When we read about William’s murder, we, like Victor, believe that the monster was guilty of the crime. The reader is appalled; all sympathy for the monster is lost. These feelings are compounded as Justine is found guilty of William’s murder and Victor is convinced that the monster sought to make her appear guilty. Again words such as ‘anguish’ and ‘despair’ are used frequently to show Victor’s state of mind, and all this we believe is due to the monster’s terrible revenge.
When the monster begins to tell his own version of the story, his use of language and rhetoric are impressive to the reader, and once again you are led to sympathise with this sorry creature. He begs Victor to listen to him saying ‘have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?’ and reminds him that he only exists because of him, ‘remember that I am thy creature.’ He uses biblical comparisons and describes himself as a ‘fallen angel’ who has been driven down from joy like the angel expelled from Paradise. The reader is surprised by the monster’s sensitivity, eloquence and intelligence, is he a monster at all or just a poor misunderstood creature? As the monster speaks of his feelings of abandonment we begin to realise that Victor has shirked his responsibilities to him. Everyone loathes him but Victor, who created him, should feel compassion. We can only pity such a creature who once had a soul that ‘glowed with love and humanity’ but now says ‘shall I not hate them who abhor me?’ Finally when the monster points out Victor’s hypocrisy, ‘you accuse me of murder and yet you would with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature’, we are given an important new viewpoint of Victor’s actions. The reader is made more critical of Victor’s perception of things.
The monster’s story is told in the barren, desolate and remote scene of the ‘sea of ice’ near the top of a mountain. This link to the setting behind Victor’s tale, the North Pole, emphasises the isolation and doom of both these characters. These settings both icy cold offer no escape from the bleakness and harshness of the landscape and are metaphors for the feelings both Victor and the monster have for one another, which are cold and unforgiving. This work by Mary Shelley was greatly inspired by the Romantic movement of the time which focused on the expression of awe-inspiring emotions aroused by nature, the imagination, dreams and solitude. This same influence was evident in the music, poetry and paintings of the period.
When the creature is first brought to life, his world is crowded with confusion, ‘a strange multiplicity of sensations seized me.’ He feels raw sensations but is unable to understand them or the world around him. He marvels and delights like a child at the sights and sounds of nature. He is frightened at being alone, cold and hungry. He describes himself as ‘a poor, helpless, miserable wretch’ and says he, ‘sat down and wept’. The reader’s feelings of empathy and compassion are stirred. We have all felt lonely at some time. His innocence is seen in the simplicity of his language and actions, his description of the birds as ‘little winged animals’ has a child-like quality. He is responsive to nature all around him, innocent and not born evil.
He cannot understand why the old man in the hut is so frightened of him and runs away across the fields. Left alone he is enchanted ‘by the simple dwelling place and is unaware that he has done wrong by stealing the old man’s food. His happiness when he finds a village is short-lived, the villagers are terrified by his appearance and attack him, forcing him to leave. He is puzzled by the beating he received and decides to keep his distance and observe them, hoping that he will discover why they drove him away. The people he chooses to observe covertly are the De Lacey family. There is no anger or desire for revenge at this stage, the creature delights in their beauty and happiness and shares their sorrows, ‘when they were unhappy I felt depressed, when they rejoiced I sympathised in their joys.’ The monster becomes very fond of the family he is watching and feels guilty that he has taken their meagre supply of food. He loves the way they behave towards one another, their beautiful appearance, their harmony and the old man’s glorious music, ‘I longed to join them, but dared not.’ His pleasure at hearing De Lacey’s music and his sorrow at the family’s distress reveal him to be a creature of beautiful feelings and natural sympathies. The monster’s pity for the De Laceys reflects our pity for the monster. Our sympathies are increased when the creature views his own image in a pool; he is horrified and is, ‘filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.’
The monster’s story takes another turn when the De Laceys are visited by an Arabian lady. When Felix teaches the visitor their language the monster also acquires language. When Felix reads from ‘Ruins of Empires’, his natural goodness is shown by the way he turns away with ‘disgust’ at the deeds of ‘bloodshed’ described in the book. He begins to develop his knowledge of society and his question, ‘What was I?’ reveals a growing awareness of his own difference. The welcome given to Safie highlights the feelings of rejection the monster has experienced from all men so far. Now that the monster has learned to read, he can decipher the papers in his pocket. They are Victor’s laboratory notes and tell of his ‘accursed origin’. It becomes very obvious that Victor loathed his creation and rejected it completely; this passage powerfully describes the raw emotions felt by the monster. After this follows a period of deep despondency with which we are able to identify. He is still secure in the knowledge that the De Laceys are good, caring people, ‘the most excellent creatures in the world’, and with this in mind he goes to their cottage. At first he is able to converse with the old, blind man who is happy to give the friendless monster sympathy, his reaction not being biased by prejudice about the monster’s appearance. This strongly contrasts with the scene of brutal violence that follows when the others return home. The author vividly portrays the feelings of anger and despair experienced by the monster .We are able to understand when he cries, ’I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.’ His only bond to mankind is broken when the De Laceys leave the village and, for the first time, he experiences feelings of revenge, ‘I bent my mind towards injury and death.’
