personal

Look at the significance of chapter five to the novel as a whole. Focus on the relevance and effect of writer’s use of language to describe setting and character and what it shows about social and historical influences. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley is a complex horror novel that was written during the age of Romanticism. It contains many themes common to a Romantic novel such as death, tragedy, and loneliness. These themes have all arrived through Mary Shelley’s background as the events in this novel have been influenced greatly by her life.

Walton finishes the story with Frankenstein and the monster dying side by side. The key events in chapter five are the rejection and the sudden shock of the monster by Frankenstein, the breakdown and recovery of Frankenstein and the realisation of the letters that were sent by Elizabeth to Frankenstein and never replied to. Mary Shelley shows this very explicitly by the way she uses her choice of words. Her language in this particular chapter is showing the emotion and the suffering that Frankenstein is going through, which includes the pain that he felt when viewing the creature for what he really was.

A main theme throughout the novel is the realization of the monster that he is truly alone in this world. Despite being created by Victor Frankenstein, the monster is, for the most part, left on his own. Although the monster did not realize this at first, through the experiences he had out in the world by himself, he came to learn the sorrow of having no one to care for him. When the creature was first created by Frankenstein, he was described by the scientist in a way which made him already appear disgustingly ugly: His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley touches on the topics of sympathy and abomination. What is the reader feeling about Victor Frankenstein creature? Is he a killer monster or does he deep down inside have feelings and emotion. The author allows you to feel these intricate emotions for the creature, but it's hard deciding which to side with. Throughout the novel, the reader becomes empathic towards the creature.

The true monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is not clearly defined. An argument can be made for each individual to be labeled the monster. I am going to theorize that all three are the actual monster in their own magnificent way. Victor Frankenstein is the monster: Through his absolute desire at playing God, he created life from non-living matter.

The atmosphere of Frankenstein is almost in its entirety eerie, disturbing, and depressing. The atmosphere of this novel also includes its characters, their back stories, the environment they are subjected to, and the actions those characters perform. Victor’s isolation period prior to the gift of life to the creature is a prime example of Shelley’s use of atmosphere to create an eerie and disturbing picture within the reader’s mind. Prior to the creation of the creature Victor goes into complete seclusion to study the recreation of life. He forms the creature from parts of dead criminals. The actions Victor takes paints a dark picture of him that lifts an uneasy feeling inside of the reader’s stomach. The darkness and depressing mood of the piece does not

When Frankenstein strays from the natural world, he strays from the means of his happiness. Frankenstein spirals further from a meaningful life and connection to nature on the “dreary night of November” he gives the creature life. (34). It is unclear whether the meteorological conditions of the night were bleak or just Frankenstein’s outlook on life. He has become disconnected from the joy one gets from nature during the work of the creature, so it is very possible that it was a perfectly pleasant night.

Frankenstein is a classic novel of the Romantic Era. Part of the romantic influence on Frankenstein may have come from Mary’s husband, Percy Shelley, a romantic poet. Mary Shelley wrote the novel during the Summer of Darkness in Geneva, Switzerland in a cottage on Lake Como with Percy and Lord Byron. Mary uses one of the key elements of the Romantic Era, emotion. The terror felt by the monster is not solely do to being different from everyone, but also being terrified of being unlovable. From the moment of his creation, the monster is rejected by his creator, Victor. Victor says he “...beheld the wretch- the miserable monster whom I had created… while a grin wrinkled his cheeks… I escaped…” (59). The creature is eager to meet Victor, a deity

Frankenstein’s monster could not have come out of any other genre of literature of the time, and Frankenstein’s experiments couldn’t have either. Shelley was very aware when creating ‘Frankenstein’ that the language and themes are most definitely gothic. The mysterious, dark and gloomy settings and overall tone of the novel are wonderful examples of Gothic tropes. The psychological effect of gothic literature does take its toll on its readers, the language and events are exhausting throughout ‘Frankenstein’. They are torn mentally and emotionally between mankind and his experiments in which he claims will do the greater good and the creature, who becomes abandoned and confused with no understanding of mankind. Subtler is the affective nature of Victor’s comfort with abandonment. We deeply sympathise with the monster despite him being a cold murder as we have an understanding that he is retaliating due to the harsh actions of his father/creator. Similar to Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is Mathew Lewis’s “ The Monk”, adopts the idea of an almighty controller who the reader is intended to trust, eventually revealing himself to be a sinner.