A comparison of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and 'OF Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck

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A comparison of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘OF Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck

I will be comparing the novels ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley and ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck. I will focus on how the main outcasts in each book feel and how their emotions are presented and what effects this has on the reader.

The novel Frankenstein is about a man Victor Frankenstein, who grew up in Geneva, Switzerland as an eldest son of a quite wealthy and happy family. His parents adopted an orphan Elizabeth, who later becomes his wife. Frankenstein wasn’t very popular although he had a good friend called Henry Cleval. At a young age he found the need to learn and at 19 he went to a University in Ingolstadt, Germany. Here he found his need to learn even greater and his interests soon became an obsession. After four years of intensive studying he took his work further and created life from different parts of the human body taken graveyards, slaughterhouses and dissecting rooms. When the creature awoke he realised that he had created a monster, but what Victor hadn’t realised was that it had feelings like any other human being. Out of his nervousness when the monster disappeared, he caught a fever which his good friend Henry Cleval nursed him back to health.

 As he went home he was informed of his brother’s death, and when he saw the creature again he knew it was the monster. Scared of what his family might think he decided not to tell them but he let his knowledge of the real killer mentally torture him, especially when Justine a good friend of the family was accused and hanged for murder. He left the house and went wandering in the valleys, there Frankenstein’s creation meets him and tells him his life story.

After leaving Frankenstein’s laboratory, the monster went and found himself in a village where he was by attacked villagers because of his appearance. He then found refuge in the country side and stayed in a small hovel next to a house occupied by a blind man and his two children. Here he learnt to speak and read by reading the family’s books. Then longing for some companions he speaks to the blind man which he knows won’t judge him on appearance. He gets in a friendly conversation but then  the man’s children come back and it all goes wrong. The monster filled with anger and rage then runs of into the forest Here he meets Frankenstein’s younger brother who he strangles, knowing that it will hurt Frankenstein.

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The monster has only has request from Frankenstein, that he makes him a wife so he won’t be lonely all his life. Frankenstein is moved by this and agrees, knowing that the monster will carry on killing if he doesn’t. Victor leaves for England with Henry Cleval to finish off his work, promising to Elizabeth that he will marry her on his return. Victor started to work on his second creation when he starts to get doubts and destroys his work while the monster is secretly watching. The monster then swears revenge and tells Victor that he will be with ...

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