As the monster goes in search of Frankenstein, the cause of all his pain, his intentions are again misunderstood when he rescues a drowning girl and is rewarded by being shot and wounded. His rage is understandable as he vows, ‘eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind. ’In the following passages the author again describes feelings of ‘anguish’, ‘pain’ and ‘desolation’ - very powerful words. In his search for a companion, his hatred festers. He comes across a small boy and naively thinks that a child will not judge him by his appearance and will be willing to befriend him. He is horrified by the child’s verbal abuse of him, and when it emerges that the boy is related to Frankenstein, the monster strangles him. The reader cannot help but be disgusted at the monster’s reaction to this violent action, ‘my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph.’ These feelings intensify as he plants evidence on the innocent Justine. The mood darkens as the monster is portrayed as beast-like, powerful and destructive. In our eyes he has moved from ‘a new Adam’ to Satan, the fallen Angel.
The narration now reverts to Victor Frankenstein, and the monster again begs him to create a female companion for him. Again we realise his isolation, he demands ‘a creation of another sex, but as hideous as myself’. We feel his demands are justified and Victor owes him this at least. But Victor does not believe that the monster willl then leave forever and says a female would ‘aid you in the task of devastation’. Eventually he agrees to do as the monster asks. Victor is again telling the story, but the author has ensured that we feel differently towards him now that we have heard the monster’s tale. As Victor nears completion of his terrible task, the monster re-appears. He is described as a ‘daemon’ again, full of ‘malice and treachery’. Victor cannot bear to fulfil his promise, and destroys the she-monster he has created, the creature ‘on whose future existence he depended for happiness’. We have divided sympathies at this point, conflicting feelings when the monster out of revenge, plunges Victor into desolation. We see the monster wants to make him suffer the same things he has suffered yet this will not solve anything. His parting, haunting words are chilling, ‘I shall be with you on your wedding night’.
Even when we realise that it is the monster that has murdered Clerval, our sympathies are still divided. We can understand the pain and desire for revenge, which drove the creature to seek out Frankenstein’s closest friend and kill him, yet we must also pity the narrator as he tells of his grief and horror. As Victor is wrongly accused of the murder we feel for him, but we are reminded of the injustices and prejudice experienced by the monster.
As Victor’s wedding to Elizabeth approaches, we are reminded of the monster’s threat. Victor dwells on what he believes to be his impending death, but he is so self-centred that it is difficult to pity him. He is happy for a very short time with his new wife, but then the monster fulfils his dreadful promise, killing not Frankenstein but his beautiful bride. The reader is shocked and horrified by this dreadful act, yet we can see clear parallels between this and Victor’s destruction of the monster’s female companion. If we had pitied the monster in the past we now do so far less, as Elizabeth was truly an innocent victim, caught between Frankenstein and his creation.
Victor, furiously desiring revenge, resolves to kill the monster or die in the attempt, and we can understand this. He chases him across the world and whenever he falters, the creature appears to taunt him – our sympathies for the monster are lessening. But this is Victor’s story, very biased; can we trust him after all that he has done to hurt the monster? Eventually they arrive in the Arctic, and we are back to where the novel began, in the frozen wasteland with dramatic descriptions of the setting. Victor is rescued by Walton, and needs to get him onto his side by making the monster seem as terrible and loathsome as possible. We find it difficult to agree when he tells his friend, ‘ trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice.’
Once again Walton is the narrator, taking the reader to the climax of the novel. He is completely in sympathy with Frankenstein, trusting him and believing all he tells him about the monster. On his deathbed, the exhausted Victor implores Walton to ‘finish my unfinished work’, meaning him to find and kill the monster. Walton describes his friend’s death as, ‘the untimely extinction of this glorious spirit’, and he is grief-stricken. Later he discovers the monster with Victor’s corpse, the creature is lamenting his ‘creator’s’ passing and expressing his regret for all the crimes he has committed. He is so very pitiful that Walton feels compassion for him. The reader, too, can understand his pain, ‘I was the slave not the master of an impulse which I detested’.
The monster’s final speech sums up the tragedy and the issues of the book. It shows the contrast between his early goodness and his later very dark behaviour, and clearly explains that his rejection by his creator and by the rest of humanity was an ‘injustice’. This speech is almost poetic in its eloquence, the words powerfully stirring our compassion for this sad creature. He no longer desires to live,’ polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death? ‘ As he jumps from the window into the darkness, the reader is left to wonder what will become of him. Is the darkness and extreme cold a metaphor for the ‘hell’ he is now entering?
Mary Shelley has enabled the reader to feel great sympathy with Frankenstein’s monster. This was a creature who at first only desired acceptance from his ‘master’ but received loathing, hatred, and utter rejection. His change from an innocent being into a vengeful beast, we feel is the direct result of mankind’s prejudice and cruelty towards him. The concept that people should not be judged by their appearance was a radical idea for the period that Mary Shelley was writing in – challenging the social conventions of the time. Parallels are drawn between the anguish of the monster and the grief felt by Victor Frankenstein. These strong emotions are portrayed against some of the harshest, most desolate scenery in the world. The contrast between these settings and the warm and pleasant scenes when Victor is with his friends and family only serve to emphasise the monster’s loneliness and isolation. Images of light and dark, heaven and hell, warmth and cold, fire and ice, high and low, joy and despair can be traced throughout the novel. All of these bring to mind Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. The novel shows evidence of Mary Shelley’s interest in scientific ideas of the time, a time when the conversation of intelligent, well-educated people often turned to recent scientific developments.
