A tormented existence can only result in one’s demise. Forming healthy relationships is a staple of human life. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature was fated to become a product of his environment. Perhaps one of the greatest influences in one’s life is how one is raised. The Creature is wrongly treated due to his frightening facade. In this novel, it can be made obvious that it is not what is on the inside that counts. The Creature’s very existence is supernatural. The Creature was formed from corpses and artificially brought to life by lightning. The Creature was intended to be a superior human race, used to serve/praise Victor. Victor says “ A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me” (Shelley 39). According to the article The Noble Savage in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Milton …show more content…
Victor spent the remainder of his life chasing his “albatross” (the Creature). The Creature talks to Robert Walton after the death of Victor. Robert was startled, but treated him better than any human ever did. The Creature satisfied yet saddened by his creator’s death. According to the article Frankenstein by Virginia Brackett, the Creature weeps over the death of his father/creator, which displays a clear sign of remorse (Brackett 1). The Creature embodies child like actions as the result of Victor’s death (Brackett 1). The Creature tells Walton that he intends on dying and he won’t harm anyone else. The Creature is truly a “miserable monster” due to the lack of nurture in one’s early life. Victor created him with passion, which unfortunately didn’t carry into their relationship. The Creature cannot fit societal norms due to his physical appearance. The Creature was fated to become one with his environment. The lack of nurture dominates the Creature’s adulthood. Unhealthy relationships led to the Creature’s eventual
For many people, the creature was the antagonist of Frankenstein. People don't see him as human, even though he was created with human body parts. Many think simply because he was dead and brought back, the creature must be evil. Many people think he only wants to haunt his creator and make him suffer. However, the creature
The creature's physical grotesqueness makes the creature unable to attain affection from the human societies. The creature is initially rejected by his creator, who is the closest resemblance to a mother or father figure. Despite this relationship, Victor finds the creature to be a "miserable monster" (39). Consequently, as soon as life is present within the creature, Victor abandons his child. Victor claims that he "escaped, and rushed down the stairs" (40) away from the
After the death of Frankenstein, the Creature is met face-to-face with Walton, and here the Creature meets his final challenge of communicating and addressing a human who might have compassion for him. Upon seeing and hearing from the Creature, Walton experiences similar reactions as Frankenstein upon first communicating with the Creature. His physical appearance once again stains with utter disgust any attempt at showing benevolence: “Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily” (Shelley 211). Once this reaction takes place, the Creature’s words do cause a small time of wavering of compassion for Walton, although ultimately he does reject the Creature once
Through a lifetime of abuse and suffering, all inflicted at the hand of his only paternal figure, the monster still reveals that he did in fact love Victor in his own twisted way. As exclaimed by the monster in the final pages: “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds” (page 277) In this moment, his confliction, and inclination towards a certain dramatic death in order to now right his own wrongs (ironic, right?) reveals him to be even more human than Victor himself, who can only come to the conclusion that he may hold some affectionate feelings for his own creature, a clear representation of what could be his only child: “His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought that as I could not sympathize with him, I had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow” (page
you belong to my enemy - to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.” (Shelley 62) Here The Creature is not just an innocent childish creature anymore, here we find The Creature having hold of a random person at first but when he finds out this is Frankenstein blood; he instantly becomes a murderer. After the incident, The Creature becomes demanding to Victor he later asks for one last wish from his dreadful maker. Shelley writes, “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (Shelley 63). Instantly, Frankenstein denies and while The Creature is able to persuade the mad scientist for some time; Frankenstein goes to and fro from being an advocate to outright denying The Creatures request. After much arguing and dealing around, Victor gives in. However after heading back to Geneva Victor is unable to get himself to work and create this new being, and he is scared out of his mind since Victor understands the severity of what The Creature can do to him. Ultimately, as the course of events in Shelley’s “Frankenstein” it is clear to see that the creature lives a life that is cruel and a life that no one can truly understand. As well as living a life and having his pure and unknowing innocence stripped away by the hardships of
