Mary Shelley creates the sense that the monster is beyond human and super human at the end of the novel it is Frankenstein chasing the monster across the North Pole because it killed his wife and his father for revenge, for him abandoning him when he was created. In the end it is Frankenstein that dies first because of the flu. The monster manages to survive the North Pole. He only dies because he burns himself.
Mary Shelley creates the sense that Frankenstein is a monstrous character because he abandoned the creation after he saw how hideous it was. She also makes him more monstrous as he steals body parts from graves, which is illegal and in those times he would have been hung for it. It is also very monstrous of him actually creating the monster then rejecting it as well, he just didn’t expect it to be so hideous because he made it from the most beautiful parts. This is a link to him being very monstrous as he is trying to play God.
Mary Shelly also tries to make the creation seem very monstrous as he kills 2 people as revenge to Frankenstein ditching him. Revenge is a really bad thing, the saying is “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” this is saying that revenge is a bad thing, and we shouldn’t seek revenge on people because it isn’t right. The creation kills Frankenstein’s father and his wife, he might have killed the wife because he was jealous that he didn’t have one, or he was jealous that no one loved him, as he has been rejected by Frankenstein. The creation may have been thinking that Frankenstein doesn’t deserve friends or family because he doesn’t have any.
Mary Shelly almost creates a warning to Frankenstein and Elizabeth when he creates the monster and it turns out hideous and deformed. This is a warning to them because they are brother and sister and they got married, this could be saying that this is a vision of things to come; having children with a sibling normally makes the child deformed, like the creation was. Elizabeth and Frankenstein grew up together and were very close, they did everything together but Frankenstein refused to speak to her or to see her while he was creating the monster. He was trying to get rid of everything and everyone that could be a distraction. This would make sure he did everything right.
It was very risky for Mary Shelley to write a novel like this at these times, because of everyone being so religious and there are a lot of links to Frankenstein being God like in the novel. There are a lot of laws broken in this novel like Elizabeth and Frankenstein getting married when they are siblings and Frankenstein also steals bodies from graves. At the time the novel was written, women weren’t meant to be authors, it was still thought then that women should stay at home and do all the cooking and cleaning. So this could have raised controversy at the time. The novel was very religiously contradicting for the time because they had a lot of beliefs then. This is because religion plays a big part in the novel and is one of the main themes, and when Frankenstein creates the monster he is acting God. When he is creating life by creating the monster it is going against nature and against God and society was very religious at this time so they would not have liked this idea.
Mary Shelly tries to make the creation seem more monstrous by him seeking revenge on Frankenstein, like trying to kill his father and wife. But the creation had a reason for killing them; it still isn’t an excuse for killing someone. He does redeem himself though because at the end of the novel he is being chased across the North Pole by Frankenstein and the creation could have easily just stopped and killed Frankenstein but he doesn’t. Shelly shows that the creation is partly human because at the very end when the monster sees that Frankenstein has died he feels guilt and goes and burns himself. This also shows that the creation has some morals which makes him seem even more human.
I think that it is a great novel because it shows that man can’t play God and that society has very high standards. The novel also shows that people normally judge a book by its cover, they never normally get to know people if they look like that. I think that the most monstrous character in the novel is Frankenstein, not his creation because he has done a lot of monstrous things like stealing body parts from graves, creating a hideous monster and rejecting it when he first sees it and also hunting it down and trying to kill it. This novel also shows that society in a whole is very monstrous too because the novel says that he was rejected by the people of the town, so they are just as bad as Frankenstein.
