Before Frankenstein has given his creation life he refers to it as an accomplishment and as far as the reader is concerned, Frankenstein is proud of his work. Mary Shelley then writes about Frankenstein giving the creature life. As soon as life is given, and the creature opens its eyes, Frankenstein’s attitude towards the creature completely flips, and he calls what he has created a catastrophe. When looking at it he describes it as a ‘wretch’, because though he made it using body parts from beautiful people when all put together they showed off the horrid creatures shrivelled complexion. From what he thought would be the beauty of a dream, turned into that of breathless horror and disgust. Going on, Frankenstein feels that what he has done is totally wrong and starts regretting what he has done more and more calling his creation a ‘miserable monster’ and a demoniacal corpse.
The way in which the book is written gives the reader a personal view of what the main characters feel. It gives an opportunity to give their own view on the responsibility towards the terrible events in the novel. Through reading the book and using the different narrations you may see the creature as a victim that has been cast away by people he has tried to befriend, and even more importantly to him, his creator. Other readers may interpret this differently though. By what he starts saying and doing, the creature is being evil. It is majorly with villagers, and their fear is his physical appearance, if he was to do something about it they may treat him better, but he continues as he is making him the monster.
In my view, Mary Shelley’s intention in writing the story in this way was to allow for a mixed view. She wanted to show Frankenstein’s view and the creatures view. This gives the reader the ability to make up their own mind based on either characters personal feeling. You get to see a non-biased argument drawing the reader to the conclusion they deem true.
In my opinion, I believe the creature was a victim to society, and not the monster he was seen as. When a baby is born it has the chance of a good life, the creature never got this. When he was created he was abandoned and everyone he saw rejected him socially due to his looks and his naivety towards society. In many ways he was a baby really, learning about life, but he had to learn the hard way as he did not have any parents to help him grow mentally. Instead he was built up from the anger and fear caused by the people that just rejected him from society and fuelled on this, he turned into his evil self, turning the anger and fear into hatred.
