The Environment In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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.

We react with ambivalence to this question because we have been exposed to both sides of the story, which is a rarity in most cases. Shelley represents the creature as truly monstrous and evil through the eyes of Victor Frankenstein, which gives readers the opportunity to view Frankenstein as the hero. It is only when we read the creature’s account that we began to feel both sympathy and even empathy for the struggles he has encountered. The creature never asked to be born and continually suffers at the hands of other throughout the novel. It is hard not to feel sympathy with someone who is so childlike and “new” to the world. Especially when the creature cries out in agony: “‘Cursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of your’s, more horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested’” (Shelley, 91). The creature also goes on to say: “‘Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?’” (Shelley, 95). How could one not feel sympathy for someone who hated themselves? Humans have experienced such feelings of loneliness and isolation. The creature even says that Satan, of all people, had friends, but he is so hideous that he is utterly alone in the world. All

While Creature is full of humanity and has a thirst for knowledge, his longing for acceptance in society is met with constant rejection. Through this rejection, it sparks anger into the Creature for his irresponsible creator, Victor Frankenstein. Creature’s anger leads to greater tragedies for Victor. The greater of the tragedies are the murdering of innocent people including Victor’s family that is seen to be the fault of Creature since he is the one who murdered them. If Victor did not abandon the Creature and had taught him murder was not morally correct, Creature would not have committed the heinous acts.When Creature was first theoretically born, he was introduced into the world in a very harsh way. Metaphorically, Creature starts out into the world as a newborn, needing a parent 's guidance and teachings. Victor abandons him immediately with no sense of direction. Creature, after his “birth”, approaches Victor with a hand of longing for compassion. “He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they maybe called, were fixed on me...He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out” (Shelley 35). Victor instead of showing acceptance immediately runs away at the sight of him.

Man changes all the time. His emotions, state in life, body figure and even peace of mind can change in a matter of moments. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, one of the themes expressed repeatedly is the mutability of the state of man. Victor Frankenstein emotions and states of life change many times in this novel. Mary Shelley uses Victor Frankenstein to show the audience that the only thing that does not change is the fact that human beings are always changing. Some of these changes come by impulse other changes may come by changes in the surrounding environment.

As the reader digs deep into the novel, it becomes clear that the monster started his life in a state of innocence. However, he soon acquired language and learned that life truly was a competition. He needed to fend for himself. He needed to gain skills and figure out how to survive. But the creature soon learned of his capabilities. He could strike fear into anyone who laid eyes on him. He could also kill any human being that decided to cross his path. So after learning that life was genuinely grueling for him, the monster desired to escape his life of solitude. He approached Victor demanding a lady creature. When Victor eventually refuses to create this creature for the monster, he finally collects all of the power he possesses and decides to turn against Victor for ruining the only hope that the monster had in life. From that point on, the monster uses his physical power to wreck havoc on Victor’s life in every way possible. Without the physical power that Victor gave him when he was created, the novel would not have been so full of hatred and anger. Most importantly, his physical strength and power was the reason this novel was so gruesome and terrifying. It brought an end to many lives, including Victor’s

Shelley addresses romantic conventions in Victor to convey his loss of identity. Victor is impatient and restless when constructing the creation, so much, that he does not think about it’s future repercussions. One of the great paradoxes that Shelley’s novel depicts is giving the monster more human attributes than to it’s creator [p. 6 - Interpretations]. This is true as the monster seeks an emotional bond, but Victor is terrified of it’s existence. The monster later reveals, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurred at and kicked and trampled on [Shelley, p. 224].” Victor’s lack of compassion is rooted from the inability to cope with his reality. He distances himself from others and is induced with fainting spells [Shelley, p. 59]. From this, the nameless creature exemplifies Victor’s attempt to abandon his creation to escape his responsibilities. His creation is described as, ‘wretched devil’ and ‘abhorred monster,’ eliciting that the unobtainable, pitied identity [Shelley, p. 102]. The act of not naming the creature reveals Victor as hateful, and unnaturally disconnected to his own created victim.

