In chapter eleven we are introduced to the creature. The creature is a delinquent and does not know what the purpose of objects that he comes into contact with. Examples of this are, “In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers” and, “The whole village was roused…some attacked me.” The creatures start to life was the complete opposite of Victor’s start to life. The creature has not been taught anything and takes everything at face value. An example of this is when he feels the warmth of the fire and to try and get warmer he thrusts his hand into the fire and got burnt. If he had had the same start to life as Victor then he would have been taught not to do that. The creature is rejected by society because he is ugly and believes that he can take without asking. This is another thing that would not have happened if he had had the same start to life as Victor. After reading chapter eleven I feel sympathetic towards the creature. The creature does not know what is going on and has not been taught how to behave or about ethics. Victor Frankenstein has been given the best start to his life but when he created the creature he abandoned it. This is very similar to Mary Shelley’s upbringing because her father and her father’s second wife both rejected her.
In chapter five Victor rejects the creature for the first time. I can see this because Victor uses degrading adjectives to describe the creature. These include, “Shrivelled,”, “Yellow skin,”, “Horrid,” and “Catastrophe.” Victor refers to the real outcome of his creation as a catastrophe because the creature tuned out to be the complete opposite of what he wanted. Another example of his rejection of the creature is when he says, “Now that I have finished…breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” This shows that even though he created the creature and should have taken the role of father figure he rejected the creature because it did not meet his high expectations. Mary Shelley also refers to the author Dante who wrote about hell. This is an appropriate reference because at the time Victor was probably going to go to hell because he had created life and then rejected it. From the beginning of the chapter we know that something is going to happen because pathetic fallacy is used to build up an atmosphere of suspense and an outcome of horror. We can probably guess that if the creature is unsightly which the atmosphere leads us to believe, then Victor will probably reject is. The examples of pathetic fallacy at the start are “dreary night of November” and “the rain pattered dismally” The creature is also brought to life at night so that even more suspense is created. This part in the story refers to Mary Shelley’s earlier life because she was rejected by her father. At this point I feel sympathy for the creature because before he was given a chance to express himself he was rejected. I feel no sympathy for Victor at all because he is very selfish since he feels that everything should be perfect and fit in with his plans and if it doesn’t then he doesn’t want it.
Pathetic fallacy plays a large part in chapter ten and leads me to feel more sympathetic towards the creature. The atmosphere was described as being cold, wet and icy. Victor seems quite weak and preoccupied as he climbs the mountain. He does not show much anger but tension is built up because there is a high chance of an accident as the mountain was unsafe. An example of this tension is, “The pines…add an air of severity to the scene.” This is blatant pathetic fallacy because Mary Shelley actually says, “an air of severity,” to create an atmosphere of dangerousness and harshness. When Victor meets the creature he greets it with the exclamation, “Devil” but then the creature takes the reception peacefully saying that he expected it. This makes me feel even more sympathetic towards the creature. The creature says, “Have I not suffered enough,” but Victor rejects him again. This is irresponsible and Victor is not a father figure to the creature. The confrontation between the two goes on with Victor rejecting the creature and the creature asking for peace. However at the end of this confrontation the creature does issue a warning to Victor, “Or become the author of your own speedy ruin.” This shows that the creature does have a dark side and this quote could mean that the creature is going to attack Victor later in the novel.
In chapter sixteen the creature mentions in detail how he feels about Victor. We can see that he feels rejected because of the lines, “Cursed creator,” and “Frankenstein – you belong then to my enemy.” This shows that the creature is angry and seeks revenge on Victor and his family because Victor has made him unsightly and no-one likes him. The creature only refers to Victor as his father once and even then it is used in the past tense. The creature uses the term “father” with spite. This is to show that the creature no longer wants any association with Victor because Victor has not assisted him in any way. This chapter is the first time we really see the creature begin to plot against Victor and his family in revenge to the start in life that Victor gave the creature. After reading chapter sixteen I begin to feel sympathetic towards Victor because the creature does seem very serious about making Victor’s life as bad as possible.
In chapter seventeen we see Victor pay for the way he has treated the creature. The creature wants Victor to create a mate and we see Victor debating whether he should do it. The main theme of this chapter is whether Victor gives in to the creature’s demands or whether he stands up to the creature and says no. Victor believes that he shouldn’t because he doesn’t want to have to go through the ordeal of creating another creature and he doesn’t know whether the creature will like his new mate and if they reject each other then he would have the same problem two times over. The creature says that he would go and live in South America away from human civilisation but Victor does not trust him. In chapter twenty we see that Victor destroyed the second creature because he thought that if the second creature rejected the first one then it may provoke it. At this point I feel sympathy for Victor because he has done everything in his power to try and stop the creature from attacking his family and he set out to try and bring people back to life so that people wouldn’t die unless they wanted to.
In the last letter we can see that Victor was trying to do everything with a view to helping people. He created the creature in the hope that he could bring people back from the dead. He could not have known that it would turn out like it did. We also see a change in the creature’s attitude towards the Victor. The creature apologises for killing Victor but Victor is dead and Robert Walton reproaches him because he believes that the creature is a hypocrite and doesn’t deserve forgiveness. I can see this from the quotes, “Wretch,” and “Hypocritical Fiend.” We can see that Walton felt sympathy for Victor because he uses aggressive words towards the creature but kind-hearted expressions towards Victor.
I feel most sympathetic to Victor overall after reading the whole story because he tried to help people all the time and the entire experiment was formed so that he could bring people back to life so that they could enjoy more time with their loved ones. However, when the creature was first created I felt sorry for the creature because it was discarded by Victor before it had a chance to express itself and it was totally rejected by mankind. Every person that the creature met alienated him even though he attempted to befriend them. I thought that this was very cruel but it did not give the creature the excuse to murder Frankenstein’s family. This was an act of rage and revenge which caused me to completely change my mind about feeling sympathetic towards the creature.