In chapter IX, volume 1, the monster states that its request for a mate is reasonable and moderate. Do you agree?

This considered, some sympathy has to be expressed for the monster, who is the only one of his kind, alone and an outcast. This is his only request, that he has a mate. It would seems like a reasonable one, if he wasn’t an unnatural being and a fiend to mankind. We have heard the monsters story of how lonely he is and how he has been treated and compassion is felt towards him, but I think that this in mind, another monster still should not be created.

The relationship between the Monster and Frankenstein is very much so one of creator and creature. The Monster says “I demand it of you as a right” which shows that even though the Monster is making a demand here, he recognises the power that Frankenstein has to fulfil his desire and provide him with a female of his species.

I believe that his request is fairly unreasonable, but the actual rationale that he gives for his request is reasonable. He puts forward a very compelling argument that seemingly stirs up emotion in Frankenstein, “I compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him”. Frankenstein, the supposed wretched monster is able to generate benevolent feelings within his creator, this leads Frankenstein to believe that maybe his request is not quite so unreasonable, that if the ‘creature’ he rejected could stir up human feelings within him, then maybe he wasn’t so much of a monster after all.

The Monster does seem like a character to stick to his word. His request, the only one he has made is one that will he claims grant him happiness, is the condition upon him leaving land inhabited by people. This makes it seem that his request is so close to his heart that he will indefinitely hold his promise and leave.

His request is made to seem reasonable, because he is very educated, and so his request is proposed in such an eloquent, well thought out way that depicts him as the opposite of what Frankenstein believes the monster to be. We see him acting in the way that you would expect Frankenstein to behave. There seems to be a role reversal between Frankenstein and the Monster in regards to actions, Frankenstein who created the Monster and should have taken responsibility for his actions, completely abandoned the monster and acted monstrously towards him, whereas the monster, until he learnt differently, was a like a baby in innocence and only wanted to do good. Frankenstein completely shunned the monster without reason, while the monster has only wanted to be good and benevolent until he was rejected by man, cast off by his own creator, who should have been teaching him right from wrong and raising him. Therefore, the Monster has shown that he has been a good being, and that surely his hardships have earned him the right to have a mate, or so he believes. I just don’t think that it is reasonable to have Frankenstein create another of these beings and have all the pain and misery of being a ‘Monster’ inflicted upon them. 

The monster admits to having “evil passions”, and even though in the context he says this in, his is referring to how they will flee, his admittance to possessing these evil passions is reason enough to believe that he still could be dangerous and may not hold to his promise.

I think that his request is reasonable and moderate, but only because of his reasoning behind it. I think that the actual act of carrying out his request is not reasonable or moderate.