The Humanization of a 'Monster'

His fear inducing appearance adds to his state of isolation, so much so that even his own creator “found himself filled with horror and fear at the hideous thing he created.”(Nardo 51). His abruptly ended friendship with the blind man only worsens his painful desolation since he now understands what a true friendship is like. The monster longs for a companion and begs to Victor “You must create a female for me with whom I can live” (Shelley 144) and pleads with him for a mate of the opposite sex. When this demand is not met, the monster fills with rage toward Victor, and he vows revenge upon

When the monster is betrayed by Victor the only thing that comforts his hurting is the thought and idea of revenge. The monster goes after Victor's brother, little William. When Victor finds out about his loss, he knows it was the monster which had made him feel devastated about what has occurred. This broke Victor emotionally because the relationship he had with his brother was robust. Victor cared about his brother more than his owned wife Elizabeth. The mindest the monster had was knowledgeably because of the way he knew taking the closest person away from Victor will harm him the most.

This is when Frankenstein decides to do the right thing and not create a female monster for his creation to be with. When Victor is faced with a question on the subject, he thinks about his morals and says that the monster, “may render him the most miserable of men, but (the monster) shall never make base of him in his own eyes.” (129) This shows that Victor might actually have some heart after all, at least for himself, if not the ones he cares about. He believes that if he were to, “create another like (the monster), their joint wickedness may desolate the world.” (129) Ceding to the monster’s demands would be unethical because of two reasons: another monster to wreak havoc upon the world, and the potential for “monster babies”, which is to be feared for obvious reasons. Therefore, Victor is correct in refusing to grant the monster’s demands.

Throughout his life, Victor is constantly frightened that the monster will come back for him. It is not until Elizabeth is killed that Victor overcomes his apprehension about the monster. He joins the villagers that are gathered outside and goes up into the mountains to search fearlessly for the monster. Victor goes out by himself and finds the monster. Victor doesn’t seem to be frightened when he confronts the monster, and ultimately is trying to kill him, which is similar to his motives at the end of the novel. Although the fearfulness and the change of motives are similar throughout the novel and the film, there are differences too.

It’s because the monster is filled up with overwhelming hate and anger because there is no one out there like him. The more he killed Victor's loved ones, the more attention the creature received from Victor. Eventually he had killed everyone close to Victor and had gained Victor's full attention, when Victor vowed to do everything within his "power to seize the monster” (190). Now both Victor and the creature had no one to love, only one person to seek revenge from.

Victor and the monster hate each other and eventually seek revenge on one another (60). In the beginning, Victor was passionate about his creation of life, he thought it was a brilliant idea (79). However, he was unable to “endure the aspect of the being [he] had created” (84) after the completion of the creature. The monster appeared to be friendly as “a grin wrinkled his cheeks” (84) and tried to communicate with Victor (84). However, Victor tried to avoid him and did not want to associate himself with the monster at all (84). The monster was furious and “[swore] eternal revenge” (154) when his creator rejected him because of his appearance. Therefore, when the monster knew that William was related to Victor, he became enraged and killed him (154). As the monster continued to kill Victor’s family, Victor pledged that he will get revenge on the creature (60). The exchanges between these two individuals were an indication of Victor’s vengeful

The monster has no relationship with Victor besides a need for revenge. When Victor created the monster, he looked at him in disgust. He abandoned his creation after looking at the creation with horror. This feels the monster with loneliness and rage, so he goes and lives on Felix’s farm. However, he realizes how alone he is, so he returns to Frankenstein and demands a female partner. He promises to cease all relations with his creator if he can give him a mate. Victor reluctantly agrees and builds a bride for the fiend he created. However, he destroys the female and dumps the body in the lake, much to the anger of the monster, shown when he states “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?”

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

According to page 76 in chapter 10 “...that I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!”, this shows how angry he was to the monster. By knowing and reading this you can notice and get a sense of feel of how Victor was now starting to regret creating the monster. On page 79 in chapter 10 it says “ Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined,” circumstances of which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and author? Cursed (although I cursed myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.”, this shows how he feels now that he has seen what the monsters has

While Victor is looked upon to be a normal man while the creature is seen as a monster specifically because of his physical appearance. At eight feet, with a gigantic body and a disfigured face, society only looks upon the creature with fear and disgust. However, I wonder, couldn’t Victor be a monster as well? He abandoned the creature in the horror of the moment and even attempts to take the creature’s life at one point. To me, the creature’s feelings of rage, revenge, and hurt are what any “normal” human would have felt if left to fend for themselves on their own, with no experience of love or kindness from anyone.

Shelley explains how Victor has a great mental turmoil after he indirectly caused the death of people who were close to him by the actions he took to create the monster. Shelley’s description of Victor’s feelings show the deprivation of hope and fear in his soul and the emphasises the pain in which he was indirectly the cause of. Victor not only caused his own mental illness, but he also caused his own physical illness. Victor makes himself physically sick by his actions during the creation of his monster. Victor’s work unintentionally causes himself to decline in health and become vulnerable to illnesses. “When Victor is working on his experiment, he cannot love: he ignores his family, even his fiance Elizabeth, and takes no pleasure in the beauties of nature. Moreover, he becomes physically… ill, subject to nervous fevers”(Weiner 83). Victor is shown to focus directly on his work, causing him to forget most of the outside world and not be influenced by forces that usually comfort and heal him. His work makes Victor subject to nervous fevers, causing himself to become sick more often and need help from family and friends more often. Although the process of creating the monster was physically taxing on Victor, the end product caused him even more pain. The creation of the creature impaired

Victor, after being convinced to create a female companion for the monster, realizes that this will only create double the amount of destruction, he then makes the choice to discontinue his project to prevent more devastation. Instead of less damage resulting from this choice it only brings more harm to his life and everyone around him. First, his good friend Henry Clerval is murdered by the beast and Victor is accused of this murder, “The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions.” (Shelley 129). This was Victor’s reaction upon seeing Henry’s corpse and demonstrates how deeply his pursuit for knowledge affects him. Even though he is later released on circumstantial evidence, he will be scarred for life knowing that he responsible for yet another death. Given that Victor destroyed the monster’s only hope of having someone else like him in the world; the monster swears revenge and that he will return on Victor’s wedding night. Victor misinterpreted this warning and instead of the monster attacking Victor, his creation attacked and

The monster believed that Victor would accept him, but after he realized that not only did Victor not want to assume his position in the monster’s life, but society also rejected him, it became a transitory thought, and instead became replaced with his bloodthirst towards Victor and his loved ones, which he knew would hurt way worse than just killing him; making him lonely like himself. Both Victor and the monster partook in horrid acts, in which held horrendous actions; the main one being Victor creating the monster in the first place which in result caused the both of them heartbreak, loneliness, and pain. If Victor wouldn’t have created the monster, then his life would not be filled with so much grief and emptiness; Victor is the true monster, although they are both the primal protagonists as much as they are the antagonists because of the display of the emotions they both portray as lamenting humans/monsters, and the power they give to nature in order to destroy one another. Victor used nature to his advantage, although it was wrong; Victor used nature to create and destroy the monster; he used the

Even after being rejected, the monster gave Victor another chance. The monster asked him to create a partner for it. But Victor denied the monster’s request. He thought that if he creates another monster, both of them together would only increase his problems. He wondered “Perhaps the two monsters would hate each other… and would kill. And murder, and destroy… without end.” (Page 37) So he cut the body of the female monster he made. This made the monster furious and more violent. The monster killed every person Victor loved and also became the reason for his death at the end. Here, the killings symbolizes the hatred of the