Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
What view of the being is conveyed in Chapter 5 of Frankenstein and to what extent does this view change when the being narrates his own story in chapters 11-16?
Frankenstein, the gothic novel, was written in 1818, by Mary Shelley when she was 18. It was published when she was 21. Mary Shelley was married to the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and they got married in 1816. This novel is about an obsessed man, Victor Frankenstein, that creates another life using science. Soon, he regrets his actions and ‘the creation’ comes back to ruin him. In this essay, I will be exploring the many themes in the novel, the use of language and the structure that Mary Shelley used to manipulate our minds and the contrast between the different narrators viewpoint.
Mary Shelley uses three narrators to convey her story. The fact that she had used a range of characters to narrate the story meant that we had a different judgement of the being and what he was actually like. The first narrator is Robert Walton; a brave and determined man that is the English ship captain. The second narrator is Victor Frankenstein; the man who created ‘the being’ and became caught up in science. And the last narrator is ‘the being’ itself; an ugly, disliked ‘man’ that changed our view when he became the narrator. In chapter 5, Victor Frankenstein is narrating the story. He is successful in bringing his creation to life. However, he becomes horrified of the creature's appearance. He describes it as “hideous” and a “wretch”. Without a guide, the creature eventually becomes a monster and gets his revenge on Frankenstein for using him as an experiment. Yet, in chapters 11-16, the creat...
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...he DeLacey family, he wants to make himself known. Nobody else is at home, except for the blind grandfather, therefore he treats him as a friend because he can’t see him. As soon as the rest of the family return, they beat him away, because they think that he will harm their grandfather. Later, the creature saves a girl but he gets shot because a man claims her. Then he swears revenge on Victor Frankenstein for bringing him into the world and abandoning him at ‘birth’.
The creature feels furious and frustrated that things like that could happen to him. So, he goes on in search of Victor to destroy him. He finds out Frankenstein’s village and approaches a little boy called William – Victor’s son. He tries to make friends with him but realises that he is related to Victor Frankenstein. He then kills the little boy and goes, again, in search of the rest of the family.
Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein is a novel narrated by Robert Walton about Victor Frankenstein and the Monster that he creates. Frankenstein grew up surrounding himself with what he loved most, science. He attended Ingolstadt University where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy, but being involved in academics was not enough for him. Frankenstein wanted to discover things, but did not think about the potential outcomes that could come with this decision. Frankenstein was astonished by the human frame and all living creatures, so he built the Monster out of various human and animal parts (Shelley, 52). At the time Frankenstein thought this creation was a great discovery, but as time went on the Monster turned out to be terrifying to anyone he came in contact with. So, taking his anger out on Frankenstein, the Monster causes chaos in a lot of people’s lives and the continuing battle goes on between the Monster and Frankenstein. Throughout this novel, it is hard to perceive who is pursuing whom as well as who ends up worse off until the book comes to a close.
The creature was created with the intention of goodness and purity but because of this, he wasn’t equipped to deal with the rejection of his creator. After Victor Frankenstein’s death, Robert Walton walks in to see the creature standing over his friend’s lifeless body.
The creature displays his hatred toward Frankenstein for leaving him immediately and not providing guidance and protection in this harsh, new world by murdering his family and friends. While seeking his creator, the creature first murders Victor Frankenstein’s youngest brother William and exclaims, “I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him” (Shelley 144). The creature wishes for Victor Frankenstein to suffer taking his own companions away, forcing him to be miserable as well by destroying his personal relationships with others by murdering loved ones. Through the rejection of the creature because of his physical appearance, he learns what is accepted as well as how you can treat another being as he succumbs to his anger and proceeds with his crimes. The creature tells Frankenstein, “your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish your happiness forever.
