Compare and Contrast the episodes of the creation of the

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Alisha Meertins        English Coursework        October 2003

Compare and Contrast the episodes of the creation of the "monster" and the creation of the second "monster" in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’

  Mary Shelley finished her first edition of ‘Frankenstein’ in 1816, when she was nineteen years old.  Since then her “monster” has become so popular in the twenty-first century that he appears in films, advertisements, comics and even computer games.  So how is it that as such a young age she was able to write such a gripping novel, which has become more famous than any other work of ‘Romantic’ literature, and indeed, her own?  It could have been a result of an intellectually stimulating childhood due to having free access to her fathers extensive library and literary connections; or it could have been a result of her being emotionally undernourished as a child.  Whichever way, she has succeeded in writing a novel that ‘speaks to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror’ (p.8 – author’s introduction), as she wanted; and she has included many personal ideas about politics and familial relations as well as moral, philosophical and scientific ideas on the creation and ‘elixir of life’ (p.42).

  In this essay I will be looking at the differences between the creation of the first and second monster, how Mary Shelley portrays the feelings of Victor and the monster and the different myths and legends that she refers to within the novel.

  Victor Frankenstein had a wonderful life as a child:

‘No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself’ (p.39)

He was loving and cared deeply for his family, especially for his foster-sister, Elizabeth, who he looked upon as his own, and saw as a ‘more than sister’ (p.37).  Victor always had an ‘eager desire to learn’ (p.39) about ‘the secrets of heaven and earth’ (p.39).  When he was thirteen years old he started studying the works of Cornelius Agrippa and the fact that  his father called it all ‘sad trash’ (p.40) fuelled his curiosity and enthusiasm and caused him to study even more which was to him, ‘the fatal impulse that led to my [his] ruin’ (p.41).  His ‘thirst for knowledge’ continued for two years and when his mother died he was motivated more so than before ‘into the search of the philosophers stone and the elixir of life’ (p.42) and to ‘banish disease’ (p.42) so that he could prevent all human beings from dying in painful circumstances.  This shows that his reasons for making the “monster” was for altruistic reasons and ‘benevolent intentions’ (p.93) He became obsessed with the change from life to death and death to life and started to create the “monster”, in what he would call ‘my [his] workshop of filthy creation’ (p.55).  The fact that he calls his workshop ‘filthy’ may mean that he knows that playing with life and death is dangerous and wrong or it may mean that his workshop was actually dirty as it was full of decaying body parts and tools.  He wanted the “monster” to be ‘of a gigantic stature…about eight feet in height and proportionally large’ (p.54); he also wanted it to be a beautiful creature that everyone would admire and praise him for creating.  This reveals that Victor did not just want to create the monster for altruistic reasons; he wanted recognition for what he made and for his intelligence, both selfish reasons and not helpful to humankind at all.

  Whatever the reason for making the “monster”, Victor was set on finishing it and for it to be everything he wanted, if not more.  He worked night and day and even deprived himself of food and sleep so that he could focus all of his attention on his work:

  ‘Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become...’  (p.57)

In addition to this, he did not once prepare himself for the possibility that his creation may have gone wrong or not been what he wanted.  This could have been because he was so confident that his creation would turn out to be perfect that he thought he did not have to think about what would happen if something went wrong:

  ‘A new species would bless me as its creator and source’ (p.55)

  Alternatively, he could have felt as though he could not face failure for, perhaps, the reason that he was trying to create the monster in memory of his mother, and if he failed the task, for which he had been studying for so long, he would be failing his mother as well.  On the other hand he could have become so caught up in his work that he forgot to consider what he would do if something went wrong and what his responsibilities would be to the “monster” when he came to ‘infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing’ (p.58).

  Ironically, his creation did go wrong, instead of being beautiful, he was horrifically ugly, and due to Victor not being prepared for this outcome, he fled, ignoring the responsibilities of fatherhood to the “monster”.

  Due to Victor running away from the “monster”, the “monster” had no one.  He had to look after himself, teach himself how to talk, read and write and learn all the things he needed to know about the world.  He was quick to learn about the sense of pain, heat, hunger and cold; but for a long time he was confused about why nobody would accept him into their world.  He delighted in the beauty of the humankind he saw, but due to the beatings they gave him, he kept away from them and instead observed their mannerisms, from a distance.  He lived in a pig sty by the side of a families cottage, to which he could peek into through a hole in the wall and it was from this that he learnt about relationships between families and friends, which caused him to become curious and bewildered at his own background.  He would ask questions like ‘What was I?’  (p.131), and ‘Where were my friends and relations?’  (p.131). From watching the family for the whole of winter he realises that they have their own language and it does not take him long to learn how to speak it and read it.  He would practice his reading by studying three books, which he found by chance, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, ‘Lives, by Plutarch’ and ‘Paradise Lost’.  These three books not only broadened his vocabulary, but also taught him a varying array of emotions.  ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ made him feel both joyous and sad.  ‘Lives, by Plutarch’ helped him admire heroic leaders and despise tyrants.  ‘Paradise Lost’, in contrast to the other two books, made him identify his lonely state with Satan’s banishment from heaven.  He was so lonely, in fact, that he described himself to be worse off than Satan:

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  ‘Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.’  (p.133)

  After learning how to read, write and talk fully, he steals Victor’s journal and studies it; what he reads in the journal makes him bitter, and he starts to feel hatred towards Victor for what he had done.  He desperately tries to make a new family by undergoing kind acts for villagers hoping that they would be so grateful that they would accept his looks.  However, his plans do not work and rage starts to build up inside him. ...

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