The sensations of the creature continued to puzzle him. As he walked away, he noticed that the heat and light of the outside world ‘became more and more oppressive’ to him. He has also yet to experience hunger, thirst and the cold of the night. All these were very new experiences for him and he felt ‘cold and half-frightened, as it were instinctively’, finding himself so very ‘desolate and alone’.
The creature also experienced the pain of sorrow. For he felt as though he was a ‘poor, helpless, miserable wretch’. Not knowing who he was or where he was, he ‘sat down and wept.’
This immediately grabs a huge amount of sympathy from the reader. The creature is as a lonely child, naïve and helpless. The reader begins to see the creature as a true infant, putting aside his physical hideousness.
The creature begins to develop his intelligence somewhat speedily. The first sign of intellect is shown to us when the creature has an encounter with fire. The initial warmth, emitted by the fire, causes the creature to seek refuge in it from the cold. He stumbles on a darker side of fire when he thrusts his hand into the live flames. He becomes perplexed and wonders ‘how strange, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects!’ The creature’s intelligence is also shown when he finds that the material needed to produce the fire was wood. He finds this to his joy as he realises the abundance of wood.
The creature is very observant of the world around him. He takes mental notes on the reactions of people when they first see him and his watchfulness increases as he enters the cottage of Agatha. Here, he peers through a crack at the inhabitants and learns a great deal from scrutinising alone. By this method, the creature was able to learn certain words, which were used quite frequently. He learnt the names of the cottagers and mouthed the words himself until he could pronounce them. He was also able to use the language lessons given to Safie to his own advantage. His progress was rapid to such an extent that in two months he understood most of the words used by the cottagers. From Felix’s explanations of ‘Ruins of Empires’ to Safie, the creature discovered a great deal about history, empires, governments and religions of different nations of man. At one point, he was able to read books himself. His outlook of man changed to one of loathing and disgust. It seems as though his curiosity and interest in the world was brought to an end when he learnt of the evil nature of man.
The creature did later become vengeful. This is shown when he exploits his intelligence by framing Justine. He cleverly takes the portrait which he found on the boy he had murdered, and places it on the sleeping Justine. His abilities also allow him to trace Dr. Frankenstein down.
The creature is portrayed as a lonely and lonesome being. He has had no real contact with humans and the instances that he ever did have ended with him being an outcast. The creature’s mind does not at first grasp the reason behind this rejection. He is first rejected by his creator. Dr. Frankenstein abandons the creature from the very beginning. The creature is then declined from the townspeople for the mere act of being. He is oppressed and attacked with cruelty, hatred and disgust. This would obviously leave the creature feeling abandoned from the whole world. The creature had to endeavour all this for such a long duration. His soul took asylum with the cottagers, behind a barrier. But even this resulted in hopelessness for the creature. He was disallowed from entering the hearts of the cottagers so much so that they left behind their own property and deserted him.
The creature himself disliked who he was. From looking into a transparent pool, he believed ‘I was in reality the monster that I am’. He could understand the reason for people seeing him as repelling and felt the same way himself. Thereby, portraying himself as lonely.
The creature’s refutation was far from over. He was rejected by a small child, even though he believed children would open themselves to new and unknown situations. He was also shot by a man even though he actually saved the life of a girl from drowning.
The creature’s loneliness can also be seen through his desperation for a companion. He urges and manages to persuade Dr. Frankenstein in beginning another creation as he himself was. But this also ends to another pessimistic situation for him as Dr. Frankenstein destroys the work he began.
The creature was in fact of good temperament. Just as a child, he is free from all feelings of anger and hatred and is brought into the world with only love, happiness and joy in mind. Though the creature was attacked by the townspeople, he showed kindness to the cottagers. He saw the unique beauty and love that the cottagers shared and above all hoped he could be a part of it. His acts of kindness are seen many times over in these chapters. The first and maybe not so clearly seen is his refraining from the food of the cottagers. The creature took a considerable period of time before he ‘discovered one of the causes of the uneasiness of this amiable family was poverty; and they suffered that evil in a very distressing degree.’ This shows that the creature did feel such emotions as sympathy and pity. From then onwards, he satisfied his hunger with nuts and berries from the neighbouring wood instead of stealing food from the dwellers of the cottage.
The creature also shows his ‘goodness’ when he examines the behaviours of the cottagers. The fact that often Felix and Agatha left themselves hungry in order to feed the old man was seen as very moving for the creature. It shows the kindness-loving nature already present in the creature’s heart. His sympathy for these people caused him to aid them in their labours by utilizing Felix’s tools to bring a store of wood worth of several days. He was delighted to see that his efforts actually assisted the cottagers. But when the creature was also rejected from this family, he refrained himself from attacking Felix even though he could have ‘torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope’.
After all this had happened, the creature still shows a kindness that exists deep within him. He walked away from the cottage only to find a girl drowning. With great effort, he rescued the young girl from death. One would not do as the creature had done so if they had been rejected by many other humans before. It shows that the creature had a considerable amount of forgiveness and a lot of patience, though this patience was limited as we see later.
