Friday, April 18, 2014

What are the results of rejection and isolation of the creature in Frankenstein?

This is a very good theme to focus on, but if I may make a
suggestion, you might like to think about how you can expand this theme to not only
focus on the monster but also on Victor Frankenstein himself. Both characters are
isolated, although it is the monster alone that faces
rejection.


Note how the monster's isolation is something
that is not chosen, but imposed on him by a humanity that has rejected him and his own
creator who has abandoned him. His longing for fellowship with others is evident, and
this longing is made all the more terrible by the love and affection that he sees in
those around him and the awareness that, because of his appearance, he will never be
able to share in that human warmth. Note how he comments in Chapter Twelve when he
observes his "friends" as he calls them:


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What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of
these people and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the
treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous
villagers...



He is a creature
who is shaped so much by his experience of rejection and isolation, and Shelley actually
suggests that what has driven him to become inhuman is actually the inhumanity of man.
Note how he says "I am malicious because I am miserable" to his maker. We are left
thinking that the "monster" might not have been quite such a "monster" if his maker had
actually cared for him and looked after him.


Victor insists
that his isolation is a result of the monster's terrible crimes which dictate that he
must be an outcast. However, he chooses to isolate himself willingly to carry out his
experiments, making us doubt this reasoning.

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