Mary Shelley sets up expectations within the novel and she overturns them, just to make us aware of how society can claim to cast somebody as a ‘monster’. Victor is expected to take care of the ‘monster’, he is ‘eager and excited’ when creating and assembling the ‘monster’ but when the ‘monster’ comes to life, Victor’s approach can be described as ‘monstrous’ as he neglects him because of his appearance. As the novel progresses we begin to understand how its Creator disregards the ‘monster’, so we hear the opinion of the monster and we look upon the subject of – ‘who really is the ‘monster’ and why?’ As the evidence from the novel suggests that humanity has excluded Victor’s creation totally, just because of his physical appearance, we realise just who are we to make this judgement? Victor’s feelings and emotions are monstrous towards the ‘deformed and wretched’ creation, so why isn’t he declared as an outcast? – As his appearance cannot justify his inner monstrosity. This is why it is problematic for us to term either of them a ‘monster’. We criticize people for being dissimilar to society, we must learn to consider people for whom and what they are, although we must be comprehensible on what really a ‘monster’ is – looks or just personality?
In this essay I will be exploring Mary Shelley’s attitude to Monstrosity – in ‘Frankenstein’ through an evaluation of the interpretation of the characters, Victor and its ‘monster’ creation.
I believe that ‘monstrosity’ can be looked upon in a number of ways; ‘monstrosity’ to us is looked upon as some kind of ‘deformity in its aspect’ or a ‘filthy daemon’ which civilization has a reason to condemn a ‘monster’. However, what we must again take into account is the fact that monstrosity cannot just be discrimination against someone merely because they are what we judge to be ‘out of the ordinary’.
From the creation, Victor’s monstrosity is outlined by his behaviour towards the ‘monster’. Victor cannot bear the ‘monster’ whatsoever and rues the day he created him – ‘…the filthy daemon to whom I had given life’. Victor has a numerous amount of encounters with the ‘monster’ and this agitates the amount of hatred he feels towards his ‘monstrous creation’. Victor’s inner monstrosity is gradually noticeable to us, as he begins to understand the ‘monster’s feelings and emotions.
The only monstrous feature of the creation is obviously his appearance to the people present around him. His monstrous looks, does not hinder kind actions on his part. He helped a young child who had fallen into a stream. However instead of gratitude the child’s parent shot at him. So instead of appreciation for saving the child the ‘monster’ was greeted by a bullet, which caused him to suffer for weeks.
The ‘monster’s own monstrosity begins to emerge when he kills Victor’s nephew and wife. His motive for this is the result of Victor’s abandonment to him. Victor instantly develops a hatred for his creation, so the ‘monster’ began to feel hatred towards his creator for not accepting him – ‘Adam was accepted by God, then why do you not accept me?’
Victor and his creation show monstrosity throughout the novel due to Victor’s negligence of his creation. Victor gradually begins to feel and understand the ‘monster’s needs and feelings. The ‘monster’ then believes he can gain more acceptance if he had a partner – whom he blackmails Victor into creating. Victor has to accept, otherwise the consequence will be fatal for him, declares the ‘Frankenstein’. As the novel progresses Victor now begins to question himself about the outcomes if he was to create another ‘monster’ – he questions, would ‘she’ accept the ‘monster’, what would this creation do to society? And he believes this action would not be appropriate to ‘inflict’ on the world.
Throughout the novel Victor is portrayed as a mysterious and unpredictable character. When Robert Walton first discovers him on his expedition to the North Pole, Victor was fatigued and also suffering, which gave us the opinion that he was a determined and constructive man to begin to recover from such a state. When he awoke from his unconsciousness he began to make slow but stable progress. As Robert Walton continued his expedition we begin to learn that Victor had extraordinary experiences throughout his life. The two of them begin to get better acquainted and we begin to develop knowledge of Victor’s character.
As we begin to hear Victor’s story leading to the creation of the ‘monster’ we are able to gather that he is from a respectable family – ‘…my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic’ and ‘my ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics’. From this we can assume that whatever we read from Victor’s narrative character it will be true.