Many authors have different ways of building characters and how they look. It is up to the reader to build their perspective from the descriptions given by the author in order to understand books. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, sculpts the readers’ perspective of her monster through powerful diction and emotional syntax. After Dr. Frankenstein finally accomplishes his goal of re-animating a lifeless human, Shelley uses her strong word choice to fully express the extent of horror that Frankenstein had felt, describing his monster as a “demonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life.” (Shelley 45). Frankenstein’s horror is shared with the reader simply from a well descripted sentence. The detail Shelley put into Victor Frankenstein’s perspective is gradually shaping our own, as the reader’s, perspective. Furthermore, the diction being used adds a more definitive appearance to the monster. It helps us imagine what the monster looks like and additionally, how Frankenstein feels about his success.
Victor Frankenstein creates a creature that he considers to be treacherous. Since the creature was created it obtains no knowledge of what it is or what is happening. Victor abandons the creature and the creature becomes filled with hate as it is constantly rejected by humans. The creature uses nature to survive. The creature also self teaches himself and becomes aware that he is a monster. He then swears to get revenge on Victor for leaving him alone. He gets his revenge by killing Victor's family. Victor then swears to get revenge on the creature, and decides that the best way to do so is by bringing the creature as far away from human civilization as possible. Thesis?!
because of the way he is just abandoned by Victor and the way in which
What is a monster, really? Is it really a Creature that has three eyes instead of two, with pus seeping out of every crevice in his face and an abnormally large form? Or is it someone with a mind so corrupt it rivals that of Satan? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story within a story that centers on the tale of a man with an immense thirst of knowledge and a fetish to imitate the Creator. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a lot like the Greek mythological tale of the Greek God, Prometheus, and his brother, Epimetheus, who were assigned the task of creating man. The story captivates the theme of monstrosity. Mary Shelley wrote the novel in a form so the reader’s opinions never stray far from sympathy for the monster and apathy for Victor Frankenstein. The novel looks at “Monstrosity” and “Humanity” in a deeply analytical way.
The idea for the novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to her one night when she was staying in the company of what has been called ‘her male coterie’, including Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley. Mary Shelley’s whole life seems to have been heavily influenced by men. She idolised her father, William Godwyn, and appears to have spent a good part of her life trying very hard to impress both him and her husband. There seems to have been a distinct lack of female influence, her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, having died weeks after her birth, being replaced by a neglectful step-mother. These aspects of her life are perhaps evident in her novel. The characters and plot of Frankenstein were perhaps influenced by Shelley’s conflicting feelings about the predominately masculine circle which surrounded her, and perhaps the many masculine traits that we see in novel were based upon those of the male figures in Shelley’s own life. In this essay I will attempt to show some of these traits.
There was no one left to provide the creature with companionship and was forced to isolate himself from society once again. When the family moved out of their cottage, the creature decided to go on his own adventure and seek out his creator. Upon doing so, the creature encountered a young girl who was about to drown near a lake. When the creature successfully saved the little girl, an older man confronted the creature and shot him in the shoulder. Because of what happened, the creature explained to Frankenstein that his, “...daily vows rose for revenge-a deep deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish [he] had endured.” (Shelley 61). With this burning rage, the creature decided to take his revenge out on his creator, Frankenstein. One by one, Frankenstein’s relatives and closest friends were murdered by the creature, but his father’s death, was the final push. Frankenstein believed that he was the cause for all the murders and that he had to destroy what he created. He told Walton that, “...as [he] awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge.” (Shelley 88). The only way to stop future deaths, was to hunt down the creature and kill him. Fueled with hatred, Frankenstein traveled for months in hopes of finding the creature. However, in his final days, Frankenstein was no longer