The monster notices that humans are afraid of him because of his appearance, he feels embarrassed of himself, as humans do when they don’t seem to be accepted. He admires the De Lacey Family that lives in the cottage, he also learns from them, and hopes to have companion as they do. The monster is like humans, as mentioned, in the way that he wants someone to listen and care about him. He is discovering the world and his capacities, he seeks knowledge and understand plenty aspects of life by learning how to speak and read. “The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys” (Shelley 47). The monster developed feelings and emotions as humans. The creature is different from humans also, since he never got to grow up as a normal human, and
In the story of “Frankenstein”, Victor Frankenstein creates a creature. When the creature awakens Victor is so disgusted in his creation, he runs away and becomes severely depressed.. The creature searches for Victor, but ends up finding a little boy who turns out to be Victor's little brother, William. The creature kills William, and Victor comes home for the funeral. This is how the creature finds him. While reading the book you notice that all the Creature ever wanted was for Victor to love him. He kind of saw him as a god, and as his creator he must have to love him. The Creature soon realizes that Victor despises him. So he proposes a deal, Victor creates a wife for him and he’ll leave. In the process of creating his wife victor stops, he tears all the pieces apart. The creature slowly ruins Victor's life. When Victor is on his deathbed the Creature comes to him and cries. The Creature ends up killing himself shortly after. Throughout the book we learn to understand why the creature did what he did. He hurt Victor because Victor hurt him. He just wanted to be accepted by Victor, above anything else. We see the story through Victors and The creatures perspectives. Victor hated that he created the creature and he thought that he was his biggest mistake, and the creature just wanted to be
A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques. Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love. To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”. Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility. Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s
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:
Alhough Victor Frankenstein calls his creature a monster, and considers it disgusting and abhorrent, it is in fact Frankenstein who behaves monstrously. He claims to have created the creature for a noble purpose: to defeat death. However, it is clear that his motives
Like most horror stories, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has a wretched monster who terrorizes and kills his victims with ease. However, the story is not as simple as it seems. One increasingly popular view of the true nature of the creature is one of understanding. This sympathetic view is often strengthened by looking at the upbringing of the creature in the harsh world in which he matures much as a child would. With no friends or even a true father, the creature can be said to be a product of society and its negative views and constant rejections of him. Although this popular view serves to lessen the severity of his crimes in most people’s eyes, the fact remains that the creature is in fact a cold-hearted wretch whose vindictive nature
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.
Victor Frankenstein was a regular scientist until he became obsessed and mentally ill. “This state of mind preyed upon my health… all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation-deep, dark, deathlike solitude” (Shelley 77). Mary Shelley created the character Victor, who devoted most of his time, research, and effort into creating a being which can hold life. Victor became successful, yet mentally scarred after the sight of his creature. This hurt Victor, but not as harshly as the creature's following actions. The creature goes on to kill members of Victor’s family and kill his closest and dearest friends. The creature’s actions cause Victor to suffer both mentally and physically. Victor then falls back
Likewise, Victor Frankenstein allows his emotional senses to give way to a hatred of the Creature without even giving the Creature a chance. After seeing the hideous creation made by his own hands, Victor refrains from taking responsibility of the actions of the Creature, even when his conscious tells him it is his duty to. On the night of the creation, Victor recalls that the creature, who he emotionally describes as a monster, “held up the curtain of the bed … one hand stretched out, seemingly to detain [Victor], but [he] escaped … catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of
It was made out of many dead bodies which made it look ugly. When Victor saw the creature alive in front of him, he was scared by the thought of what he ended up with. Frankenstein’s monster is like a new-born baby. It did not know how to speak or cope up with the world. When Victor turned his back on the monster, it felt betrayed. It did not get the love and support it should’ve been given. Also, when the world was reluctant to accept the creature even after it helped them, it started harming the people who hurt him. It felt lonely as it was not taken care of by the only father figure he had, Victor himself. The monster told Victor, “You had made me, but why had you not looked after me, and saved me from this pain and unhappiness?” (Page 30) This showed how much deprived of happiness the monster was, which made him take revenge from Frankenstein.