Victor throughout his life tends to judge people by their appearance – this may be because he is from a higher class of family or this could be the monomaniac way (Obsession of mind by one idea or interest) that Victor assumes himself. ‘Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head’. This shows that Victor can look past the poverty and notices the true beauty of the child, although he cannot look past the appearance of his ‘monstrous’ creation – ‘Devil, ……be gone vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to death’. This demonstrates Victor’s detestation against his monster’s appearance.
We are also able to notice that Victor is very tenacious towards his ‘project’. We find that Victor is somewhat becoming obsessive in his desire to put together his construction and confined himself to ‘unusual’ environments – ‘In a solitary chamber’. Victor ‘...Pursued nature to her hiding-places’. Victor began to use dead human body parts to accumulate his creation.
When Victor is at University he becomes ‘acquainted with the science of anatomy’ which gives us the impression that he is very knowledgeable. As anatomy studies the human body, Victor’s interest in creating his own ‘monster’ expands and so does his eagerness. Victor pursues this idea by dissecting dead body parts, this sicken the reader, as his whole approach is eerie and abnormal.
As Victor searches through charnel houses for bones and dead bodies we begin to become uneasy regarding Victor’s unusual actions. His total approach to this study is unorthodox; we cannot understand his motives and the effect that this has on our impression is that we become aware of how uncharacteristic this is of Victor. From this point we are under the impression that Victor is intelligent and sophisticated, he would not involve
When he finally manages to create the monster we are unable to understand his feelings towards him. As soon as the ‘monster’ awakens Victor leaves the room in absolute horror. ‘…one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed downstairs’.
Victor also shows again his hatred for the ‘monster’, when the ‘monster’ confronts him. Victor exclaims his anger and regrets creating him and claims that it is his duty to destroy him for the good of society – ‘…that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed’. The ‘monster’s hatred for Victor also causes concern as he is determined to gain Victor’s affection and claims he will rebel against him unless he gains the acceptance of Victor.
Mary Shelley accentuates on the setting that Victor is present by making it relevant to the mood and attitude of Victor at the moment in time. She uses ‘a dreary night in November’ to give a mood for the setting. This makes us a bit anxious about the actions that have or may take place. Victor’s narrative language techniques also highlight the vibes that are being created in the room – ‘daemonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life’ as this gives us the feeling that Victor is not quite impressed with his poor decision. The setting also allows us to understand why the hatred grows and for whom it grows towards, himself, for creating the ‘monster’, or the ‘monster’, for being a ‘deformed corpse’.
When we distinguish between Victor and the ‘monster’ we are able to gain an idea about what really makes a ‘monster’. Victor for his inner feelings regarding the ‘monster’ and the whole entire approach towards the ‘monster’, or the ‘monster’ whose monstrosity is outlined by his ‘deformed’ appearance.
The impressions that we get from Victor’s narrative story are that the ‘monster’ is a bloodthirsty creation and a danger to society. We develop our final thoughts regarding the ‘monster’ when we understand what misery he has been put through and how he should have had Victor’s acceptance – after all, Victor was the monster’s creator. Victor’s thoughts and feelings begin to develop as the novel progresses, as he cannot accept the ‘monster’. This is because he is in a traumatic state and he begins to question his motives for his creation. The monster’s anger and hatred also builds up, as he cannot bear that his creator has not accepted him. He uses physical force to make Victor accept him and we, the audience begin to understand his ordeal and become concerned and appalled to Victor’s whole negligence of his ‘monstrous’ creation.
When we hear the monster’s narrative, we begin to feel more compassionate towards him. We can use the mood and feelings that he relates to, to understand his misfortunes for when he does try to help but gets punished and assaulted because of his appearance. The ‘monster’s approach towards Victor is subtle, before his creator mocks him. This angers the ‘monster’ and claims that ‘All men hate the wretched…’ We can only think about the ‘monster’s’ abandonment as sorrowful but we can’t understand Victor’s forever-growing hatred towards the ‘monster’.
The ‘monster’ uses powerful speeches within the novel to portray his feelings and emotions. The narration by this character is dramatic and effective as it clearly states what he wants and questions Victor for his attitude and feelings towards him. From this we begin to understand the ‘monster’s hurt and loneliness as he secludes himself from society hoping to gain more reasons for Victor’s carelessness. Victor also replies with powerful speeches as he makes his feelings clear regarding the monster - ‘Be gone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies’. We can now clearly understand Victor’s anger towards the ‘monster’ and we gain an impression of the way the characters react and think when they are together.
