His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries underneath
On the other hand Shelley makes us sympathise for the Monster. The Monster was created using the body parts and brain of humans, like every other human the Monster started off as a baby. Regardless of his huge stature and gruesome looks the Monster had the mind mentality and characteristics of a new born baby, an innocent and needing baby. With Victor Frankenstein being the Monsters creator he is also his father, meaning he is meant to look after the Monster but Victor rejects his creation:
He might have spoken, but I did not hear…I escaped and rushed down stairs
After spending two years to create him, in the first two minutes of meeting the Monster the readers see Victor rejecting his ‘son’. The Monster reached out for a hug like and small child would and Victor ran away; showing no love or affection. This is the Monster’s first rejection by society. Shelley has purposefully done this to manipulate the readers; forcing them to make their first perception of the Monster. It is evident that at this point in the novel the readers will be on the side of the Monster as the readers will feel sympathy for the Monster as he is being maltreated.
The Monster does some dreadful things in this novel where he could be labelled as evil. Throughout this novel the Monster plays a part in four murders; three in which he committed himself and one where his involvement led to the murder of another. All four of these murders are shocking and show that the Monster definitely has an evil side. The first killing was the one of young William Frankenstein; the Monster travels to Geneva and meets a little boy in the woods. Hoping that due to his young age the boy does not dwell in the prejudice of adults’ minds, he wants to make him his companion. But the boy reveals himself as a relation d Frankenstein, his creator and abandoner; in addition to this the Monster gets rejected for a second time as William Frankenstein shouts insults and rude remarks at him. This angers the Monster and he strangles the young boy until he takes his last breath and dies. Although this is not the Monsters’ initial intention, he does this as his first act of revenge against his creator:
I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph;
clapping my hands, I exclaimed ‘I, too, can create desolation’
This quotation is morbid and it shows the Monster’s weird and hellish excitement over his first murder; the Monster obviously is determined to make Victor feel the pain that he inflicted on him when he abandoned him. No argument can justify or excuse the Monster’s actions, as killing a child or even anyone is unacceptable but the Monster was bought into this world against his will and then continuously rejected; can his actions be rationalised? Upon reading this the readers would have been shocked to see the Monster display such anger; with his first act of violence being the burning of the De Lacey’s cottage, this small surge of violence has quickly escalated into him becoming a killer.
After the murder of the young boy the Monster removes a locket from the dead boy’s body and plants it on a sleeping girl, Justine. Justine is found with the necklace, put on trial and found guilty. Justine confesses to the murder and is executed. This is the second murder that the Monster has played a part in. The Monster finally comes face to face with Frankenstein in Geneva where he gives Victor the task of creating him a female companion, Victor makes the companion then decides he wants to not go ahead with it, so he destroys her. The Monster vows to kill all those who mean a lot to Frankenstein, and so he does. His third murder was Henry Clerval, Victors best friend, the Monster wanted Victor to feel pain. The last and most shocking murder was the one of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Victor’s wife and sister. On the night of their wedding just before they are about to spend their first night as a married couple, the Monster strikes again and murders Elizabeth. When Victor discovers her body he looks up at the window and there he sees the Monster looking at him sadistically:
A grin was on the face of the monster; he seem to jeer, as with his
fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of his wife
This quotation shows how happy the Monster was to complete the task of being able to see Victor feel angry and alone just like how the Monster feels. Frankenstein ruined the Monsters one chance to be happy by not going through with the making of the female companion. Revenge was sweet to the Monster and the feeling of accomplishment is shown in his actions. The readers would have been very sympathetic towards Elizabeth’s death, as in the novel we get told that, ‘Everyone adored Elizabeth’ and like all the Monsters victims she was also innocent. Shelley chose the Monster’s victims to be innocent as the Monster himself was once innocent before he himself was subjected to a loss, a loss of a father figure, a part of him was killed; Shelley is just showing the Monster doing what was done onto him.
As the Monster becomes more powerful he becomes more dangerous; gaining adrenaline from watching Victor suffer :
Slave, I before reasoned with you…I am your master-obey!
The Monster starts to feel he is superior to others, he has realised the extent of his strength and bullying and he is using it to his full capacity. ‘Master’ and ‘obey’ these words show the Monster taking the role of a master where he now feels he must be bowed down to and respected. ‘Slave’ is used very strongly here as it signifies the Monster’s lack of respect towards people; he now feels no sympathy for anything or anyone and treats all humans the same. Shelley is portraying the Monster to be a devil, due to the monstrosities of his actions the readers cannot reason, or side with the Monster as he is now able to know right from wrong but he is choosing to do wrong.
On the other hand throughout this novel Shelley uses many ways for the reader to create sympathy for the Monster in which making it hard to make a correct perception of him. The Monster spends his first few days of life being repeatedly rejected.
First of all the Monster is rejected by his creator Victor Frankenstein, upon trying to interact and seek attention from his father, Victor runs away leaving the Monster to fend for himself in the world. Unlike other newborn babies the Monster was all alone, scared and vunerable. He finds refuge in a forest where he experiences his senses for the first time, forcing him to grow up by himself, ‘I sat down and wept.’ In the duration of time the Monster was in the forest he was only 2-3 days old, he was incapable of knowing about the world, so his only resort was to cry just like babies do when they lack attention. The Monster learns how to find and cook food; he is able to hear sounds of the world as well as feel it. Then one day he discovers fire and his experience was memorable:
…and was overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy
I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.
