Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Shelley in Frankenstein and Goethe in The Sorrows of Young Werther wrap their stories around two characters whose mental torment and physical actions are similar to one another. Both the stories deal with characters who are struggling to find happiness in their lives in the world they live in, but they could not because of rejection. Werther was seeking to be loved and have a family with the girl she loved whereas, the creature was seeking for a companion and people to relate with and call family because he was all alone.

The sources of Werther's sorrows are similar to the sources of the creature's suffering in Frankenstein. First, this can be seen whereby the creature is abandoned by his creator, Victor Frankenstein. The creature had no knowledge abut the world around him yet; the person who created it is leaving him to wander around alone. Victor’s creature was full of sorrow and cursed his creator all the time together with his hideousness. He says, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on” ( Shelley 189).His curiosity about who he was led him into his own depression and misery. The creature lacked social acceptance as everyone rejected him and this led to his quest for knowledge so as to know the world around him and stop living a life of abandonment and rejection. On the other hand, Werther needed to compensate for a strained home relationship in their family and needed a family, if not his own, someone else’s. He wanted to have people around him but that was not possible because he ended up utterly alone. Werther was not able to attain his idealized family life. Therefore, both Werther and the creature’s sorrows came about for not attaining the life they wished to li...

... middle of paper ...

...ught they had found happiness, that is when their sorrows became great because, they faced more rejection. In contrast, the creature and Werther’s sorrows were unlike because, Werther was able to communicate and relate with the girl he loved whereas, for the creature, he could not relate with anybody because of his hideous appearance. Lastly, their sorrows made them seek for justice and they did it in a wrong way. Werther killed himself while Victor’s creature killed innocent people in the quest for revenge and to find justice for rejection and abandonment. Consequently, the creature’s sorrows were greater than Werther’s.

.

Works Cited

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. The 1818 Text. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.

Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. The Sorrows of Young Werther. New York: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009. Print.