Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a very complex book riddled with underlying messages. From the characteristics of each individual to the main storyline Shelley depicts a world of opposites. Victor Frankenstein, a privileged young man, defies nature when his obsession with life and death has him attempting to bring someone/something to life. He succeeds and quickly goes from obsessed over its creation to disgust with its form. He then rejects his creation, which sets the stage for the terrifying events to come. This is the embodiment of a modern novel as it contains alienation, disillusionment, and a critique of science.

Both Frankenstein and the Creation are fraught with alienation, a sign of a modern novel. “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime” (Shelley 34). Frankenstein has become so obsessed with his work that he does nothing else. He locks himself in his lab and works all day and night and is now scared of the smallest noises, people, and normal interactions. He completely alienates himself from friends, family, and the world because of his obsession to finish the Creation. Opposite of this is the Creation, who unlike his creator, is alienated by everyone else. “Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat! Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was dea...

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...me ways the perfect human. But because he was created and looks different, he is looked down upon by everyone.

Reading Frankenstein, I began to feel that it mirrored modern society. It is a sad fact, but most people today are either alienated by others or they alienate themselves. People that are alienated, like the Creation, tend to become monsters out of retaliation for their situation. They feel a loss of faith in the world around them and this leads to despair and destruction. Mary Shelley seems to foresee what society has to offer us today, which is an amazing feat in itself. In my interpretation, I feel that she also reflects hugely on human nature. It seems she is saying that people do not have an innate evilness but instead they acquire it through their circumstances.

Works Cited

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Dover Publications, 1994.