At the beginning of the novel we learn that Frankenstein himself has experienced grief and is determined that nobody should ever feel like he did, he also wanted the world to know who he was; so, to pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold the mysteries of creation, the monster was born. Here Frankenstein spoke the most famous quote from the novel,
“Beautiful! Great God!”
Frankenstein is horrified with the result of the creature he has made and flees his laboratory. We have to remember that even though the monster had, “yellow skin, a shriveled complexion, and watery eyes”, that he was still a baby. He was one day old and the first taste of life he was handed was complete rejection. When Frankenstein runs to his bedroom and shuts the curtain on his four poster bed, the monster follows him. The monster reaches his hand out to Frankenstein who is petrified and flees once again. Mary Shelly presents the monster here as innocent, childlike just reaching out to his mother/father figure for some love. We empathise with the monster and remember a time when we have felt rejected, hurt or unloved. The monster then runs away and Frankenstein feels pleased that he is gone yet a little uneasy to know that he is out there in the world.
Chapter 11 is narrated by the monster, he tells the audience about his first experiences and reactions to life. This part of the novel has great importance because it is where the monster discovers himself. Nature also plays a key part to this story and here alone in the forest the monster encounters the wonderful things around him.
Before the monster detects his senses he gets very upset, he wakes up in the forest, cold and frightened.
“I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch: I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.”
We feel the monsters pain and Mary Shelly presents the monster as naïve and desolate.
Once the monster understands his senses he starts to take an interest in his surroundings and the nature in the forest, he learned how to make a fire and how to feed himself. Mary Shelly goes into descriptive detail about the monster finding out about nature, this presents him to be a kind caring creature, the opposite of our previous conceptions by his hideous appearance.
His second encounter with humans was as brutal and hurtful as it had been from Frankenstein. The monster had stumbled upon a small village, immediately he was attacked and made to flee and take refuge in a hovel.
“Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.”
Mary Shelly is still presenting the monster in an innocent caring way; this makes us feel sad for the monster and angry at the men who unknowingly teach this creature to hate.
Towards the end of chapter 11 the monsters happens upon the Delaysey family. Without knowing it they helped the monster to read write and even love. The monster would sit and watch the way the delayseys treated each other, he longed for a family to love and care for and took them to be it calling them his ‘protectors’. The monster would fetch food and wood for the family, never showing his face to any of them because he knows what the reaction he gets from people when they see him is. Mary Shelly writes a couple of paragraphs describing and exploring what the monster learns from and about the delaseys
