“ I expected this reception… All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!”
We are then for the first time in the novel given insight into the creatures point of view:
“Yet you, my creator detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us… I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
This quotation presents to the reader the creature’s own situation in a surprisingly articulate fashion, on top of which it uses the romantic image of a child being of uncorrupted innocence only to be corrupted by society (“. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.”) And biblical allusion in order to drive home the point. This is in order to begin to change the reader’s one-dimensional view towards the creature before his own narrative.
The creature’s narrative commences on chapter 11. The creature describes his early life as one would imagine it to be from the point of view of a new born baby, but whereas we cannot remember our births or our first couple of years of life, the creature remembers (with considerable difficulty) the original era of his being.
He describes the “strange multiplicity of sensations” that were breathed into him in an instant, how he saw, felt, heard and smelt at the same time. The reader here starts to take the point of view of the creature as his birth is given from his own perspective. Using this narration, Shelley humanizes the creature, thus enabling the reader to relate to it.
We realize that, at the time of Frankenstein's abandonment, the creature was as innocent and defenseless as a human infant and the reader is lead to sympathize with the then “poor, helpless, miserable wretch.”
The creature found himself tormented by hunger, thirst, and bodily pain. However, he was consoled by the light of the moon and felt comforted by the birdsong. Un fortunately, when he attempted to imitate it, he found the sound of his own voice less melodious and frightened himself into silence. The creature continues with his tale of woe, how in all of his encounters with humanity, the creature has been met with horror and disgust. In the face of such cruelty, the reader cannot help but share the creature's fury and resentment: though he means no harm, his repulsive appearance is enough to make him a wretched outcast. He is, through no fault of his own, deprived of all hope of love and companionship; the reader thus slowly begins to sympathize with the creature. The fact that this chapter imparts this point of view to the reader is key as it challenges and conflicts with Frankenstein’s point of view presented previously in the novel and ask the reader important questions about human society as a whole which will become clearer and more pronounced as the creature’s narrative moves on.
At the beginning of chapter twelve, the second chapter of the creature’s narrative, he is living in the hovel adjacent to the De Lacey cottage. The creature begins the chapter by recalling his desire to speak to the cottagers, who impress him with their gentleness and simplicity, the two young people are very generous with the old man, and often go hungry so that he might eat again. As we know from his previous encounter with the villagers he is not used to seeing humans behaving in such a kind and loving manner, as he says:
“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly”
Maybe this reveals something of our own society, how to our own kind (race, colour or creed) we are able to be kind, loving and affectionate, but to anyone who is different (maybe a different race or religion) in this case personified by the creature who is different to all, all that we seem to be able to bestow is our unfounded and unrelenting hatred and anger. Again this demonstrates the importance of the creature’s narrative in presenting this view.
Upon observing the family, the creature also discovers that the De Lacey’s suffer from great poverty:
“ They suffered that evil in a very distressing degree”
He begins to cut their firewood for them, so that the young man, whose name is Felix, will no longer have to.
“ He found his store always replenished by an invisible hand”
In this way, Shelley is showing the reader that the creature, if surrounded by benevolence and good will, will adopt theses traits for himself, it is in fact the exact opposite of misery making a fiend of him. I believe that this is a device by Shelley, used in the creature’s narrative to portray a wider and somewhat biblical message. That if one were to do unto others what we would have done to us, then there world would be a much more friendly and generally better place, without misery to create the fiends of this world.
The creature spends the entire winter watching the cottagers, and grows to love each of them passionately. He attempts to learn their language, which he regards as "a godlike science." At first, he makes little progress. Every act of the cottagers, however banal, strikes him as miraculous: to watch them read aloud, or play music, or simply speak to one another, delights him immeasurably. Though he realizes that they are terribly unhappy, he cannot understand why: to him, the family seems to possess everything one could want: a roof, a fire, and the glories of human companionship.
Upon seeing his own reflection in a pool of water, the creature becomes even more certain that he will never know such happiness; he finds his own face to be monstrous, capable of inspiring only fear or disgust. Nonetheless, he dreams of winning the love of the cottagers by mastering their language; in this way can he reveal to them the beauty and gentleness of his soul. These wants and needs are not in anyway different to those of a human being, entirely innocent and without a hint of malice. I believe that in this section of the narrative, Shelley allows us insight into the creature’s mind, and when you read the character’s thoughts it begs the question, is it not the basic right of every being to have love and companionship? And if not, is there anything wrong with a creature who we may assume has the same or even a greater intellectual capacity than that of a human wanting those things?
