Within Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein the theme of rejection and alienation shows how cruel treatment can make anyone a monster. Through the creature 's journey from a childlike kind being to a lonely a suffering being Shelley explores the feelings that accompany having a parental figure and society reject the creature. the novel shows how when someone is rejected and alienated by society they come to hate and curse it. Shelley was able to creature a deep and real character using her own past experiences with losses and loneliness.
To begin, the creature mentally began as basically a child. Shelley explored the idea of the mind beginning as tabula rasa or a “blank slate”. Meaning the creature would have not started as either good or bad,
But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.” (Shelley,
Although Victor created the creature physically, society is what shaped him into a monster. He does not intend to kill Victor in revenge for abandoning him in a world that hates him. Instead he hopes after his story Victor will feel responsible and guilty enough to make him a female so he will have someone who understands him and can be happy.
In summary, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein shows how rejection and alienation poisons a person 's mind and can turn them into a monster. She follows the creature as it moves from a childlike state of innocence to a very adult like state of experience over the events of the novel. Shelley was able to create a powerful character in the monster because she used some of her past negative events to shape him. The creature never finds understanding and compassion in society so he comes to hate and curse
In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein the protagonist Victor Frankenstein creates a monster. The monster in the novel is deprived of a normal life due to his appearance. Like the creature, some serial killers today are killers due to the same rejection. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warns that a childhood of abuse and neglect will often result in evil actions.
The gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley highlights the idea that the real monsters of the world are humans and society, and that most traits that most humans despise are actually within all of us. Frankenstein shows that any human can be so corrupt as to be a “monster”, and that beings society considers repulsive and evil can be human at heart. Shelley exposes human faults such as hubris and irresponsibility through the main character of the novel Victor Frankenstein, who creates a living being and refuses to care for it, sending it into the unwelcoming hands of society. Victors irresponsible actions lead to many deaths and events. As the novel progresses, Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the Monster he creates become more and more similar
It is commonly known that humans desire human interaction in order to remain linked to society. Lack of connection to the outside world, or even rejection by a loved one, can cause someone to become depressed and want to isolate themselves from everything. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley creates a character who embodies all of the human reactions to rejection, isolation, and learning. The journey it goes through is difficult and is full of hardships. Being abandoned and lacking companionships affects his life so greatly, and although not technically human, he still possesses human qualities that allow him to feel this disappointment. The creature desires to love and be loved, but his forced isolation and desertion by his creator
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, many similarities can be seen between the creature and his creator, Victor Frankenstein. While Victor and the creature are similar, there are a few binary oppositions throughout the book that make them different. The binary oppositions in the novel serve as thematic contrast; and some of the most illustrative oppositions between the two characters are on the focus of family, parenthood, isolation and association with others.
Victor had created the creature with the vision from his dreams of a strong, tall perfect being with no flaws. His years of study with the unnatural and science had come to this final conclusion and masterful idea that he was determined to finish. To his surprise, he had created the opposite, “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 35) Victor is saddened by what he thinks of as a failure. He leaves his own apartment to go sleep in his court yard outside following his creation. He begins to isolate himself from the creature because of his fear of the creature’s outward appearance. He loses all hope for the creature without even learning anything about him. The fact that Shelley begins to refer to the being that Victor created as a “creature” shows Victor’s ignorance and lack of acceptance. It is Victor’s prejudice that blinds him of the creature’s true potential due to the unwanted preconception that follows the creature as he finds meaning in
So he can have someone like him and look just like him. Someone to love and care for him. This other creature would not judge and would not be in fear. They would be just alike and would have each other to listen to one another. As Victor is about to make the female creature he stops and looks over at the monster and sees him smiling. Victor sees this smile as an evil smile. I say the smile as a smile of relief. A smile that meant the creature would finally have someone like him and he could finally be happy. Victor changes his mind and does not make the female creature. This enrages the creature and now all he wants to do is destroy his creature. He does not understand why he can not be happy when everyone else around him has happiness. Why does he have to be alone just because he is different from others? "If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy."
When Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is analyzed, critics comes to a conclusion about Victor Frankenstein's creation. The creature invokes the most sympathy from the readers than any other character in the novel. Because he is abandoned by society which manipulates the creature to do evil things despite his good heart. Therefore Shelley's message throughout the novel is that a person is not born evil, they are made evil.
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.
Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein does indeed do a lot more than simply tell story, and in this case, horrify and frighten the reader. Through her careful and deliberate construction of characters as representations of certain dominant beliefs, Shelley supports a value system and way of life that challenges those that prevailed in the late eighteenth century during the ‘Age of Reason’. Thus the novel can be said to be challenging prevailant ideologies, of which the dominant society was constructed, and endorsing many of the alternative views and thoughts of the society. Shelley can be said to be influenced by her mothers early feminist views, her father’s radical challenges to society’s structure and her own, and indeed her husband’s views as Romantics. By considering these vital influences on the text, we can see that in Shelley’s construction of the meaning in Frankenstein she encourages a life led as a challenge to dominant views.
Frankenstein is a novel that is defined by its distortion of humanity. Mary Shelley’s objective is to expose how horrible humans can be to each other. In her eyes the monster represented the cruelty of mankind. Not all humans in the novel were cruel, but Victor was the creator and the monster was part of him. The parable of Frankenstein is that in seeking to represent himself, he created a monster which is a depiction of how he truly feels about humanity. His view of humanity is distorted, when he created a gigantic monster that didn’t look human but had the intellect of one. This gigantic monster was created in order to symbolize the distortion of man’s fears in other humans. Most of the novel focuses on the distorted world of the creature. He lives in a home that never feels like home. The monster’s features highlight the monstrosity in humanity. The monster is frustrated at his own image and can’t stand looking at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t look like the other humans and feels upset when he scares the numans. Like all living
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is a novel of interpersonal struggle between inborn traits versus the self determined willingness to work for success. The author demonstrates the contrasting personalities of Victor and the Creature specifically in regard to the nature they are born with in contrast to who they made of themselves. Innate aspects hinder personal growth for the Creature although he works hard to become a self-made man, whereas nurturing miens obstruct growth for the dignified Victor despite his fortunate nature. Shelley demonstrates sympathy with a Creature who tries to overcome his monstrous form more than a gentleman who abases him in order to convey that no matter how hard he tries to overcome his nature, personal choices can only take him so far. Through contrasting Victor’s and the Creature’s innate personas and willingness to achieve success, Shelley is allowing the reader to question whether or not a person is able to work past his genetic boundaries and inherent instincts to become whoever he wants to be, or, if he is stuck having the same success level of his parents due to his intrinsic nature. Both scenarios play a key role in the character’s lives; if Shelley had not embedded this “nature versus nurture” theme into the plotline, then the plot would have ceased to exist due to a lack of conflict on the Creature’s part.
This idea is then reincarnated in the form of a monster which leads to the conclusion that Mary Shelley felt like an abandoned child who is reflected in the rage of the monster. After reading the article by Baldick, I immediately thought of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” I was forced to read the story again having an open mind and the idea that everything has an alternative meaning. After doing so, I realized that it contains the same concept of abandonment and anger.
As a young writer, at just the age of 18 years old, Mary Shelley was able to become a gothic novel specialist. She was able to create a story that has an unbelievable amount of depth behind all of the events that happen between the characters. Her writing stays relevant in today’s society due to her focus on the creation of artificial life. Many of the characters in the novel Frankenstein have a deep love and desire for new discoveries. The characters like Walton, the Creature and Victor have the desire for ambition which they all become overly consumed in their works and end up in destructive situations. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley is able to develop multiple characters whose ambitions lead to destruction;
However repugnant he was on the outside, when Frankenstein’s creature begins to tell his tale of sorrow and rejection the creature does not seem to be monstrous. Although rejected multiple times by the humans around him when he finds a family in poverty and “suffering the pangs ...
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein (sometimes also known as The Modern Prometheus) is the classic gothic novel of her time. In this eerie tale, Dr. Victor Frankenstein – suffering from quite an extreme superiority complex – brings to life a creature made from body parts of deceased individuals from nearby cemeteries. Rather than to embrace the Creature as his own, Frankenstein alienates him because of his unpleasant appearance. Throughout the novel, the Creature is ostracized not only by Frankenstein but by society as a whole. Initially a kind and gentle being, the Creature becomes violent and eventually seeks revenge for his creator’s betrayal. Rather than to merely focus on the exclusion of the Creature from society, Shelley depicts the progression of Dr. Frankenstein’s seclusion from other humans as well, until he and the Creature ultimately become equals – alone in the world with no one to love, and no one to love them back. Frankenstein serves as more than simply a legendary tale of horror, but also as a representation of how isolation and prejudice can result in the demise of the individual.