Also the way the Creature speaks to Victor once he has killed and hurt humans is like he is trying to shift the blame to Frankenstein for creating him and the human race for detesting him even though they know nothing of his inner feelings.
“This was the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhe under the miserable pain of a wound” (Chapter 16)
This is true because I think the creature did not initially want to hurt anyone, especially humans, but as time went past, he suffered many different types of violence and abuse. Then he finally breaks after being shot because people thought that he was trying to hurt them when he had just saved a young girl from drowning.
“Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance on mankind” (Chapter 16)
In this section, I think that the Nature/Nurture debate should be included as it has direct consequences on how we could or should interpret the Creature and maybe Frankenstein himself. On the nature side of the argument is that the Creature was probably not “created” evil as Frankenstein did not want that he wanted a Creature that could help himself and humanity and its only when the hate of humans that he becomes evil. Now on the side of Nurture side is that when he is first “created” he did have contact with humans in the form of Frankenstein who gave him his first impressions of humans which was that they would be scared of him and may hurt him. Eventually I think that Nurture wins as it is when he reveals himself to the De Lacey’s and every other meeting with a human he learns that he is not liked and as this is by Nurturing it wins and gives its impact on the readers interpretation. This is what I think the multiple narrators do to the reader’s interpretation of the book.
Another factor for why the reader’s interpretations may be influenced is by the book having two quite unreliable narrators: Frankenstein and the Creature. Firstly, Frankenstein I think is unreliable mostly in the latter parts of the book but also sometime just in the beginning. In Chapter 5 after when he has “created” the creature, he runs out of his laboratory and into his bed where he has nightmares. Until he is woken by the creature standing by his bed with his hand outstretched, which to Victor means he is trying to kill or detain him, but I think that the creature is holding out his hand for his “creator” to hold so he can feel loved and as a sign that he wants Victor to be his “Father”.
“He held up the curtain of the bed” then “one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escapes and rushed downstairs” (Chapter 5)
I think this shows Frankenstein’s unreliability because the creature at this point has no idea what the world is and so could not have contemplated the thought of killing Victor. As I said, later on this unreliability grows to very large lengths. In my opinion the largest of these is when he is chasing the Creature towards the North Pole and parcels of food are left along the trail which the readers know were left by the creature, but Frankenstein thinks are left by angels to keep him alive to follow the Creature.
“The spirits that guarded me had provided me this food” (Chapter 24)
However, really it was the creature urging him on. Also but to a lesser degree the Creature is also unreliable, as in different parts of his story he has different views that keep changing. At some points, I think he is quite hypocritical because he does something like eventually killing Frankenstein then weeping over his body and saying sorry which does not please Robert who he is speaking to. So these unreliable narrators really do affect any readers interpretation of the book I think because you do not know who you can trust and who is right.
Finally, there is one more factor I think for why the reader’s interpretation of the book can be affected by the narrative, and that is the Framed Narrative. As is obvious once read the book is split into different parts called “frames”. This was popular in the Gothic period in which “Frankenstein” was written as was the many narrators featured in the book. There are five parts to the framed narrative, the first is by Robert Walton in his four letters to his sister Mrs Saville then it is by Victor Frankenstein, who is telling his storey to Robert, then it is the Creature, then Victor again and finally by Robert who tells of Victor’s death and the Creatures visit. I think that in the different frames of the book have different emotions or feelings in them. For instance at the beginning of the book where Victor is recounting his past he seems much happier until he is consumed by his work and eventually creates the Creature. Then the centre frames where the creature is watching the De Laceys the mood is of spring, happiness and reunion because Felix and Safie are together and there is a lot of celebration which rubs off on the Creature. I think the message is of joyous celebration of the world of human love. At this time Victor is at the opposite side
of happiness with the death of his brother and when he could have stopped Justine’s trial and subsequent death but did not. At this point I sympathise with the Creature because I think that Victor deserves all he gets. Back the narrative by the end of the book where there are many deaths and the mood is of death, self-destruction and failure. Therefore, the framed narrative changes the mood of the book and in turn the readers and for this is why it is an important factor.
In conclusion I think that these are the most important narrative features that affect the readers interpretation and very important to the whole structure of the book.