In chapter 13 at the outset of spring, a stranger an exquisitely beautiful young woman of exotic appearance appears at the family's cottage. Felix is ecstatic to see her, kisses her hands, and refers to her as his "sweet Arabian"; later, the creature learns that her true name is Safie.
The creature notes that her language is different from that of the cottagers, and that the four humans have great difficulty in understanding one another. They communicate largely through gesticulation, which the creature is initially unable to interpret; he soon realizes, however, that the cottagers are attempting to teach Safie their language. He secretly takes part in her lessons and, in this way, finally begins to master the art of speech. At this point we realize that despite his appearance, intellectually the creature is not drastically different from a human at all, as the creature says:
“She and I improved rapidly”
In this way the creature and Safie are being made equal, they are setting about the same task, and yet the creature who from Frankenstein’s point of view we may consider to be inferior to a human, masters the task (learns the language) with same or even greater competence and speed than his human counterpart.
The book from which Safie's lessons are taken, called the Ruins of Empires, using this book, Shelley subtly reminds the reader of the ways in which humanity itself is monstrous: people commit unspeakable violence against one another, and exploit those who do not possess the trivial virtues of money and noble birth. The creature's horror at these revelations reveals his essential goodness which is a direct opposite to “ Mankind’s essential illness” to quote William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Again Shelley uses the creature’s narrative to present an alternative point of view to that of Victor Frankenstein and asks us who is the real monster in this situation. Is it the selfish Frankenstein, the man who bequeaths his creation with nothing but neglect, disdain and hatred? Or his creation, the creature whose only request is to have the love and companionship of another, and as we shall see later, this request is denied by the selfish Frankenstein.
In chapter fifteen, the creature’s education is greatly furthered by his discovery of an abandoned leather satchel, in which he finds three books: Milton's Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.
The creature's discovery of the satchel of books is in my opinion one of the most significant events in the novel. The Sorrows of Young Werther and Paradise Lost are arguably two of the greatest books in the history of world literature: they thus serve as examples of the highest beauty which mankind is capable of producing. Similarly, Plutarch's Lives exalts the work of heroes, thereby providing another illustration of human virtue and accomplishment.
While the satchel furthers the creature's knowledge of civilization, and of the triumphs and sufferings of men, it also, in his own words, teaches him to
"Admire the virtues and deprecate the vices of mankind."
One might describe these books as providing moral education; that is, the creature comes to distinguish between good and evil, and to look upon the former as preferable to the latter. Paradise Lost is the most important of the three books with regard to developing the creature's views on morality. Milton's poem concerns itself with the struggle between God and Satan, which from a Christian point of view, is seen to be the essential battle between good and evil.
The fact that the creature regards the books (all of which are fictional) as true histories illustrates that his childlike innocence has survived his early suffering. And yet, the books themselves shatter that innocence: through them, he feels the tragedy of his predicament for the first time. He feels himself to be forsaken, and cannot decide if he is most like Adam or most like Satan: he decides upon the latter because he is so much an outcast, completely without guidance or protection. This is because Frankenstein from the point of view of the creature would take role of god if he were to be Adam, but unlike God himself, Frankenstein did anything but bestow his loving kindness upon the creature.
By the end of the chapter, the reader is not certain which path the creature will take. As Felix is mercilessly beating him, the creature is unable to lift his hand against him: in this way, Shelley indicates the creature's innate humanity. If he later behaves as a monster, the reader cannot help but understand why: he has been terribly abused and reviled by those people whom he loved and trusted best. Despite his essential goodness, he is hated and so he can only hate mankind in return, this reiterates the point made earlier in the creatures narrative, that when one is greeted with nothing but hatred, one can do nothing but return that hatred, under this circumstance misery did make the creature a fiend, as the creature says:
“For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them”
In conclusion, I believe that the creatures narrative is important as it gives an opposing perspective to that previously given in the book, of the creature as a victim of the unfounded hatred resulting from an untrusting and unfriendly human society, and the romantic image that the innocence of children (the creature is intellectually a child when he is created) is corrupted by the society and environment by which they are surrounded. The creature’s narrative shows us that the misery which the creature was surrounded by did in fact making a fiend and that when one considers the situation morally he is the victim, not Frankenstein.
