‘Spending days and nights in vaults and charnel houses’ ‘churchyards were merrily respectable bodies deprived of life’
This choice of words by Mary Shelley is very effective because it makes the reader feel that something dreadful is being created because you wouldn’t think something good of the creature when you here that the body parts of it were from dead, burned rooted people, this is very effective on the readers because it makes you feel as if you are there and are actually experiencing it. This also again shows the intelligence of Mary Shelley.
This quote shows that he is willing to give sleep and food because he was so determined to go on with his dangerous mission and to create life. Finally Victor Frankenstein succeeds:
‘After nights and days of labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of life.’
At this point Victor Frankenstein is very excited because after all his hard work he had finally discovered the way to create life. This basically makes him feel that his mission is unstoppable and that ultimately people would thank him for what he had accomplished.
Mary Shelley is trying to convey the message that Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein are going too far. They are both over ambitious and their preparations including giving up sleep and food shows that they are determined to do what they set out to do and nothing can get in their way. Both of their quests seem too dangerous and are also pushing the boundaries too far.
At the beginning Shelley contrasts his beauty and his wretchedness. Mary Shelley’s description of the monster reduces the good things and increases the bad things which makes our first impression of the monster as being horrific Mary Shelley writes:
‘His teeth of a pearly whiteness’ which were of a ‘Horrid contrast with his watery eyes’
Mary Shelley is using
Victor Frankenstein’s first impression of the monster was clearly horrific. You could tell from the first time Victor looked at the monstrous creation properly and he straight away knew the evil he had created. One of the first words of Victor Frankenstein upon seeing the monster was
‘Beautiful, great god’
Frankenstein was infact being ironic as his creation was indeed not beautiful. He is completely despondent:
‘The beauty of my dreams vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart’
Mary Shelley uses such words to make us feel that this is such a monster that is so horrid that it will turn the heart black with disgust even to look at it. Mary Shelley gives us an early indication that this monster is not going to be such a first-class monster but a wicked one.This also agins shows us that she is very intelligent because of the way she uses the language.
This quote explains everything about how Dr Frankenstein felt. Frankenstein also makes us think in negative ways towards the monster because he uses very effective and powerful words such as:
“Demonical corpse”, “miserable monster” and “ugly wretch”
This lets us know that he is regretting the creation and he comparing it with devils and demons. Victor Frankenstein is so scared of the monster that he leaves it and doesn’t look back. This also shows Mary Shelley’s intelligence because she uses very effective words to describe the monster.
Our impression of the monster changes later in the novel when Frankenstein the monster tells us his side of the story. Mary Shelly emphasizes the positive aspects of the monster at this stage. After the monster’s creator runs away from him. The monster goes out into the world. His first encounter with humans arn’t the best of encounters because at first sight of the monster they straight away judge the monsters by its looks and start beating him and throw missile weapons at him, for example:
“grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons”
Mary Shelley is showing here that this monster didn’t obviously look like how human beings do, this also show the wretchedness of the monster, it is also giving a simple message which is ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.
We find out what the monster is really like when he goes and lives in a hovel near some cottagers. Mary Shelley writes about how he helped them at night when the cottagers were asleep. The creature speaks of how he:
‘Often took tools. The use of which I quickly discovered and brought home firing sufficient for the consumptions for several days’
This showed he had a caring side to him and when he saw that the cottagers were having trouble he went and helped secretly by cutting the wood for them and doing several other things.
Mary Shelley also writes about how the monster learns to speak and learns new words by listening to the cottagers, particularly Felix who teaches his girlfriend Safie to speak English. The creature says:
‘I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse, I learned and applied the words.’
We start to feel sorry for the monster when he discovers that he is nothing like other people and that he is completely different to them in looks, height and strength. At this point we feel sorry for him because he talks about how his going to present himself to the cottagers. Frankenstein the monster says:
‘their grace, beauty and delicate complexions, but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool!’
We also feel sorry for him because he know comes across as being an intelligent person but he will not be able to use his blessed human side to him because people will judge him by his looks. Frankenstein the monster also has emotions and feelings for example when he says:
‘No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses’
At this point we feel especially sorry for him because all of us grew up with fathers who watched us grow up and mothers who took care of us; he didn’t have either.
The monster starts to become evil after all the misery and hurt he suffers. This suffering starts with the peasants who beat him and threw stones and other missiles at him.
Victor Frankenstein’s reaction to the monster affects him because the monster knows that his own creator has run away from him. Later on when he hides himself in a hovel near the cottagers he learns how to talk, use tools and read by observing the cottagers. The monster starts to regard the Delacey family as his own family even though the cottagers have never seen him. But how wrong the monster was because when he shows himself to the cottagers, Felix starts beating it. This was probably the biggest turning point where the monster’s mind starts to feel that he is never going to be accepted. The monster says:
‘I could have torn him limb from limb as the lion rends the antelope’ also ‘my heart sank with bitter sickness and I refined’
Mary Shelley shows intelligence because she is slowly building up the suspense because we know that the monster will click at one point but she is wanting us to read on and see when he actually does switch from being kind, good and intelligent to being evil, terrifying the devil of devils This showed that he was already thinking evil thoughts but his mind wasn’t fully evil. So he controlled his anger and just ran out. The Delacey family leave the house. Frankenstein the monster says that he was:
‘unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards the inanimate cottage and garden’
Mary Shelley is again building up the suspense of when the monster will switch. This showed that he couldn’t put his mind onto killing humans so he took out his anger on the deserted cottage and garden by burning it. After that incident Frankenstein the monster saves a girl from a rapid stream, for example:
“I rushed from my hiding place: and, with extreme labour from the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to shore.”
