The monster however brought himself into the world by nature. After Victor deserted him immediately after his creation the monster was left to look after himself. Unlike Victor he was shown no examples or given any rules. Part of the debate at the time the novel was written was which was better: nature or nurture. After being abandoned by Victor and rejected by society, the monster flees to the woods and brings himself up by learning from nature the elements, senses and English language:
“I found a fire and was overcome with delight at the warmth
I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly withdrew it again with a cry of pain”
As the monster had no one to teach him he did not know about fire and was surprised when it burnt him; he learnt from nature. At first, the monster cannot understand his emotions causing him to experience many at the same time. When the monster is in the wood, Shelley uses an extract from “Tintern Abbey” to illustrate what she is expressing bout the monster’s emotions:
“…. haunted him like a passion: the tall rock, the mountain and the deep and gloomy wood,….”
This extract shows the reader how the monster feels. By using this extract, Shelley manipulates the reader’s feelings and encourages sympathy from them. This poem was written by William Wordsworth also at the time of Romanticism.
Romanticism was the period of time where reason and logic were shifted away from man’s thinking and people started to believe that dreams and imagination played a vital role in their modern day society. It was expressed in many ways: poetry, music painting and many other arts. It happened between 1789 and 1830. The ideas are a vital backbone in the story; Society thought it would be impossible to recreate life but Victor manages to do it because of his dreams.
When Victor created the monster his dreams were destroyed when he saw the result. Victor had ignored the science of his ideas and concentrated on what he believed could happen:
“the beauty of my dream vanished and
breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”
Shelley here subtly makes a social comment about the Romantic period; Victor’s dream was destroyed because he had ignored his studies. Shelly’s life was very lonely; the monster had a lonely life because he was abandoned. Shelley often felt this because her father did not have time for her. She creates a narrative that reflects her own life and experiences and uses the monster and Victor as metaphors for her life, sometimes she identifies with Victor and sometimes with the monster. Shelley also uses three adjectives here to create sympathy for the monster. By discarding the creature Victor fails to show any human qualities. The monster, however, shows many human qualities throughout the story such as kindness and compassion. When the monster is hiding at the cottage he steals food:
“but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers,
I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts and roots….”
As soon as he realises that he has upset them, he stops and even repays them by chopping their firewood. By these actions, the monster shows compassion. Although he is not human, he shows human qualities. However Victor fails to show compassion, he left his family when they were still grieving and abandoned the monster because of his appearance. After the monster kills William, he feels guilty:
“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled
with exultation and hellish triumph…”
The use of words “hellish triumph” tells the reader that even though the monster achieved his goals of revenge, he knew what he had done was wrong and he felt terrible. Again, at this point in the novel is showing more human characteristics than Victor: guilt and remorse.
Shelley has created the monster’s character to be more human than Victor, perhaps identifying more with monster than Victor in relation to their characters. When the monster asks for a female companion, Victor refuses to make him one, despite getting married himself. Sexism plays a vital role throughout the story; Victor thinking that women are less superior to men:
“With his permission my mother …”
Shelley may have experienced times in her life where she had had to ask men for permission to do things. The monster does not think the same way as Victor does; he believes that woman should be seen as an equal. Shelley uses the monster here to express her ideas or Romanticism and dreams, that woman would be seen as an equal. Victor and the monster are used as metaphors here, Victor to relate how men did look at women at the time and the monster for the way Shelley wished they could be judged. Shelley uses them to relate her point of view; that women are equal. The monster wishes for a female companion because he believes they are equal.
Victor and the monster are not the only metaphors that are used in the story. The weather is subtle metaphor throughout the novel; thunder and lightning predict misery. On the night of William’s murder there is a storm:
“…drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky”
Storms and rain always suggests something fatal is going to happen; there is also a storm on the night of Victor and Elizabeth’s wedding night when the monster kills her. In the warm Victor and the monster seem happier and more uplifted. Victor uses the Alps as a place to rejuvenate and reflect. The weather acts accordingly to the character’s moods.
Also, throughout the novel, many characters fall sick especially Victor when he is upset or stressed. After he has created the monster Victor becomes very ill and Clerval wonders if he will recover:
“By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered.”
When Victor has a guilty conscience, he becomes ill, again when Clerval dies. It is release from the real world for Victor. The conditions of his illness depend on his actions, he is at the worst point after creating the monster.
Shelley’s main point through the story is that “ignorance is bliss”. During the time in which the novel was written the debate between the power and human reason with science and human relationship with his creator. Shelly gives her ideas, especially in chapter 4 when Victor warns Walton not to follow his example:
“Learn from me…how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believed his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow”
Here, Shelley puts across her point that ignorance is bliss. According to
Shelley and many others of that era, some riddles of nature should never have been discovered by man.
The book had an alternative title, “The Modern Prometheus” which also argues her point. Prometheus was a character from Greek mythology took the fire from the gods to give it to man; because of this he suffered punishment forever. With the alternative title, Shelley is suggesting that Victor is the Modern Prometheus; he took creation from God and in result killed many people:
“William, Justine and Henry – they all died by my hands”
Victor knows that the deaths of the above were subsequently his fault, if he had never created the monster, they wouldn’t have died. Even though he does not directly accuse himself of murdering them, he admits it was his fault.
By writing this novel, Mary Shelley made a social comment to the world about how humans judge others on their appearance; often intentionally and sometimes subconsciously. Victor regards Mr. Krempe’s idea of science because his physical looks repulsed him:
“M. Krempe was a squat little man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance..”
Victor judges Krempe on his looks, instead of his character just like he did with the monster. He fails to show human qualities from this point in the story such as kindness, understanding and most importantly compassion. The monster shows all of these throughout the story.
The main moral of Shelley's novel is that ignorance is bliss. Shelley
Suggests that she agrees with the changes in social ideologies that nature is better than nurture. She shows this especially with Victor's character, he started out with the best possible up bringing but lead a miserable life all starting with his search for greater knowledge. Victor may not deserve all of the terrible things that happen to him, however, this is Shelley's way of warning how foolish it is to investigate things that humans should leave alone.
The reader's sympathies shift between Victor and his creature several times throughout the novel. The monster’s character changes from being innocent to nasty after confrontations with various characters and especially after killing William After this reader’s sympathies are no longer with the monster because he has stopped showing the characteristics, which he was before. Victor never did anything intentionally evil, but as a result of his life, he killed his family and brought misery to his life. At first the feelings of sympathy lie with Victor, but his isolation and tragedy were self-inflicted. By the end of the novel, Victor becomes increasingly like his creation; a monster. The creature, despite killing William, has learnt many human qualities, from longing for love and companionship to anger and hate. It is difficult to balance who is more human but by the end of the novel, the sympathies lie with both characters as both their lives ended in isolation and misery.
