The adjectives Shelley uses to describe the creature are visual allowing the reader to visualise the creature as Shelley portrays. The use of rich, textural language animates the creature in the readers mind, such as ‘his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath’, and ‘his hair was of lustrous black, and flowing’. Shelley’s use of the words “horrible contrast” give the reader the opinion that the creature is too ‘horrible’ and thus Shelley imposes an opinion on the reader.
Before the creature awakes, Shelley has already created an anticipation in the readers, when Frankenstein goes grave hunting and when he is first up in his room where he assembles the creature, sections of the text give the reader an expectation of an interesting coming to life of the creature, ‘… and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation’, suggesting that even before the creatures alive he’s a loathsome creature.
This gives the reader an insight into Frankenstein’s mind he feels the human instincts of hatred of the concept of death.
He says
“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation, but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished”
This shows that really he does not just think about creating the creature, but also despises making it. But he has an addiction to the creature; he wants to carry on creating it, not only to prove that he can do it, but also to see what comes of it.
When Frankenstein meets the creature on the icy plains, the creature addresses him as a god, he talks to him in religious language, ‘still though canst listen to me and grant my compassion’, he refers to him as ‘…my creator’, but while Frankenstein is filled with rage and horror, the creature is almost kind to him.
“Thus I relieve you my creator, …by the virtues that I once
possessed , I demand this from you, hear my tale, it is long
and strange”.
Here the creature wants to reason with Frankenstein, give his side of the story before Frankenstein makes his decision whether to like, or dislike him. The behaviour of the creature is in stark contrast to Shelley’s portrayal of the creature as ‘horrible’. This reasonable behaviour could cause the reader to look at the creature with a different perception.
When the creature describes its life, it describes its subconscious feeling of its prior life, and it’s realisation of its senses and what it discovers. It takes Frankenstein through its discoveries, like discovering that pains in the stomach can be relieved by eating and being cold can be cured by starting a fire, the creature is like a huge baby, excited at new things, it is a creature of simple tastes although it knows nothing of these sensations, possibly it might recollect them from its previous life and it had no other humans to share it’s discoveries with. It is human instinct to feel loneliness, hunger, tiredness and pain, and as such the reader may begin to consider the creature as human. The creature observes the Delacy family, it learns their language, and when it finally confronts the old, blind grandfather it seeks his protection when the rest of the family return from the woods,
“Now is the time! Save and protect me! You and your family
are the friends whom I seek”.
This is what the creature says to the old grandfather just before the rest of the family burst into the house and force him out, the grandfather is surprised by this, and although slightly shocked he tries to defend the creature. This illustrates the way the people in the book judge the creature by its appearance, not by its actions, showing the shallowness of human nature
Towards the end of the creature’s speech, he talks about when he met William Frankenstein, the brother of Frankenstein, once the creature realises the connection between William and Frankenstein, he murders him, to avenge what Frankenstein did to him, like leaving him to die, and making him so hideous that no matter how hard he tried, he would never fit in, he is an outcast, and lays the blame upon Justine Moritz, a family friend, she hung for this alleged crime and this is what drove Frankenstein to avenge these two deaths.
Shelley keeps reiterating the creature’s hideousness, for example ‘unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created’. ‘Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance’, here Shelley keeps referring to the creature being ugly. The repetition of such view points tries to reinforce Shelley’s opinion of the creature’s nature in the readers mind.
She starts Frankenstein saying that he hates and abhors the creature, but up to when William dies, the creature does nothing wrong, so does he hate the creature for what it has done to him thus far, like rob him of two years of his life? However Frankenstein never really hates the creature, apart from hatred and abhorrent for it’s appearance, he is relieved of these feelings when he speaks to the creature,
“I was partly urged by curiosity and compassion
confirmed my resolution”,
This is when Frankenstein meets the creature and the creature asks only to tell his tale so Frankenstein can make up his own mind, he feels compassion as a creator, and also curiosity to find out what it’s been up to.
But does Shelley portray, the creature as a human? First, she gives it no name, it is made up of various bits of other humans and in theory was not born, but then it feels emotions, it senses things i.e. hunger, loneliness and tiredness.
“As I said this, I suddenly beheld the figure of a man
advancing towards me with superhuman speed”,
Here, it is being compared to man but at the end it is again referred to as a creature with the word ‘superhuman’. If the creature is not human how does it feel emotions, have feelings and be able to learn and think for itself. If it was, as said a ‘creature’ it would not be able to talk or feel the emotions without the thousands of years of evolution behind the current being, no creature as it where, has evolved the advanced brain that the human possesses. The words Shelley uses in this quote could suggest that the creature is superior to humans i.e. Superhuman.
Shelley’s inspiration for this book could have derived from the political turmoil of her time. Scenes of death and destruction would undoubtedly have influenced Shelley writing in the French revolution, this could possibly be huge influence on the book, and by her witnessing these goings on, she has portrayed them, although in a different form, in her book. It is also possible that Shelley may have witnessed injustice and judgements on other people. It is also reported that Shelley suffered with nightmares and that Frankenstein was borne of one of these dreams. The fact that Shelley suffered with nightmares demonstrates her mental instability, this could possibly be huge influence on the book, and by her witnessing these goings on, she has portrayed them, although in a different form, in her book
The conclusions that I have drawn from this book are: It was the beginning of the sci-fi genre, it was a story far before its time, And not to judge people by their appearance,
(She must have had a seriously messed up mind)
