Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The creature of the novel Frankenstein is intelligent, naïve, powerful and frightening. He seeks vengeance, kills three people, and haunts his creator to the end of his (Frankenstein’s) days. Why? What inspired and what enraged the creature so much so that he felt this was the only path to pursue?

When we first meet the creature (truly meet him, that is), he shows his intelligence through speech. One must certainly expect him to be a drooling, dumb and violent creature, but he is, in fact, quite the opposite. He is violent, yes, but he does not show his violent physical side unless provoked to anger. More often than not the creature is full of self pity, cursing his existence and his creator for bringing him into it. When the creature and Frankenstein speak to each other (though the creature is doing most of the speaking), the creature does so fairly calmly, and relays his side of the story -- where he had been, what he had done and, most importantly, what he had read. When taking a close look at the creature’s behavior and story, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the two works that seemed to have the greatest affect on him were Paradise Lost and the notes that he had found in his pocket concerning his own creation.

Though each work that the creature read is important in one way or another, these two were the works that helped to shape his personality and change how he felt about himself and his plight. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the creature’s reaction to Paradise Lost is that he identified not with Adam, but with Lucifer. This explains quite a bit about the creature and a bit about why he acts the way he does throughout the novel. The creature himself even...

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...o an eternity of tempting souls away from the Creator, and to live in Hell. The creature lives in his own Hell each day, and does not necessarily tempt, though he does indeed taunt Frankenstein. Is this justice? A person could argue either way in that respect. To a degree, yes, it is justice. The creature committed terrible acts, to be sure, but he did not ask to be brought into the world, nor to be abandoned. To a degree, the creature’s hatred and need for revenge rather help him in his life. He is never naïve enough to trust people again, for one thing, and it pushes him to superhuman speed and constitution, things he probably would not have if he had been accepted. Though, is the emotional trade-off worth it? Perhaps not. In the end, the creature loses any redeeming qualities he may have and becomes far more wretched than he had been in the beginning of his life.