Much of the book was written in the solitude of the European Alps. This is evident from when the monster retreats, he flees to the desolate, tranquil and harmonias mountains. A great deal of the final voyage to the Arctic desert, is concerned with man’s search for his own identity as you can see in Walton’s voyages. Coleradge’s poems is relevant to many of the travels, which was a heavy influence towards Mary Shelley. Other authors also influenced Mary Shelley. For example the philosophical books by William Godwin, and other philosophical volumes by Rousseau. Even though Walton was a great traveller and discoverer, he had a greater sense than Frankenstein, he could ‘see the wider picture’. “I am going to unexplored regions, to the land of mist and snow, but I shall kill no albatross….” This quote proves he can see the consequences, and the final results, as he himself refers to the influencing poem by Coleradges ‘Ancient Mariner’. Walton does admire and look up to Frankenstein, even though he is more ‘down to earth’. “No-one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature…. This divine wanderer.”
Frankenstein tries to make sense of the whole process of creation and the purpose of man’s existence, and has created a monster. Once he created him, he realises that he can’t just wash him away as he attempted by letting him loose in the forest hoping that he doesn’t survive. Frankenstein (unlike Walton) had ‘tunnel vision’, and didn’t think ahead of the consequences and his moral responsibilities of his scientific quest. Frankenstein became very obsessed and became a ‘mad scientist’. “If I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!” “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.” He got so caught up in his creation, that his ardour eventually cut him off from his family. The letters slowed down and then stopped, until a year or so later, he decides to come back to join his relations.
“I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul…” This quote is ironic, because, Frankenstein would never had created a monster, if he was never interested in science. What spurred him on, (or rather his ardour), was one simple moment, when he saw a tree struck by fork lightening. This was the ‘captivation’ and began the whole process.
Frankenstein diminished many laws as well as unwritten rules. Such as not to rob graves or charnel houses (this is why the monster is so hideous). “The beauty of the dream had vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart….” People are made from mating and die by destiny, not made by parts of different dead people put together and then electricity put through them!
Frankenstein created two monsters in a sense, he physically created a super strong killing system that was turned away from society, and Frankenstein almost turned himself away from humanity.
The peaceful wilderness is where the monster retreats to; nature is not his enemy, unlike humans. Every encounter with humans he has, they always seem to flee from him, or they beat him. This is until he stumbles across a poor family called the De Laceys. He inhabits a hovel beside tem, and watches them through a crack, but they do not see him. He can see that they are in need of money, put they get through it with love and support of one another. The monster then assumes that this family is different from other humans. He stays in a small hovel by the side of the house, watching and learning. Young girl approaches the house, and the family teaches her French, so the monster picks up on the words and language that was taught. They also have a blind father, and when the children go out, the monster brings his hopes up, and reveals himself to the blind man. The children arrive back at an awkward moment, and they think their father is being attacked, so they beat the monster with sticks. This was the final straw for the monster, and it provoked him to seek Frankenstein. The monster burns the De Laceys house down in his anger, and this is the beginning of his descent into his reputation… A monster! “As he illustrated when he speaks to Frankenstein “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend" This is where the narrators change from Frankenstein to the monster. This story has three characters narrating, beginning with Walton. This makes the story more realistic.
When Frankenstein meets the monster, he is very surprised in how articulate he can speak. The monster refers to him as ‘my creator’. Both of the characters feel hatred and vengeance when they meet. Even though the monster has created several murders, we still feel sympathy for him, when we hear his story of rejection. So Frankenstein agrees and he decides to make another monster as a mate for him. We can forgive Frankenstein at the beginning for his creation. He had good intentions, but just looks bad, now the monster is a monster, Frankenstein decides to make another one! Frankenstein called the monster a murderer, and was going to kill the monster when he saw him, but he didn’t… “You call me a murderer, but you will be happy to kill me, your own creation and be satisfied.”
“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” The monster saw himself as Adam (as in Adam and Eve as God’s first two creators), but soon becomes the opposite. “Like Adam, I was apparently united to no other being in existence, but his state was far different from mine in every other respect…. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition….”
The monster had to learn everything the hard way, he saw that fire was hot, and he put his hand in it, and realised that it was hot and it hurt. The monster is in constant searching. “Who was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them….” The monster’s only real type of relationship was with his creator, Frankenstein, although he abandoned him at his birth. He describes him as a “daemoniacal corpse” and “my own vampyre.”
Frankenstein was an over reacher, and had finally realised what he had done. So he warns Walton not to follow in his footsteps. Satan in Milton’s ‘Paradise lost’ is also an over reacher. This was another inspirational book for Shelley. This is one of many testimonials to Satan. The actual creation work is blasphemous and parallel to the pride of The Devil. Frankenstein and the monster both realise that they suffer worse misery than Satan himself does; they have no lives! As the monster says “Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred….” We can see again how he is isolated again near the end, “…. The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone….”
He also realised that his life had taken a vast plunge from being privileged and having an almost perfect childhood, straight down, to having literally no family or friends, almost all through him. He caused the misery. He had potential and had taken his childhood for granted!