The novel begins and ends in the Arctic. This cold and desolate setting is used to correlate with the feelings that the Creature is experiencing and the emptiness in Victor’s heart. Geneva, in this novel, represents love because all of Victor’s loved ones live here. The Creature obviously has no regard for this love as he murders Victor’s family. Ingolstadt is where Victor attends college and the city of the Creature’s creation. It seems as though the Creature’s “birth” here foreshadows how intellectual the Creature will become. As Victor chases the Creature through Europe, Russia, and the Arctic, it shows that Victor is persistent and will stop at nothing to get

In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, the creation, made from scraps of corpses, was built by Victor Frankenstein, a man fascinated and obsessed with the knowledge of life. Following the creation’s rouse, Victor immediately abandons him with no desire on keeping or teaching his new being. Because of his lack of nourishment and direction “growing up”, the creation goes through a process of self-deception. He endures a period of deceit by believing that he is a normal human being like everyone around him. But as time progresses, he learns to accept how he is alone in this world and disconnected with everyone. Because of the creation’s lack of guidance and isolation, he grows up feeling unwanted.

Although Frankenstein is a fictional story, I think in many ways it is representative of Mary Shelley personal views in her everyday life. Mary Shelley was raised by her father after her mother passed and because of that they always had a rocky relationship even after her father remarried. Mary fell in love with one of her father’s political followers, Percy Shelley and they got married although her father did not approve of their relationship because of the age difference. Throughout their relationship, they faced many obstacles that made it hard for their relationship to work, but it did. This aspect of her relationship is show through Elizabeth in the novel because it shows how hard women will work to make a relationship work even when

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.

Quote: He stated “I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe…..I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation–deep, dark, deathlike solitude.”(Page 88).

Beauty is often the most lethal poison. It intoxicates both the beholder and the beheld. Humans are raised into a society that instills certain standards of elegance and beauty. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the woes and misery of the monster is brought to the readers’ attention as humans constantly berate and abuse the creature for it’s hideous body. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein discusses the advantages and the detriments that an alluring versus unappealing body provides a person, and how that person is affected due to the pressures and assumptions of society placed upon their shoulders. Mary Shelley may have been amongst the first to examine the concept of beauty and the advantages it provides. She insinuates that the conformity of the ideals of beauty place shackles, and struggles upon those who do not fit into such standards.

In her fear-provoking novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores the consequences of fervently pursuing a desire for knowledge. She reveals the dangers of acquiring knowledge through her character, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes so consumed with discovering the origin of life that he eventually endows life upon a creature built from lifeless matter. However, Victor neglects his duties as a creator by abandoning his creation, as he is immediately disgusted by the creature’s appearance. On his own, the creature is constantly rejected by society due to his appearance, and ultimately, he vows revenge on his creator. The creature fulfills this task by murdering most of Victor’s loved ones, including his closest friend, Henry Clerval, and his own

Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” touches on isolation as the result of sin. Victor creates a “monster” and is disturbed by his final creation. Furthermore, he is forced to live with the consequences of his creation. But the scary part is that Victor and the creation become more similar as the book goes on. Both the creation and Victor are isolated. It took Victor two years to make the creation, during which time he isolated himself. And after the creation was done, Victor isolated him, which lead to the creation killing Victor’s family and friends. However, it is hard to pin down who the “monster” really was. The creation killed Elizabeth, but Victor left the creation abandoned. However, I don’t think either one of them can be called “monsters.”

Introduction: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is a book with a deep message that touches to the very heart. This message implies that the reader will not see the story only from the perspective of the narrator but also reveal numerous hidden opinions and form a personal interpretation of the novel. One of its primary statements is that no one is born a monster and a “monster” is created throughout socialization, and the process of socialization starts from the contact with the “creator”. It is Victor Frankenstein that could not take the responsibility for his creature and was not able to take care of his “child”. Pride and vanity were the qualities that directed Victor Frankenstein to his discovery of life: “...So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein-more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation”[p.47]. He could not cope with this discovery and simply ignored it. The tragedy of Victor Frankenstein and the tragedy of his creature is the same – it is the tragedy of loneliness and confronting the world, trying to find a place in it and deserve someone’s love. The creature would have never become a monster if it got the love it strived for. Victor Frankenstein would have never converted his creature into a monster if he knew how to love and take responsibility for the ones we bring to this world.