Examples Of Discrimination In Frankenstein

Kristen Cashore once said, “When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?” A society that aggressively outcasts a being creates an individual with angry and revengeful ideals. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, a creature created by a scientist named Victor Frankenstein is thrown into a realistic 19th-century society and experiences torment and abhorrence forcing him to make sinful actions for attention. Society creates a monster through prejudice and hate from the assumptions made due to physical appearance and the actions taken from those beliefs. Discrimination is noticeable in both current society and in the novel, Frankenstein. In the novel, the creature arrives into the

Although the monster ignored the encounter due to starvation, his second encounter occurs when he tries to enter a house where “children shrieked, and one of the women fainted” leading to “the village” “rouse- [...] in which he was “grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons” (74). This was the moment when the creation realized that he is different from the rest of society and that people will view him negatively because of his “disgusting features,” forcing him to live in secrecy. The reason for all the hate towards a non-violent “monster” is due to the difference and discrimination of his physical features. The citizens from the village assumed that Frankenstein’s experiment was harmful and dangerous without understanding his point of view just because of the way Frankenstein’s fabrication looked. This occurs in modern day society as well. Because of past

After the betrayal of humanity continues due to the unreasonable conclusion society makes because of its physical features, the creature's “feelings of kindness and gentleness [...] gave place to hellish rage and gnashing teeth” (101). Even though he continues to do heroic acts like when he “had saved a human being from destruction” (101), the creation was rewarded with a gunshot wound and isolation. The monster continues to go through terrible events over and over but he still exclaims that “life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it” (68). For a moment, the creation is seen as inferior and helpless asking for help proving that society has made this monster feel unwanted and