The creature is able to experience love and care. In fact, he has a longing for these desires that he demands another creature like him to be created by Frankenstein.
The creature begins to develop mentally just as children do, although his mental development was at a more rapid pace. He begins to notice and appreciate the natural beauty of humans at large. But with time, it is seen that his fondness for certain women does increasingly grow. His sexual desires are not limited to any one female. He seems to greatly regard the beauty of Safie, Justine and the portrait of the woman. He sees the ‘gentle eyes of Agatha and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian’ as thoughts which somewhat soothe him from his misery. He also admires the beautiful singing voice of Safie. The creature looked at the portrait of the lady and ‘gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips’. The sexual desires of the creature link in to his loneliness and desperation for a loving companion.
The monster does have a more destructive and revengeful personality. He shouts out in fury when the cottagers abandon him and in utter rage, he burns the cottage down and destroys as much as he possibly could. The creature murders Dr. Frankenstein’s brother due to revenge towards the Frankenstein family. His initial feelings of hatred and antagonism were only towards his creator. As a means of punishing the doctor, the creature murders his brother and his wife-to-be. This hatred later changes to hatred for the whole of humanity when he vows ‘eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind’.
It must be stated that this hostile behaviour shown by the creature is only a natural response to rejection and ill-treatment by the society. As is shown in the story, the creature is capable of kindness and love and essentially has these feelings within him instinctively. His experiences have led him to believe that all mankind will hate him. Why should they experience happiness, beauty, joy and love whilst he, wanting to so earnestly, could not?
As a reader of this story, I have had different stances towards the creature after having heard his own version of events. At first, I probably felt what most others feel when reading this story; that the creature is a monster and nothing more. It is quite difficult to imagine a hideous being to have a ‘wonderful and shining heart’. But I feel my attitudes towards the creature have nevertheless changed. I now feel as though the creature did what anyone else would have done if they were to be in such a situation. What surprises me is the constant patience the creature shows and his unwillingness to give up hope. However, I also acknowledge that anyone in his position would not at first be able to ‘lose’ his patience since he does not understand what patience or revenge means. It was only after the creature had experienced the evil of others, was he able to make mischief himself.
I did refer to the creature as ‘monster’ at first. But it seems I have held prejudices against this creature with no justification whatsoever. I now refer to this ‘being’ as a creature and see a great distinction between ‘creature’ and ‘monster’.
Mary Shelley has used this story in a very ingenious way. She has left a series of messages in her story for all types of people in all types of situations.
The clear message which most people would be able to point out to is that ‘playing God’ is very unwise. ‘Playing God’ can cover all sorts of different issues. The obvious one is the improvements on scientific development. As steps are taken closer towards manipulating life, bio-physics and bio-chemistry, there will be instances when a certain task will seem ‘preposterous’ enough as to be dubbed as ‘playing God’. There are many disadvantages that come about with such topics and man will have to bear losses for it. ‘Playing God’ can also be used in homicide and suicide. Each time blood is shed in this way, universal implications are made. One human can be the beginning of a whole new generation of people, each with their own offspring. As two well-known religions (Judaism & Islam) put it: ‘if one were to kill one person it is as though he has killed the whole of mankind, and if one were to save the life of one it is as though he has saved the whole of humanity.’
Another message is that children are dependant on mutual love, care and affection. It is widely known and accepted now that children, who are raised in a hostile environment with domestic violence being a common thing, grow up with personality disorders and mental disorders. These people are also the ones who tend to resort to crime, drugs and all the other channels of this material world.
This matter is not only a concern for children. Many adolescents and even adults are influenced by their environments and surroundings and react only naturally as any other human would do. People need to start understanding these very subtle matters which actually play a major role in the ‘self’ of one.
Mary Shelley seems to believe that man is born good. It can be understood as to her reasons for opposing religion. Her only real encounter with religion was no doubt Christianity, which teaches the concept of ‘Original Sin’. This is in opposition to common logic. One cannot possibly be expected to point at a new-born child and call it evil deserving of punishment (death and hell). In the very same way, the creature in the story was free from all evil and should not have been rejected and disregarded.
Again, Judaism & Islam reject ‘original sin’ and believe man is born evil and sin-free. It is the society and environment in which one is brought up, that creates who he becomes.
Society is extremely important. Man tries to cling on to his society and ‘belong’ somewhere. Isolation is not preferred by most. People opt for ‘walking with the herd’. It is only a natural desire but a corrupt society full of evil, injustice or misunderstandings does evidently change a person away from his ‘natural’ behaviour.
I do not feel as though Mary Shelley gave much expression of fear of science. From her biographies and life-accounts, it can be seen that such things were not a ‘scary’ topic for her. She wanted to restore her children if she could and she believed science was the only possible answer. I think the general people at large felt a certain degree of fear at science. Yet as she disregarded religion and opposed it much as her parents had done so, she would not have seen science as a problem. However, she may have employed the people’s fear of science to make her story more appealing.