Mary Shelley is slowly indicating to us that this is the last straw and that the monster will switch because she is making you think that if anyone sees the monster with this girl then in their mind they would think that the monster has killed the girl.
This also shows that even being hurt this much by humans he still has goodness inside him, until the father of the girl comes and aims a gun at the creature and shoots him:
“he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body, and fired.”
Mary Shelley has made this sentence is very quick with commas to make it more effective and also make it stick in our mind. She is also telling us that there is only so much that someone can take before they switch and this was it.
This was the last straw for Frankenstein because after that Frankenstein says:
‘I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind’
This shows that his mind had become corrupted and turned evil and he promises to take revenge on all mankind.
After swearing that he will take revenge on all mankind especially his creator Victor Frankenstein, he sets out on the hunt for Frankenstein. On the search Frankenstein the monster finds a small boy. The first thought on his mind was to capture the boy and educate him so that the little boy will grow up and love the monster and the boys offspring will love the monster generation after generation. When Frankenstein captures the boy, the boy screams horrible things about the monster such as ‘ugly wretch’ and also calls him ‘an orge’. Frankenstein doesn’t mind about the names but what really catches his attention is when the boy says:
‘My papa is a syndic- he is M. Frankenstein’
These were the words that caused the boy-William Frankenstein’s-death. Unfortunately William was the first victim the monster murdered. Frankenstein the monster says:
‘My heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph’
This showed that he actually liked killing people and that this made him feel better and powerful. Frankenstein the monster says:
‘I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable, this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him’
Frankenstein the monster is saying that he too can create misery and that the death of Victor Frankenstein’s brother is just the start of the misery that he will get because there will be other ways of creating even more misery other than killing Victor Frankenstein. As the monster was about to leave he saw a locket on the boys neck and inside the locket was a picture of a beautiful lady. He took the locket from the boy’s neck and the more he looked at the lady in the picture the more it filled him up with rage because he knew that he will never be able to get a female companion, let alone a lady as beautiful as in the picture.
The monster left the spot where he had murdered William Frankenstein and was seeking a place to hide. He entered a barn which seemed to be empty but there was a lady sleeping on top of some straw. The lady who was sleeping Justine, maid to the Frankenstein family. The monster also caused Justine’s death because he framed her for the murder of William by placing Williams’s locket in her hand. The monster did this out of jealousy because he saw Justine’s beauty and knew that he couldn’t have her he had also done this to hurt Victor Frankenstein. The monster learnt mischief from Felix the cottager. Further misery was brought to Victor Frankenstein when his newly wed wife Elizabeth, and his best friend Cleveral are murdered by the monster. The monster accomplishes his mission of bringing fear and misery to all mankind especially Victor Frankenstein, his creator.
In my opinion I think that my final impression of the monster is probably bad because the atrocities and horror and chaos he causes is unbelievable because he kills a child, brings about the death of a innocent lady and kills a innocent man and also kills a lady on her wedding night, even the thought of someone creating so much misery to one person just because he gave you life seems unbelievable. For example:
“my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph: clapping my hands”
These are the words of a pure monster, and he is also saying this after killing a innocent child, only a monster can feel these emotions after killing someone, it is not possible for any human to feel like this.
However, I do understand why some people may feel that the monster is more good than bad because they might argue that Frankenstein the monster is a victim because people judged him by his looks and didn’t get the chance to see his inner personality. Other People may also think that the villain acts suits him because we see many good things in him. The way Frankenstein the monster expressed his emotions and the words he used were at first very poetic. For example, when he describes Agatha singing:
‘she sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away, like a nightingale of the woods’
The way Frankenstein the monster expresses his emotion and uses words we would not think of him as a monster but instead as a normal, delicate, soft hearted being.
In my opinion, I believe that Mary Shelley is trying to tell us that a monster will always be a monster and what ever you do you can’t change that.
Both Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein were too ambitious and hadn’t thought about the consequences. For example Victor Frankenstein did not think of the consequences of his creation or indeed what would happen to the monster when he ran out. Victor Frankenstein had thought before he actually created life was that:
‘a new species would bless me as its creator and source’
This shows that he is in his fantasy world and is indulged in his excitement that also he is thinking about is the greatness and how his creation will worship him
The same happened to Robert Walton because he also didn’t think about the consequences because Walton only prepared himself not his men and therefore a lot of his men died on the journey to the North Pole.
Both learnt that to think before you act is of paramount importance.
The final message Mary Shelley has for the readers about scientific experiment is not to get too ambitious and don’t go beyond the boundaries like Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein had.
When Mary Shelly wrote this novel scientists were discussing the possibility of bringing the dead back to life. In my opinion I believe that Mary Shelley’s poem today is very relevant because it is warning people that bringing the dead back to life or creating life it totally wrong and also you don’t know how the creation will turn out to be. Another reason why this novel is relevant today is because there is a lot of talk about human cloning and the novel is just reminding those who think that it is right is that you never know how that human clone will turn out to be and you never know you could even create the next Frankenstein the monster.
In my opinion I believe that creating life is totally wrong because first you don’t know how the creation will come out and also the religious view which is that life is sacred and only god has the right to give and take away life, and who ever goes against this is like they are competing against God. I also believe that human cloning is wrong because in today’s society technology is ever more getting increasing and getting better and people are getting more and more suspicious about whether or not you can create life and this could lead people to go and try it, for example scientist have already cloned a sheep and by doing this they are encouraging cloning and I believe this is totally wrong.
So basically the simple message is creating and giving life is wrong and if are going to go and do something like that then be very careful and think of all the consequences and possibilities before you set out to do it.
