In the novel "Frankenstein", written by Mary Shelly, the "other" is clearly represented in the story through the actions of certain characters. More specifically, through Victor Frankenstein and his monster that he creates. Although several arguments can be composed that describe one of the characters alone to more accurately represent the "other", they work better together. First, Victor is depicted as "different" in the novel when it states that he steals body parts from the graveyard to create his own monster. "It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being." (Shelley 32). Even though the novel doesn't directly state theft of body parts from the graveyard in this chapter, it shows how Victor's feelings overcome his sense of reality …show more content…
But instead, our interpretation of the monster would be no different than that of a typical monster. The monster ends up killing a few people in the story, which is depicted as normal due to the fact that he's a monster. The monster's interpretation of himself is what surprises the average reader. He feels bad that he can't speak English and fit in with the others in the story. It his frustration in response to this that causes him to kill people, not the fact that he is a monster and was "born" evil. As represented in chapter 12, it is strange to read that the monster experiences a shift in personality and feels sympathy for a family in a cottage even after having killed someone. "I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the out- side. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise." (Shelley 78). This part of the story shows how the Monster has a variety of personalities, due to the fact that he helps and kills people throughout his
At first, The Monster is very kind and sympathetic. He has a good heart, as shown when he collected firewood for the family on the brink of poverty. Like every other human creation, he was not born a murderer. All the Monster wanted was to be accepted and loved by Victor Frankenstein and the other humans but instead he was judged by his appearance and considered to be dangerous. The Monster says, “like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence…many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me” (page 105). This line is an important part of the novel because the Monster lets it be known how like Adam he was created into this world completely abandoned and like Satan he is angry with those people who have found contentment and satisfaction in their lives. The rejection and unwelcome feeling he is faced with, is the main reason the Monster becomes a killer. Watching another family show love towards each other made the Monster realize how alienated he truly was. He did not know how to deal with his pain and emotions so he murders as
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a Complex Character "Frankenstein" is a gothic horror novel which was written by Mary Shelly in 1818. It was inspired by a biological scientist named "Luigi Galvani". He had experimented with electricity and deceased frogs, and discovered that a charge passing through a inanimate frog's body will generate muscle spasms throughout its body. Frankenstein is about a man on a pursuit to create a perfect being, an "angel" however his experiment fails and his creation becomes an atrocity compared to an "angel". The creature is created using Luigi Galvani experiments of electricity and dead corpses of criminals, stitched together to form this creature.
Elizabeth’s life disappears, along with Victor’s happiness. On their wedding night, Victor takes the hand of Elizabeth and says “if you knew what I have suffered and what I may endure” (Shelley 166). Victor wishes he could tell Elizabeth his sad tale, but he tells himself to tell her after the wedding. He knows the monster will come soon to take revenge on him because of the others the monster took away from him. When Victor leaves Elizabeth alone and paces through the house, he “heard a shrill and dreadful scream” (Shelley 167). The monster takes his revenge on Victor by taking his one and only love away from him on his wedding night. After her death, Victor spirals into agony and despair. Without happiness, Victor’s life
“Iron man” is a superhero, but “Iron woman” is a command. Although these statements maybe risible it carries an important message that has dated back for centuries. Throughout many years the world has been unified socially with one similarity: the culture of a patriarchal society. A patriarchal society is a social society in which males are the primary figures of authority, owning property, and occupying political leadership. When such important roles are taken by men, women, at the other end are expected to be obedient, silent, and useless (except in chores). History has numerous examples in books, morals and real life in which women are known through culture to be unimportant. A classic novel, Frankenstein, also shares this fact about women. Women are portrayed as weak throughout the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, because they are dependent on men, treated as property, and helpless during troubled times.
Analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Analyzing a book can be a killer. Especially when it contains tons of subtle little messages and hints that are not picked up unless one really dissects the material. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prime example.
English poet Thomas Gray has once said, “Ignorance is bliss”. In other words, the less we know the fewer worries we have and therefore our life seems more enjoyable. Knowledge is our thoughts, ideas and information in which we depend on in order to maintain stability in life. Although ignorance can create certain disadvantages for us, knowledge is most dangerous because it allows us to search for answers while in the end, leaves us with the consequences of knowing too much. In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the author uses the literary element of conflict to show how both Victor Frankenstein and the creature seek for knowledge and while they gain information, it comes back to haunt them leading them to their own downfall.
In Lisa Nocks article appropriately titled “Frankenstein, in a better light,” she takes us through a view of the characters in the eyes of the author Mary Shelly. The name Frankenstein conjures up feeling of monsters and horror however, the monster could be a metaphor for the time period of which the book was written according to Nocks. The article implies that the book was geared more towards science because scientific treatises were popular readings among the educated classes, of which Shelley was a member of. Shelley, whose father was wealthy and had an extensive library, was encouraged to self-educate, which gave her knowledge of contemporary science and philosophy, which also influenced Frankenstein as well as circumstances of her life.
When the monster was created, he was born in the world with innocence, as a defenseless being in the world. Even when Victor rejects him, the monster still seeks love from society and performs unselfish acts. He seeks the love of others. Longing for company, the monster stays in the cottage without revealing himself and watches the family that lives there. By watching them, he learned how to speak and read.
