Virtue in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

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Virtue in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

In the book Frankenstein Virtue is found at the margins of society more often than at its center. If this is so, Victor Frankenstein's Monster is a real find! His creature is an isolate of great sensitivity, kindness, and insight. In reality the Monster was not a bad person. He is quite distress and asks Victor, "What was I? Of my creation I was absolutely ignorant: but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property.... Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?" (Shelley 89). Finally the creature makes clear his great need: he is lonely, one of a kind, and unloved. He has learned the importance of position, family, and property. It also seems that the Monster was quite lonely and did not have any friends. He is unaccepted even by his own creator. No offence that the creature was ugly but it was not his fault because he did not created him. There are things to enjoy in the movie "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein", directed by the Kenneth Branagh. Branagh has used film techniques in such a way that it shows the sadness and loneliness of the monster. Yet the director interested in technical effects could highlight key ideas. For example, the excitement of opening in the frozen north, with one figure moving across the ice and receding into the distance while another suddenly appears hundreds of miles from land, could hold the attention of the audience. The relationship between isolated figures on a vast expanse of ice could serve as a poetic leit-motif in the film and retain a significant element of the novel. The cold and sterile elements assume greater meaning than a senselessly rampaging creature engulfed by fire. The monster wanted love from his creator and from the world. He did not have any friend in the world to share his sorrow. When the monster meets the blind father De Lacey, he realized his chance for friendship relied more on hearing than sight. The old man's blindness surely overcome human prejudice against physical ugliness, De Lacey commiserated with the Monster and graciously offered him help and friendship. But the reaction of the old man's sighted family upon seeing the Monster desperately clinging to their father deemed him a fiendish threat and the creature found himself drive out of the society of cottagers.

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