Shelley goes to great lengths to create sympathy for her protagonist Victor in chapter five. She over stresses his hard work in creating the creature and his illness. If it were not for this it would be easy to see Victor as a villain, who thoughtlessly created a monster and simply set it loose without teaching it a thing and let it terrorize innocent people. However she tells the story from his perspective and over stresses his illness to counterpoint this.
Victor has been working for a long time on bringing his creation to life which he emphasises through his language. For instance “toil” this suggests endless hard labour, or to work extremely hard or incessantly. This also puts across the point that he is passionate about what he is doing having devoted so much time to it. This paints Victor in a positive light as a passionate hard worker totally devoted to creating life.
However the description of the creature is entirely different. Victor calls his creation a “wretch” this is now a rarely used word meaning poor or unfortunate. The use of the word “catastrophe” makes the creation seem like a disaster of epic proportions like a tsunami, earthquake or hurricane. This in turn gives an insight into Victor's feelings at seeing the results of his hard work. Whereas “wretch” is an expression of pure hatred or loathing and gives the impression that Victor despises his creation purely because of its sinister appearance. Overall the language used to describe the creature is extremely negative.
In contrast chapter ten, although also told from Frankenstein's point of view, leads us to sympathise with the creature. In the chapter Victor goes walking in the mountains shortly after loosing his brother where he encounters the creature walking over a glacier. Victor automatically tries to attack his creation and insults it. Victor also says his creation is “too horrible for human eyes”. This reflects the views of the rest of mankind who push him away and want him out of there sight purely due to his looks but the creatures eyes are human too what does he see in himself ? Human eyes do not actually react against the monster humans in general just do not want to look at the monster. So the monster being shunned is mainly due to our perception of beauty. At this point Victor does not know for sure whether the creature is responsible for his brother's death so his hate of the creature is still based entirely on the monster's appearance. This is clearly unfair and makes Victor seem like a villain unlike the the creature. The creature and Frankenstein have not encountered each other since chapter five. In this time victor has lost his brother, suffered disease and extreme regret at having created the creature. The creature has progressed- learning to speak, read, write and has also read Frankenstein's journal and learnt about his origins. The creature has also learnt he will always be rejected by mankind and loathes himself for it and he has become a murderer.
Despite Frankenstein's cold reaction to his creation the creature begs Frankenstein to listen to him. When attacked by Frankenstein the creature simply replies “I expected this reaction”. These are the creature's first words and it gives a clear impression of the man Frankenstein's creation has become in the time they have been apart. This gives the impression of a pacifist or someone so used to ridicule he no longer cares. This immediately invokes respect and pity as he listened to the insults without reacting when he could have easily crushed Frankenstein, he is clearly used to insults. The creature begs his creator to listen to his story and understand his suffering. The creature then goes on to explain his plight emphasizing how he is shunned for his looks and criticizes his creator for abandoning him. The creature comments on his isolation “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!” he says this to create pity and then goes on to blame his creator “you, my creator, detest and spurn me” this makes Frankenstein seem like a villain.
Shelley uses the metaphor of Adam and Eve when the creation is explaining his plight saying “remember that I am thy creature and that I ought to be thy Adam.” The creature is using this to create pity for himself as it is a powerful reference. In the story of Adam and Eve God creates humans and lets them live in paradise however the humans betray God and they are thrown out of paradise. Victor created the creature but in a way totally removed from God or religion and the result his creation is totally unholy in the eyes of most people. In the story God loves Adam but shuns him for betraying him however Victor shunned his creation automatically and the creation did nothing wrong. In the story God continues to love Adam regardless of the betrayal however Victor despises his creation. The point the creature is trying to make is that you should love me but you shun me. He is also accusing Victor of playing God. There is also a hint at the request the creature makes later on which is to make him a mate or an Eve.