The Creature has scared the De Laceys when seeking for help, and they decide to leave their cottage. He reflects on this news in his hovel “in a state of utter and stupid despair He, mad with their decision, burns down their cottage. He knows that they left because of his appearance and most likely them knowing he has been watching them for time. After leaving his hovel at De Laceys place, he travels to Geneva and sees a boy outside his hiding place.The Creature decides that this boy isn't old enough to realize ugliness and picks him up. The boy struggles and exclaims that his ‘dad’, M. Frankenstein, will save him. The Creature is enraged at this child, “‘Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy - to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’ The child [William] still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet” (131). After Victor and Elizabeth’s wedding, Victor tells Elizabeth to retire so he can go find the creature because he thinks the creature is after him. Soon after, Victor hears a shrill scream, and runs back to Elizabeth and finds “the murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her [Elizabeth] neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips … A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with
The book is about a young student named Victor Frankenstein who is deeply dedicated to natural science. He dreams about creating life and he soon starts working to bring life to a dead being made of parts from dead bodies. When he finally succeeds he realises that he has created a monster, it is an enormous ugly creature. He is very afraid of his creature and run away from him. The monster he created is free. Frankenstein becomes ill and is in a very bad mental condition. He does not tell anyone about the monster, and when he mentions it in his feverish dreams those who hear him take his words as delirious nonsense. Frankenstein is ill for a long time and when he has recovered he receives a letter from his father saying that his little brother has been murdered. Frankenstein leaves for Geneva where his family lives to support them in their grief and to get comfort himself. When he comes to Geneva he sees his monster for the first time in years, and he knows that it w...
Every artist draws inspiration from somewhere, and the inspiration shows in their work. When looking deeper into the life of Mary Shelley, it is easy to say that the inspiration she drew to create her novel Frankenstein, came from her own personal experiences. Frankenstein is riddled parallels to Marry Shelley’s own life. It was not just by mere coincidences either, Mary Shelley makes various references to family members (specifically by name), places she visited, and situations she faced, herself, all of these experiences are documented in her novel Frankenstein.
We are shown that this ‘monster’ is a ‘creature’ and more of a human than we think. It is in the complex structure of the novel that Mary Shelley creates sympathy. We shift from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to the monster and finally back to Walton. With each shift of perspective, the reader gains new information about both the facts of the story and the reliability of the narrator. Each perspective adds pieces of information that only they knows: Walton explains the circumstances of Victor’s last days, Victor explains his creation of the monster, the monster explains his turn to evil.
The creature is born into the world with a fully functional brain; however, he has no knowledge of anything. As the story progresses, the creature quickly learns the language, culture, and customs of the world he lives in. Since he is horribly ugly, he is rejected by the people of his society, this is the motivation behind his need and desire to learn about himself and the society he lives in. As the creature obtains more and more knowledge, he finally discovers his origins and birth from Victor. As a result, the Creature becomes a wretched monster, who now has no sympathy for anyone or anything. The Creature becomes fixed on the idea of needing a companion, and due to this obsession, he turns Victor’s life upside down. The Creature is able to torment Victor by killing his family members, then quickly vanishing so Victor can not tell who or what he saw. The Creature and Victor finally meet again and the Creature tells Victor of his stories and struggles. Throughout the novel, the Creature remains in the same state of being, he persistently harasses Victor and maintains a watchful eye on him. At the beginning of the novel, the Creature is an innocent being, made purely for science. In the end of the novel the reader sees what the Creature truly becomes when Victor has died and the Creature is having his last words, he says: “I felt the cheering warmth of summer, and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation”(pg. 166). This explains how the Creature is aware of how he has changed from start to beginning. The society that he lived in, causes him to shift from an innocent and loving creature, to a hopeless and wretched
The monster in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein is a creature somewhere in between human and non-human being. Through learning and observation, the monster acquires the basic skills to live in the human world. He perceives the world and himself through the view of human, and he develops the emotion and taste similar to human. However, his human identity is constantly rejected by people—even his creator, Doctor Victor Frankenstein refuses to acknowledge him as human and refers to him as “the monster”. Throughout the whole novel, the monster struggles to pursue a human identity yet suffers from the sorrow of failure, which ultimately leads to his hatred and retaliation.