“I will be with you on your wedding night.”
Victor Frankenstein fears for himself no one else. On the wedding night the monster kills Elizabeth and then runs away. Victor Frankenstein spends months trying to catch up with the Monster; when he gets closer to catching up with the monster, he meets Robert Walton the captain of a ship. This is where the story begins in the book.
Chapter five opens with the very famous sentence,
“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils”
This was the first thing Mary Shelley wrote in the novel yet it wasn’t added to it until chapter five. The opening of chapter five sets the scene for the whole story this is because of the weather which was very dull and raining. The weather tells us that the story is going to be scary and adds to the anticipation. The opening of the book suggests to us that it is going to be a gothic horror we can tell this because of one of the sentences.
“I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a conclusive motion agitated its limbs.”
The narrator in this chapter is Victor Frankenstein. This gives the readers more of a feel for his project as we are seeing it through his eyes. The monster has dull yellow eyes, yellow skin, lustrous black hair, pearly white hair, but they formed a horrid contrast with his watery eyes and he had straight black lips. The language Victor Frankenstein uses when he is describing the monster is a very descriptive language, I think he refers to the monster in this way because he is disappointed with his creation and wants to describe everything about him to emphasize how he looks. At this point in the story I think that Victor Frankenstein is a very dedicated man who wants everything to be perfect. In this chapter my sympathy has to go to Victor Frankenstein simply because he has dedicated two years of his life for this and at the end he is disappointed because it’s not what he thought it would be.
The narrator of the book in chapter twelve is the monster. In this chapter the impression I get of the monster is that he isn’t a very vicious monster. This is because he helps a French family to collect food and also when it says,
“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly.”
To me this proves that the monster isn’t evil because he has feelings and enjoys helping others. My response to the monster has changed a lot since chapter five, this is because in chapter five Victor Frankenstein describes the monster and judges him by his looks, I judged him by his looks as well and thought he was evil. But in chapter twelve it’s the monster narrating so we see it from his side and get to know him more.
“His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles…”
“I saw no cause for there unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it.”
These are two quotes from both chapters the first is from chapter five, this suggests to us a hideous monster that will be very dangerous. The second is from chapter twelve, this suggests to us a caring and loving being. The language towards the monster has changed a lot between chapter five and chapter twelve. As the two quotes above show in chapter five it was a very negative and judgmental way of talking about the monster this is because the narrator was Victor Frankenstein who judged the monster by his looks. In chapter twelve the narrator has changed, so has the language towards the monster. In this chapter it is a very positive way and a more reasonable way to talk about the monster. The writer has used the weather very well between these two chapters because in chapter five it was very dull,
“…on a dreary night of November.”
But in chapter twelve it turns more comfortable and nice,
“..genial warmth of spring.”
This show that the mood in the story has changed from being very dull to a nice warm more comfortable mood. In chapter twelve my sympathy goes towards the monster because he is left out because of his appearance, we now know that the monster has feelings and should be allowed into society.
In chapter fifteen the seasons change from autumn to winter this quote shows that the seasons have changed,
“Autumn passed thus.”
I think that now the seasons have changed so will the monsters’ mood. It might change to a aggressive mood as he might not be happy with the weather so it puts him down. In this chapter we learn a lot about the monster like that he wants people to be kind to him,
“I required kindness and sympathy…”
Which is what this quote shows us. In chapter fifteen the monster feels very caring towards the Delacey family. He helps them collect there food. He has learnt to read and write by observing them. The monster wants to meet with the family but is worried about being rejected. So the monster approaches the old man who is blind. This is because the old man can’t see him and can’t judge him by what he looks like, only by how he sounds. When the monster brings himself to go and see the old man he gets along really well with him and doesn’t feel rejected, but when Felix (the son of the old man) comes back he tells the monster to go away and starts hitting him. Now the monster feels like a social reject and wants to get his revenge on the human race. At the end of this chapter my sympathy goes towards the monster because it took a lot of pride to go up to the old man and talk to him but then he just gets rejected by the young boy Felix.
In chapter sixteen the monsters’ mood changes dramatically. In chapter fifteen he is kind and gentle towards the Delacey family. But because of the incident with Felix he is very aggressive and wants revenge.
“…destroying the objects that obstructed me…”
This quote shows us that the monster is very upset and is releasing his anger.
“I grasp his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.”
This quote is when the monster kills Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother. We know that if the monster wasn’t rejected by Felix he wouldn’t be angry and wouldn’t have killed him. At this point of the story my sympathy still goes towards the monster because I understand why he is so angry but after he kills Victor Frankenstein’s brother my sympathy for him fades away.
In chapter 17 and 20 the monster requests Victor Frankenstein to make him a female companion. Victor Frankenstein decides not to make a companion for the monster because he thinks that if he does they could start a new race and wipe out the human race.
“Whose joint wickedness might desolate the world?”
This is what Victor Frankenstein says to the monster when the monster asks him to make him a female companion. At this stage in the story my feelings towards Victor Frankenstein is that finally he has seen sense I do think he is extremely brave to stand up for the monster though. But if he thought about the consequences straight away he wouldn’t have to make the decision. Because of this my sympathy in these chapters goes towards Victor Frankenstein.
In chapter 22 and 23 Victor Frankenstein thinks he is the monsters next victim because of what the monster said to him,
“I will be with you on your wedding night.”
If Victor Frankenstein was not so selfish he would be worried about Elizabeth. This could be taken different ways but Victor Frankenstein should have protected both himself and Elizabeth. Victor Frankenstein thinking that he is the monsters’ next victim tells us that he only thinks about himself and no one else, so he is extremely selfish. My sympathy at the end of these chapters goes to Victor Frankenstein because he has just got married to Elizabeth and she gets murdered on their wedding night.
At the end of the novel my sympathy goes towards the monster this is because Victor Frankenstein should not have left the monster because of what he looks like. The monster only kills people because of other people provoking him and leaving him out. I think that if the monster wasn’t socially rejected by everyone he wouldn’t be so aggressive. In chapter 15 we saw the monster being friendly and helping the De Lacey family so we know he can be, it’s just that people judged him by what they saw. Victor Frankenstein’s assessment of the monster,
“His soul is a hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice?”
I think is very wrong, I agree that his appearance is not very nice but as we have seen his soul is very loving and all he wants is someone to care for him which he never got. I think the monster could be classed as someone with short temper some people get rejected but they only get upset they don’t release their anger by going around killing people.
I think that Mary Shelley choose not to give the monster a name because it made it look like he had been even more rejected by Victor Frankenstein because he never bothered to name him. Also it gives the reader something to think about because they might be thinking why he hasn’t been named. This drags the reader more into the book so they get more enjoyment. Although Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 I think it still appeals to modern day times. This is because of the genre of the book Gothic Horror, the genre is very old but it has started to interest so many more people now because it is something is different. Also because the novel is structured so most of it is action and there is not any boring parts the reader is drawn into the book and can’t put it down which is always a good thing in a book. Everything in the book is linked together so if you miss something you probably won’t get the rest of the book this is why I found it so interesting. A really crucial thing that makes the book still very popular today is the questions Mary Shelley leaves the reader to think about. Like why did she not name the monster this will make the readers want to find out why the monster has no name. The themes that Mary Shelley includes in the book like the scientific side of it. Which is now what people are interested in.
