Appearance and Acceptance in Frankenstein and the Modern World

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Appearance and Acceptance in Frankenstein and the Modern World

One of the main themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the importance of appearance and acceptance in modern society. In today's society, and also in the society of Frankenstein, people judge one often solely on their looks. Social prejudice is often based on looks, whether it be the color of someone's skin, the clothes that a person wears, the facial features that one has and even the way one stands. People make snap judgments based on these and other considerations and they affect the way that they present themselves to one, and also the way that the treat the judged person. In Frankenstein the society of that time is much like our own today. It is an appearance based society, and this is brought to the forefront by the extreme ugliness of Victor Frankenstein's monster to a common human being.

On of the most blatant parallels in Frankenstein and today's modern world is that of racism. These parallels are shown from the very first moments of Frankenstein's creature life. One of the first things Victor says about his newly alive creation is that "His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath;" (Shelley 42) and he viewed his creation with "breathless horror and disgust..." (Shelley 42). Here one finds that like the vast majority of people then and today, Victor notices the color of his creatures skin first and judges it to be horrible. Also in this novel, the example of racism is again brought to our attention with the history of the cottagers. Safie's father, a Turkish merchant living in Paris, was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. The reason for this injustice is clear, the reason for it is "...that hi...

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...mselves, and one other. Indeed, acceptance is a major motivation in any person's life.

Interwoven in societies threads are these basic principals, be they good are bad have always been evident to some extent in our daily lives, racism, prejudice, appearance, and the strong desire for acceptance. Throughout history down to today we are moved by these things, and perhaps nowhere is this nature of humans present and brought to one's attention like in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird, Boston, Mass., Chelsea House Publishers, 1998

Lynch, David. The Elephant Man, Los Angles, California, Paramount Home Video, 1980

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, New York, New York, Bantam Books, 1991

National Geographic, Sept. 1994, Washington, D.C., National Geographic Society, 1994

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