Gaining Sympathy for Frankenstein

How does Mary Shelley present the character of the monster so as to

gain sympathy for him?

The creature wonders if he was worthy of redemption. Exposure to these

ideas enables the creature to pose the quintessential questions of

spirituality: "What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? From whence

did I come? What was my destination?" This introspective questioning

highlights the creature´s humanity, and makes the reader feel sorry

that these questions, which lurk within all of us, cannot be

favourably answered.

Learning language incites great thoughts in the creature but does not

satisfy his longing for companionship. His insights and physical

existence are kept to himself. Huddled in the cold outside of

community, the creature's newly acquired gift of knowledge serves only

to deepen his sorrow. "Was I a monster, a blot upon the earth from

which all man fled…………I cannot describe to you the agony that these

reflections inflict".

In the ice-cave of Mount Blanc, Victor Frankenstein is compelled to

admit that the creatures "tale and feelings, proved him to be a

creature of fine sensation." Relief, however, can only come through

relationships. Can the creature risk rejection? Life at the margin of

existence has brought out what was potentially virtuous within him.

But it does not gain him acceptance into humanity, it only serves to

intensify his pain and our sympathy.

Sensitivity, intelligence and the creature’s pathetic longing for

community cannot overcome human revulsion toward the marred creature.

Had the creature’s passionate qualities convinced Victor Frankenstein

or the De Lacey family to validate him, Mary Shelley's tale would be

in the genre of romantic comedy. As it stands, the story is a

cataclysmic horror tale of compulsion, murder and revenge. Victor's

cruel phrase, "There can be no community between you and me; we are

enemies" not only unveils animus toward his progeny but speaks of

humanity's collective rejection. The phrase easily translates into

"you are outside of human community; we want no part of you." Why? The

origins of the creature, born of the lust of his creator’s

overreaching thirst for forbidden knowledge, have implied to some

interpreters that there is an inherent reason for humanity's rejection

of him. Physically, the creature consisted of a tangled mass of dead

body parts stitched together to become what nature would never have

produced, hence the use of the word "monster", meaning "unnatural".

This quality is labelled "ontological impropriety". The perpetual

taboo of blending categories between living and dead, animate and

inanimate sets an absolute boundary between the dead and the living.

Victor Frankenstein oversteps this boundary; the creature is the

consequence of transgressing nature. From the Monster's perspective

this explanation is capricious and unjust: "You are what you are for