Later on in chapter five victor meets up with his dear friend Henry Clerval, for the first time in months he has a moment of pure happiness and joy but then Henry comments on his health saying “I did not before remark how very ill you appear; so thin and pale; and look as if you had been watching for several nights.” This makes us feel sympathy for Frankenstein because he cant hide the fact he is a mess and even if he manages to forget about the monster for a moment he will never truly be rid of it. We feel sorry for him because he did not want it to be this way, all victor wants now is to go back to his family and pretend none of this every happened sadly since he has created the problem he now has to fix it. But he can not tell any one about what he has done because he feels shame and people would look down on him fore doing such an inhuman thing so he must keep it to himself, the pressure must be very great.
In chapter 11 is when we first really meet the monster. He has found Victor and has taken him to a cave where he is trying to explain to victor what his life has been like and why he killed Victors little brother William. In one particular sentence our hearts really go out to the monster this is when he says to victor “I was a poor helpless, miserable wrench; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but the feeling of pain invaded me on all sides, I sat down and wept.” As well as what the sentence is actually meaning the language is designed to make us feel sorry for the monster. The sentence has been chopped up into small sections of two - three words; this has an effect on us because it is sharp and makes us feel uneasy because it does not flow well.
The monster has a kind side he helped some poor people by bringing in wood for them at night so that they could spend the day repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden. By doing this he earned there favor but they had not seen him yet. The monster one day when the two younger people were out went inside and met the old man who was blind, because the man could not see him he did not hate him but as soon as the younger people returned and saw him there they thought he was bad and attacked him because they thought he was trying to hurt the old man. This makes us feel sympathy for the monster because he has tried so hard to be friends with these people and when they cant see him they love him but as soon as they know what he looks like they hate and fear him.
At the end of the novel one of the last things we hear the monster say is “but it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing.” This shows the monsters remorse and regret at what he has done, he is very upset and feels as though everything he ever does or ever works for ends up hurting some one. He feels as if there is no-one out there who can help him. Mary Shelley uses this to make us feel sympathy for the monster, she makes us want to help him and forgive him for all the bad things he did because he was misguided and lonely and is now showing the greatest regret, she does this by letting us know how the monster is feeling inside, she shows his deepest feeling. The monsters head is full of dark thought about himself, he has completely given up. All this is in first person narrative so it’s more meaningful and has a greater effect on the reader because he’s saying it himself.
At the end of the novel Frankenstein’s life is almost over and it is what he wants we know this because he says “how I have lived I hardly know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain and prayed for death” this shows the reader that all Frankenstein really wants is peace and the only way he thinks he can get it is though death. This is very moving and makes the reader wish to help him; show him that he doesn’t need to die, that there are other ways. The reader feels very sympathetic towards him because he has given up on life and only wants death. It makes the reader feel sympathy for Frankenstein because of every thing he has been though in his life.
In conclusion I believe Mary Shelley did not intend to create more sympathy for ether character, what she did was create a deep and thought provoking novel that had people thinking and making up there own minds. She managed to make the novel interesting with her different use of language. When the book was first published it would have gained a lot of interest because some of the things that were written related to what was going on in the world at the time. Many parts of Frankenstein related back to Mary’s own personal experiences, she used what was going on in the world around her. Many example of this can be found though out the book. For instance Mary had a few children all but one died before adulthood, her husband drowned at sea. Victor Frankenstein losses all of his close family this is possible because of the pain Mary felt because she lost hers to.
She has used many different styles of writing to make us feel sympathy for the two characters. She used pathetic fallacy when ever the monster came in, it was always rainy and dark. She used different sounds like when some thing horrible was being said the words contained harsh sound instead of soft sounds. All the little things she did to make us feel sympathy for one of the characters really work even thought to most readers they go un-noticed.