From the ‘monster’s ‘birth’ we are able to gain a sense of his rejections from the human society and we realise just why people show this kind of attitude to those who are ‘devilish’. We can understand why Victor’s beliefs made him show no care for the ‘monster’ and we are able to gain affection from his story. The monster’s appearance is not reflected within him, society must learn from this novel that monstrosity can only be used as a way to describe someone’s feelings and not just judge monstrosity by appearance.
From when the ‘monster’ explores his surroundings, he comes across three books and these books help him to learn about the society around him. He sees these theories in action when he comes across a family and begins to study them. He finds out about language and emotions, and he begins to use these to express his feelings to Victor and the reader.
We are unable to state which of the two narrative stories and opinions given by the characters we can believe. The characters throughout the novel tend to be at each other’s throats. We have to decide, based upon the opinions and responses towards each of characters, which of the stories we are to believe. We can assume that up towards the creation of the ‘monster’ we rely on Victor’s approach to the plot of the novel. As the story progresses we can only assume that Victor’s opinions are emotional due to what misfortune the ‘monster’ has caused him by killing members of his family. From the monster’s point of view we are able to see that the reasons for his actions are due to him not being accepted by society and he believes, by using his powerful speeches that he will be able to ‘win us over’ by making us believe the way that he has been treated. As the narrator is Victor, we can probably say his opinions towards his creation is biased, as he is a man who fights for his pride and is passionate about the way people see him – but from our view we can see just how cold he is within himself. We just have to consider how realistic the opinions put forward by these characters are so that we can acquire the knowledge of information needed to understand the positions of these characters.
Mary Shelley has used a technique in which there are three narrators who express their opinions and feelings in a distinctive way. From this, we are able to understand the ways the characters think and what actions they take to tackle their hated feelings for each other.
Mary Shelley plays with the genre so that the convention of a classic Gothic Horror novel confuses us to detect who really is the ‘monster’ and plays upon monstrosity to reveal the true inner sides of the characters. She makes us expect that Victor will accept his creation once it comes to life – but we discover that Victor does not accept the ‘monster’ due to his fright when it awakens. From that moment, he only thinks that the result of all the controversy is due to the ‘monster’s appearance.
The contrast in the depiction of Victor and the ‘monster’ is that the monster begins to reveal his inner thoughts and opinions about the way he has been neglected. Victor just regards the monster as ‘a deformity of humanity’, which is hardly impartial as Victor has not given his creation a chance to gain the creator’s acceptance. This action taken by Victor is heartless and cold. If he were to accept the ‘monster’ then it would show greatness, as he was able to look beyond his ‘monstrous’ looks.
We are able to come to a decision regarding who we think are the overall ‘monster’s within this novel. The characters have been able to put forward their feelings regarding the situation. We can only claim that they are ‘monster’s for their appearance or the attitude towards the deformed.
Victor can be a ‘monster’ for his feelings towards his creation. When the monster awakens, Victor shows no acceptance whatsoever. This can lead us to believe that the monstrosity within Victor is due to his views and actions. Whereas the ‘monster’ is made out to be the ‘monstrosity’ within the novel. This is because ‘monsters’ are intended to be uncanny and inexplicable, just because of their physical appearance. As we learn that the ‘monster’ is good and kind within him, this makes us bewildered to understand why Victor cannot find it within his heart to accept his creation.
They can both be symbolised as monsters. Victor for his attitude and thoughts towards the monster. The ‘monster’ for his appearance and actions taken to resolve the acceptance of his creator, Victor.
Monstrosity can be applied in many ways, by appearance, which we have learnt from Victor’s creation, or by the feelings which people feel ‘inside’ as we have found from Victor’s callous judgments regarding the ‘monster’.
Monstrosity can be found within people, about the way they think and discriminate against others. The most common monstrosity is by appearance, which is somewhat unjust towards the person to whom it is targeted towards.
Frankenstein is not just a story about discrimination and prejudices, it also tells us how and what people are classified for: - appearance or inner feelings that have cause to upset.
The morals today regarding monstrosity are that if something seems ‘monstrous’ towards us, the feelings against that monstrosity is the monstrous thing of all.