The greater detail about the monster’s experiences provided by the book is the first thing that allows a reader to sympathize with the monster better than an audience member. When the Frankenstein monster is retelling the story of the hardships he has endured, he mentions events that were overlooked in the play. One example of this is when the monster saved a young girl’s life. An act such as this would be praised with the greatest heroism if it was done by a human, but as a reward he is shot, receiving only “the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone.” (Shelley 135) The book also examines the months of hard work the creature put into learning about human nature and language in order to be fully accepted when he chose to reveal himself. The monster hid by the cottage for around a year, never leaving during the day and working to help the cottager’s at night in order to learn from them. The monster went ...
In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein secretly creates a monster without considering the consequences. After the creation of the monster and throughout Victor’s life he and the monster suffer constantly. Because Victor keeps his monster a secret from his family, friends and society, he is alone and miserable. The monster is also alone and miserable because he is shunned by society due to his grotesque appearance.
Explore the ways Mary Shelley presents the character of the monster in Frankenstein We are prepared for the arrival of the monster in many different ways, before he is created we know the monster is going to be a repulsive figure of a human being, but the reader is still intrigued into reading further, and because of Shelley's descriptive language we already feel disgust towards victors creation, and in doing so, we our-selves become just as callous as those people in the book that neglect Frankenstein's monster. Also because the monster was created by Victor using parts dug up from graves and morgues, and we associate graveyards with horror and death, there is immediately something sinister about the monster and to a point, Victor. The reader can already see the problems with creating artificial life in this way, and in the beginning of the novel, the reader is almost willing victor not to pursue his quest for knowledge, but victor is blinded by his own arrogance to stop and think carefully about what he is about to do. This is when Victor the man becomes separated from Frankenstein the scientist. "I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted" Victor despises death, and his mind is occupied incessantly with it, and after the demise of his mother, victor cannot escape it, and subconsciously he dedicates his life towards combating the process.
From the beginning of time in history, women have always been portrayed as and seen as the submissive sex. Women especially during the time period of the 1800s were characterized as passive, disposable, and serving an utilitarian function. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a prime example displaying the depiction of women. The women in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Shelley’s incorporation of suffering and death of her female characters portrays that in the 1800’s it was acceptable. The women in the novel are treated as property and have minimal rights in comparison to the male characters. The feminist critic would find that in Frankenstein the women characters are treated like second class citizens. The three brutal murders of the innocent women are gothic elements which illustrates that women are inferior in the novel. Mary Shelley, through her novel Frankenstein, was able to give the reader a good sense of women’s role as the submissive sex, through the characters experiences of horrific events including but not limited to brutal murder and degradation, which is illuminated by her personal life experiences and time period of romanticism.
In any novel the author is free to create and shape their characters in whatever way they see fit. In Frankenstein, Shelley does an excellent job of shaping her characters, be it however minute their part in the story, so that the reader gets a clear picture of Shelley's creations. It seems that each character in Shelley's Frankenstein is created by Shelley to give the reader a certain impression of the character. By doing this Shelley creates the characters the way she wants us to see them. She tells us certain things about them and gives them certain traits so that they will fit into the story the way she wants them to. In particular I will examine the characters of the monster, Elizabeth, and old man De Lacey.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley portrays an individual in a unique situation trying to overcome daily interactions while being faced with inconceivable misfortunes. Created by Victor Frankenstein, who set out on a journey to bring life to scrapped pieces of waste, he was then abandoned and left to fend for himself in a world he was abruptly brought into. After being abandoned by his creator for his less than appealing looks, this then sparked his inevitable desire for revenge. Eventually leading to the destruction of those associated with his creator. Knowing that he will never fit in, the monster began to act out in hopes of getting back at his creator for what he did. His vulnerability due to missing guidance and parental figures in his beginning stages of life contributed to his behavior. The books and article Family Crisis and Children’s Therapy Groups written by Gianetti, Audoin, and Uzé, Victim Of Romance: The Life And Death Of Fanny Godwin by Maurice Hindle, and Social Behavior and Personality by Lubomir Lamy, Jacques Fishcher-Lokou, and Nicolas Gueguen support why the monster acts the way he does. The monster’s behavior stems from Victor’s actions at the beginning of his life and therefore is not to blame. The creature in Frankenstein is deserving of sympathy even though he committed those murders because the lack of parental guidance, lack of family, and lack of someone to love led him to that. All in all his actions were not malicious, but only retaliation for what he had been put through.
The Monster’s confusion about the world and his inability to understand why he cannot simply be accepted in society drives his actions. Dutoit elaborates on the not so apparent truth that The Monster goes to great lengths to assimilate by acquiring language, understanding mannerisms and participating in customs. The Monster grows fond of a family, at first he watches them carefully, paying close attention to the details of their life and even steals food, unaware of their poverty. Supporting evidence which allows for the conclusion that he is innately good and simply longing for domesticity is shown by The Monsters willingness to help the family with chores, in secret of course. Nevertheless, he is universally shunned by everyone he encounters, except for the old blind man who was willing to have a social connection with him, until his family returned home and in fear rebelled against The Monster. This constant exile only leads to a greater alienation from the social world he deeply longs to be a part of. Unfortunately, due to his outward appearance, his good intentions are ill received by the people he