Frankenstein - How is the monster portrayed in Chapters 11-16 of the novel?

Authors Avatar

Frankenstein

How is the monster portrayed in Chapters 11-16 of the novel?

Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley in the late 17th century which depicts a story about a scientist in Geneva who becomes obsessed with creating life. In his journey he comes across some notes of a professor in which specific notions on creating a living creature are contained. With these notes and his wild imagination Frankenstein puts together parts of corpses and revolutionises science by successfully creating a living creature. However, all is not merry, as Frankenstein realises his creation is disparate to human beings but that he has transformed what was once a dead corpse into a wretched monster. After abandoning his creation and later trying to kill it so as to cover up his unworthy work, Frankenstein effectively drives the monster out of his lab to fend for himself.

At the end of Chapter 10 the reader is given Frankenstein’s view of his creation; he says ‘breathless horror and disgust filled my heart’ at this very point we begin to see Frankenstein’s dream to create life disappear and the reader is left feeling as horrified and disgusted as Frankenstein, towards the monster. Frankenstein continues his horrid reaction by stating ‘a thing such as Dante could not have conceived’ this phrase puts to light the actual horror of the monster because Frankenstein states that even Dante, a fantasist of evil, was not able to come up with such a creation.

In Chapters 11 to 16 of the novel we see the epic voyage through the eyes of the monster as Shelley adopts the persona of the monster. Shelly’s portrayal of the monster in this distinguished technique helps us to better understand what the monster thinks and how his emotions change as he becomes more conscious of himself and his surroundings. Our feelings towards the monster change significantly and we begin to see a very different and unexpected side of him. The monster begins by telling us about his first memory of himself; he says that ‘a strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard and smelt at the same time’ this portrays the monster as a new born baby learning about the simple senses that all humans use. As the monster introduces us to his first day in the woods he says that ‘I felt tormented by hunger and thirst’ this illustrates the monster as a normal person who has to feed himself to live. Also the monster tells us ‘feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept’ here we are able to distinctively see that the monster is no more different than a small child as both cry when they seem to find no remedy for their pain. Also we are introduced to the feelings of the monster which come to play a very important role in his later life.

As we become more learned about the monsters feelings and actions we are presented by the more intellectual and able side. He begins by telling as that he is able to distinguish between insects and herbs and continues to show how rapidly he is able to learn by differentiating one herb from another. This shows the immense intellect of the monster and also makes the reader more attached since there becomes a similarity between the monster and humans. The monster tells us that he ‘began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me’ this shows that the monster is able to process his sight with major accuracy and is able to learn about his surroundings easily. He continues to say ‘my mind received every day additional ideas’ now we are able to understand that the monster has the ability of thought and has an imagination, the one attribute that differentiates humans from all other creatures. As we continue we see that the monster is able to learn physically from its mistakes, ‘I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain’ this once again represents the human like intellect of the monster being able to assess mistakes so as not to repeat it again. Furthermore, the monster inhabits the nature of cooking as he experiments with his newly found fire, he begins to see that the ‘berries were spoiled from this operation, and the nuts and roots much improved’.

Join now!

The actual mental intellectual ability of the monster is portrayed by Shelley as the monster inhabits in the cottage of the De Lacey’s. Here the monster is educated to the language of his fellow inhabitants who he reluctantly segregates himself due to being in doubt of acceptance from them. The monster begins his quest to understand the language of his company by observing their sound and actions. He says ‘I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds.’  However we are also presented with the less able understanding ...

This is a preview of the whole essay