Victor Frankenstein as the Monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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:

Victor Frankenstein was not only a scientist, but also a creator, and father. He brought his creature to life, but then instead of putting its visual misfortune aside, he ran from it, out of fear. This is similar to Boo Radley in “To Kill A Mockingbird” in the sense that people immediately fear things that do not look like themselves. All of that aside Frankenstein should have helped his creation to understand the world before casting it out. With the circumstances given to him, the creature did the best he could.

Many times children abandoned at birth may feel shame and self doubt for the rest of their lives. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Monster may be seen as a newborn baby who knows nothing of the world, who is abandoned by Victor. His grotesque appearance causes Victor to form a quick judgement about his creation which then leads to Victor fleeing before understanding the being. The creature was born with basic conceptions of love that soon turns from shame to hatred, due to ignorance. Victor's abandonment, as well as society's neglect of the creature, ultimately leaves the monster isolated and possessed with a spirit of cruelty and vengeance.

At ‘birth’, Victor abandoned the Creature because it was ugly. This is shown in Peter Brooks criticism, “ Frankenstein's immediate reaction to the appearance of the monster is to tell it to go away. When the Creature persists his claim that he has the right to a hearing with his creator, Frankenstein curses the day of the monster's creation” (Brooks). In the era, appearance was of utmost importance and described your social class. Society was corrupt and saw the Creature as ugly, which deemed the Creature evil. Brooks describes this in his criticism also, “Frankenstein first published in 1818, concerns an exotic body with a difference, a distinct prevision from the tradition of desirable objects” (Brooks). Conversely, society excepted Victor due to his wealth and social class. This behavior enraged the Creature and set him on a path to destruction. Even when the Creature is at his best, society describes him as the worst. “Along the way to his meeting with Frankenstein, The Monster - after being shot and wounded by a rustic whose daughter he has saved from drowning - commits his first murder, that of Frankenstein’s brother William in a scene that evokes the question of relation in that's most acute ways” (Brooks). This behavior eventually leads to the Creatures

Victor Frankenstein’s creation of the creature in Frankenstein was a main character in the book. Victor was attending the University of Ingolstadt and was heavily interested in the subject of anatomy and science. He was so interested that he decided to take on the challenge of bringing back life from a dead human corpse, and so he does. It was successful as the creature was self-aware. On the outward appearances, he was very ugly to the look. In Victor’s society, being ugly was stereotypicalized as harmful, disgusting, and nobody wanted to be with you. You can compare this to the treatment of people with different races in our modern society; take the African race for example: they are often stereotypicalized as harmful and bad, but most of them do not intend any harm. This explains why Victor was so shocked when the creature woke up.

In the novel Frankenstein, the real Monster is Victor himself. It’s simple to understand and very clear to see. He may not look like one or realize that it is him, but many things throughout the book point you to the conclusion that the creature isn’t the monster. It stuck out to me the entire time reading this, but there were a couple spots that really made me realize who the real monster was. For example in Ch. 5, where he startled himself by his own creation and again in Ch.

During the course of the novel Frankenstein, Victor’s creation is repeatedly broken down and transformed mentally by its innate longing for acceptance in society. The creature was constructed unnaturally, and therefore is unwanted and loathsome in man’s eyes. Even in the creation’s nascent stages, Victor runs from it and deserts his creation. This loneliness at first sparks a desire to be loved, which soon shifts into madness as it becomes clear the desire cannot be filled. The near-insanity of the creature drives a theme of monstrosity throughout the novel, first touching upon the creation’s outward appearance, then on the monster’s all-consuming rage.

One of the main characters in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a nameless creature created in laboratory by Victor Frankenstein and abandoned by Victor right after its birth. The creature was left alone to learn by himself, to find food, to figure out how the world works. The creature is one of a kind, but he is alone and lonely. While isolated by his appearance he becomes driven by revenge, the creature is feared by everyone it meet, he is abandoned and hated even by its creator. And this loneliness and need for companionship, which he can never have, is the reason for the change from monster by appearance to monster by action.

Victor Frankenstein has created a horrendous creature that he is not proud to call his creation after it has been brought to life. On page 36, he says “when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became such a thing as even Dante could not have conceived”, showing that he could not bear to see the creature in its alive state. This alone began the animosity towards the monster he created. Victor allowed his

The creation is not only shut out by Victor because of its look, but society shuts him out. too. “I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me,” said Victor’s creation in the novel Frankenstein (Shelley 103). Victor’s creature knew that his appearance would turn people away, yet there was nothing he was able to do. The society that got a glimpse of this monster was mortified by his grotesque-like appearance and his in able to communicate well.

Within these novels these characters are rejected from society due to their appearance,and labeled outsiders. The Creature from the novel Frankenstein is abandoned by his creator Victor Frankenstein due to his deformities, because of this he is forced to navigate himself through a completely new world. Because of this, he is forced to live in isolation and his self hate grows as he reads the poem “Paradise Lost”,”Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” (Cross 119). As shown above The Creature is deeply affected from the isolation he experiences and commences to understand the reason he is rejected from society. This understanding further augmentation his self-hate and the feeling of

Victor Frankenstein had a glorious childhood brought by well-praised, loving parents, whom were possessed by “the very spirit of kindness and indulgence.” His parents treated Victor fairly; tendering him whenever he needed, allowing him to acquire great knowledge, and being his helping hand, or a push towards success, when he desired. Victor’s life seemed to tick off all those boxes; meanwhile, the creature’s didn’t. Frankenstein, the creature’s only so-called ‘family’, had degraded the ‘Being’. Belittling his creation, Frankenstein congregated the creature in a grotesque manner with: yellow eyes and a giant frame, which brings me to my subsequent point.

During his life the creature has been treated with only anger and hate by those who perceived him as a monster just because he was different. These actions caused the creature to hate humanity and those who had hurt him, but he hated no one more than he hated his creator Victor Frankenstein for making him then abandoning him when he found the creature too repulsive, and had decided that he had created a monster instead of a

Society does not take kindly to new and different people, and especially those that appear dangerous. The looks of new characters in society heavily influence the way we view them and their intentions. For example when, “a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me,” Victor assumes his Creature is trying to detain him because of the Creature’s grotesque appearance gets instinctively associate with that of a monster’s appearance (Shelley 44). Although Victor does this it is not like any other normal person would not have done the same thing. In fact most people would probably react the same way, because, we as a society have created these stereotypes of appearances and actions. In this case the Creature even though he basically is a child he does not look it at all, and that’s when society pushes reasoning aside and tells one’s mind that this Creature looks like a monster and by that logic it must want to hurt people. The Creature is not human he is something between human and Creature. Mr. Cottom agrees that, “for in addition to upsetting the exemplary coherence of the body, the concept of man as a species, the foundation of society in the family, individual identity, and the rule of consciousness in the individual, the monster overturns the power of science,” (Cottom). Since society approves the denouncing of others that are different, whether it be race, religion, or etc. the Creature’s body is an unfortunate piece of him. It’s interesting though because supposedly Frankenstein had chosen the best parts for the Creature to make him a beautiful and elegant Creature. However, once brought to life his body is actually hideous and revolts anybody that lays eyes on him

In the novel, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, she creates a demon in Victor Frankenstein's creation that is so hell-bent on vengeance and murder, one cannot help but see him as the true monster within the story. Victor Frankenstein's creation was a monster because he murdered all those around him that were dear to Victor Frankenstein in the hopes of