This quotation once again shows the readers the torment and harsh experiences the Monster had to go through in the early days of his life. Shelley uses this quotation as another example of lack of parenting; she is illustrating that due to the Monster’s non-existent care he burns himself in the fire, whereas if he had a guardian they would have been there to tell him that he shouldn’t touch it. Shelley is purposefully manipulating our feelings, knowing that we as humans will be able to pity the Monster. When food is scarce the Monster leaves the forest he finds a hut where he is met by a man who like Frankenstein ran away from him in shock. This is now the second time the Monster has been rejected; he finds shelter in the hut. The next day he travelled to a nearby village and the way he was treated is shocking:
Some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many
other kinds of missile, I escaped to the open country
The Monster was subjected to physical abuse by the habitants of the village. This is where the readers see the Monster being rejected by society for the third time in a very short time period. This would have heavily saddened the Monster as he is unable to understand why he is being treated like this. The Monster eventually finds settlement in an outhouse attached to a cottage; from here he observes a family called the De Laceys. Through watching and learning the Monster learns how to speak and read; with Frankenstein equipping him with one of the best brains, the Monster was quick to learn as well as having a very high intellectual level. Through observing the De Lacey family the Monster sees how a family loves one another and how they look after each other:
They often… suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the two younger
cottagers… they placed food before the old man when they reserved none for themselves
The De Laceys portrayed kindness which made the Monster realise how wrong his rejection was. He grows to love them, even providing food for them in the winter but does not approach them; this shows the readers
The wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames,
which clung to it and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues
This quotation has various brilliant literacy techniques which
This quotation sees the Monster pleading Victor to make him a companion; the reason being is the Monster feels that the female companion may be the only person who will be able to sympathise for him unlike everyone else in the world. Victor had to then think about it as there were several factors he would have to consider. The companion will be an excellent idea as this will mean the Monster will be happy and Victor will be able to keep his loved ones; also as the creator of the Monster he owes him happiness especially as he has never showed the Monster any love. On the other hand, how does Victor know that the Monster can keep his promise? He seems to be able to overpower Victor now so what if he is just tricking him to get his own way. What if the Monster and the companion reproduce, will they teach their children to be dangerous? , how will society react to this? Victor could also be against this as when making the Monster he fell terribly ill and especially as this task is a horrendous one.
Victor finally makes his decision and decides to go ahead with the Monsters’ request and make the female companion. Whilst Victor made the female, the Monster hid and watched him until one day Victor destroyed the female. Victor ripped her apart and threw her body parts into the sea. The Monster was enraged, his one possibility of happiness ruined before his eyes; no one can comprehend what he must have felt. After being constantly shunned out by humans, when an inkling of hope for a happy life comes along it is ruined by another human and to make it worse this human was his father, the man who created him. The Monster now doesn’t hold back the anger; he goes forth and murders Victor’s best friend and then Victor’s wife, killing her in the night of their wedding, exactly as Victor did to his ‘wife’.
In this novel we see the Monster do the most appalling and unforgiveable things however we can understand how he has been driven to do some of these things. Victor should take some of the blame as due to his selfish small minded views he started off the Monsters’ trail of rejection. This leads on to the main theme in this novel which is prejudice. The novel shows society rejecting a person due to their appearance. Shelley left a moral for us in whom it relates to us in modern day; if we constantly treat a person differently because they are different, the character of the person will change often not with a good ending.
Some people will still argue that the Monster was a bad person, some will suggest otherwise; this Mary Shelley has done purposefully as the Monster is such a complex character that such decisions cannot be made easily. Any successful novel will feature complex characters as these characters insert reader interaction. Mary Shelley can be seen as a Romantic writer. The Romantics were a group of writers/ novelists and poets in the 19th century. They were writing at a time of tremendous change in Europe. A romantic novel such as Frankenstein contains a romantic hero- this is a main character who goes through great suffering on his journey. Victor is this novel’s romantic hero; he attempts to do something amazing but pays the ultimate price; Victors’ creation of the Monster also ties in with the French Revolution. In 1789 a revolution occurred in France. The King Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette were overthrown and executed. Thousands died in the following years as a new republic was formed. This revolution was based on strong idealistic and rational ideas and motives but it just ended in a lot of suffering and bloodshed. This links to Victor and his actions; he tried to do something fantastic and new but the results were disastrous.
Shelley thought very hard about how she wanted to present the Monster. Society is the biggest monster in this novel, and it has left us to think about our own actions:
I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…
The Monster was created just like Adam in the bible but then cast out of his kingdom/home just like Satan. He was not asked to be made but then was treated like a scam. The Monster is sickened and revolted by all that he has done. This shows that the Monster is not as evil as he is perceived, as evil people are not able to feel guilt or have a sort of forgiving conscience. The Monster is saddened by the death of Victor even though Victor treated him horribly. Even after all he has been through he is able to forgive. The Monster then leaves and kills himself in a far-off forest.
