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.
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first breakthrough, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of a child so completely as I should deserve theirs.” (Shelley 39).
For nearly 2 centuries Mary Shelleys Frankenstein has been considered by many to be the ultimate human vs monster conflict. However what makes someone a “monster”? Appearance? Character traits? Since the creature was born as an outsider humans neglected him and he becomes malicious. In the beginning an overly ambitious victor creates an imperfect creature. Since he is neglected by his creator as he is born an outsider he faces societies shunning. This causes him to take his wrath out on victors family. So the question is was the creature really a monster.
In her novel titled ‘Frankenstein’, Mary Shelley employs many innovative literary techniques to elicit feelings of sympathy for the monster, even though the creature’s desire for revenge may render him incapable. Are readers able to respond compassionately to the creature even though he willingly makes Victor’s life miserable by murdering those close to him?
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a complex novel that was written during the age of Romanticism. It contains many typical themes of a common Romantic novel, such as dark laboratories, the moon and a monster; however, Frankenstein is anything but a common novel. Many lessons are embedded into this novel, including how society acts towards anything different. The monster fell victim to the system commonly used by society to characterize a person by only his or her outer appearance.
In this essay I am going to answer ‘how and why does Mary Shelley make the reader sympathise with the character of the monster in her novel Frankenstein’.
Sympathy in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Frankenstein for many people is a huge fiendish monster, a brainless oaf with a couple of neck bolts, who is a horrible murderer. This image has been created by Boris Karloff and other television/film images. I also thought like that, believing Frankenstein to be a monstrous murderer, so when I was met with the text I was surprised to find as a mad scientist who creates a monster. This changed my opinion greatly at first. As the central characters were the narrators, they were obviously going to be bias in their description of the novel.
Sometimes in novels like Frankenstein, the motives of the author are unclear. Mary Shelley presents the humanity of Victor Frankenstein 's creation. Although, she presents evidence in both support and opposition to the creation 's humanity it is apparent that this being is indeed human. The creature’s humanity is not only witnessed in his physical being, but in his intellectual and emotional thoughts as well. From the novel, some people think that Frankenstein’s humanity is argued by the fact that being human does not mean coming from a specific genetic chain and having family to relate to, but to embrace many of the distinct traits that set humans apart from other species in this world. In fact, Frankenstein creation does not support
James Whale's Frankenstein is a VERY loose adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. The spirit of the film is preserved in its most basic sense, but the vast majority of the story has been entirely left out, which is unfortunate. The monster, for example, who possesses tremendous intellect in the novel and who goes on an epic quest seeking acceptance into the world in which he was created, has been reduced to little more than a lumbering klutz whose communication is limited to unearthly shrieks and grunts. Boris Karloff was understandably branded with the performance after the film was released, because it was undeniably a spectacular performance, but the monster's character was severely diminished from the novel.
Mary Shelley expresses various ethical issues by creating a mythical monster called Frankenstein. There is some controversy on how Mary Shelley defines human nature in the novel, there are many features of the way humans react in situations. Shelley uses a relationship between morality and science, she brings the two subjects together when writing Frankenstein, and she shows the amount of controversy with the advancement of science. There are said to be some limits to the scientific inquiry that could have restrained the quantity of scientific implications that Mary Shelley was able to make, along with the types of scientific restraints. Mary Shelley wrote this classic novel in such a way that it depicted some amounts foreshadowing of the world today. This paper will concentrate on the definition of human nature, the controversy of morality and science, the limits to scientific inquiry and how this novel ties in with today’s world.
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights on the experiences her characters undergo through the internal war of passion and responsibility. Victor Frankenstein lets his eagerness of knowledge and creating life get so out of hand that he fails to realize what the outcome of such a creature would affect humankind. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, highlights on how Frankenstein’s passion of knowledge is what ultimately causes the decline of his health and the death of him and his loved ones.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is ‘one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction’, and is also a frightening story that speaks to the ‘mysterious fears of our nature’. Mary Shelley mocks the idea of “playing God”, the idea that came from the Greek myth of Prometheus, of the Greek titan who stole Zeus’ gift of life. Both the story of Frankenstein and Prometheus reveal the dark side of human nature and the dangerous effects of creating artificial life. Frankenstein reveals the shocking reality of the consequences to prejudging someone. The creature’s first-person narration reveals to us his humanity, and his want to be accepted by others even though he is different. We are shown that this ‘monster’ is a ‘creature’ and more of a human than we think.
Virtue is found at the margins of society more often than at its center. In Frankenstein, the novel by Mary Shelley, the monster exemplifies virtue to a greater extent than his creator, Victor Frankenstein. Shelley's creature is an isolate of great sensitivity, kindness, and insight. Contrary to James Whale's 1931 film, Frankenstein, which portrays the creature as a lumbering dolt, Shelley's monster was modeled on Rousseau's notion of humanity as the "noble savage". The nobility of the creature is evident as encounters a simple French family and observes and draws form the quirks of humanity.
In the novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, the relationship of external apperence and internal feelings are directly related. The creature is created and he is innocent, though he is seaverly deformed. His nature is to be good and kind, but society only views his external appereance which is grotesque. Human nature is to judge by external apperence. He is automatically ostracized and labeled as a monster because of his external apperence. He finnaly realized that no matter how elequintly he speaks and how kind he is, people will never be able to see past his external deformities. Children are fearful of him, Adults think he is dangerous, and his own creator abandons him in disgust. The creature is treated as a monster, therefore he begins to internalize societies view of him and act the like a monster.
...iro portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster has created a false myth of an evil, unintelligent monster that is not at all similar to the one Shelley displays in her novel. Not only does the movie spread a false interpretation of Shelley’s work, it provides the public with no lasting message about technology or about the effects of misplaced human love. Shall we then seek revenge? Shall we destroy that what is evil? Of course not--Shelley gave us all to learn a lesson of tolerance and of correcting our mistakes. Perhaps if a more accurate film version of Frankenstein were available to the public, more people would be motivated to read the book and learn Shelley’s powerful message.