Shelley demonstrates her protagonists feelings through their language. Shelley demonstrates Victor's sense of freedom and joy while he is walking through the mountains where he calls his surroundings “glorious”, “sublime” and “magnificent”. This is typical of the Romanticism movement which glorified nature. The movement was prominent at the time Shelley wrote the book and Shelley's husband was a prominent figure in the romanticism movement. Describing nature as “glorious” give the impression that nature is proud strong and victorious and gives it a positive atmosphere, “sublime” and “magnificent” make it seem like he was having a great time. This brief moment of happiness between the various catastrophes in his life makes us happy for Victor before he again is forced to confront his creation. However when Victor meets his creature his language changes and this makes us turn against him and pity his creation. Victor calls his creation a “devil” likening his creation to what some people would describe as the root of all evil. Is it any wonder his creation became evil? He also calls his creation “vile insect” which suggests that the monster is insignificant and that Victor could just crush him under his foot. The creature's language creates pity for himself. He calls himself “wretched” giving the impression he is hopeless and sickly. He clearly has an extremely negative self image which makes readers pity him. Shelley also makes you feel for the creature by his language which is broken for instance “I be hated, who am miserable” this makes him sound pathetic and creates pity. The poor grammar makes him sound like a child which Shelley knew would make her readers pity him and draw attention to his relatively recent creation.
In chapter 13 we learn where the creature went over the period where Victor was ill and presumed his creation dead and how he learnt to speak, read, write and how he was created. The creature lived secretly in the house of the De Lacey family. He gets the opportunity to learn to speak, read and write when a foreign guest comes to stay at the house and he learns secretly alongside her.
As the creature watches the family he envies their close relationship and longs to join them or find a family of his own but knows he cannot. This generates pity for the creature as he is describing it to Victor, however Shelley probably also intended it to make her readers pity the creature. During this time the creature sees another side to the human race “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?”. This forces the readers to question their attitudes and the rest of their race's. At this point however he still has hope that he will find a place in the world of man.
The creature does not know why he has no family or friends like he sees in the De Lacey family “Where were my friends and relations?” This generates pity for the creature both from the reader and from Frankenstein. It is also the start of the creature's problems. It is the fact that he is cut off from humans. Is it this rejection that turns the creature from the optimistic young being to the evil monster of popular culture or was he simply due to the way he was created? The theme of nature versus nurture is key in Frankenstein. Mary Shelley followed the beliefs of popular eighteenth century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He believed that man was happy and peaceful in its natural state like animals but society was artificial and created problems. He saw that in the natural state humans or animals had “amour de soir” or positive self love. This is what Frankenstein's creature had when he was first created. He did not know of society or his differences from it. However when Frankenstein's creation stays with the De Lacey family he enters into society and he learns he is an outsider and gains “propre” or pride. However he realizes he has nothing in terms of society to be proud of, that he is an outsider and so society turns him into a monster. This leads him to question himself and ultimately leads to the story's catastrophic end.
Frankenstein's creation uses a variety of language to describe the various sides to human nature. He describes human nature with its many highs and lows for instance “I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans- -of there subsequent degenerating - - of the decline of that mighty empire; of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.”. This shows that the creature saw the many sides of human nature rather than the cold hateful side he was shown. He describes the Greek society as “genius”, showing he sees its beauty admires and respects them. He describes the “wonderful virtue” of the human race, this shows he admires and respects human society. However he also learns of the darker side native of human nature. Shelley uses “hapless” to describe the fate of the native Americans. This suggests that there fate was sealed with nothing that could be done for them. This is similar to the creature's fate and creates pity. The creature shows through his language that he knew there are negatives and positives to human nature which evokes pity for the side he will never see, and that he has positive feelings and is not a monster.
In “Walton in Continuation” Walton meets the creature for the first time. They meet over Frankenstein's corpse. The creature comes to mourn his creator's death. When he sees the creature Walton remembers his pledge to kill the creature so he talks to it. After the creature tells Walton his story he pledges to go and commit suicide. The creature and Victor's suffering is finally over and the only way they can end it is death.
The creature attempts to explain his plight to Walton, how due to society's rejection of him he was doomed from the start. “The fallen angel has become the malignant devil” this could be seen to portray that he has taken on the role society expected of him- he he looked like a monster so he became a monster. Another way this could be seen is that he was started off on a terrible path, a creation that went wrong and was abandoned, and he became a monster as a result of the neglect. To compare himself to the devil, the face of evil, shows a great sense of self loathing which could be seen as repentance. The creature also explains the way he has been rejected saying “Am I to be thought the only criminal when all mankind has sinned against me?” The creature uses a rhetorical question to shift the blame from himself to the human race. The creature is right, however, the human race has rejected him leading to the way he is know. Shelley used the question to make her readers pity the creature and question the way they treat people who appear different. The creature goes to great lengths to explain his extreme suffering which can only be ended by death which he now looks forward to: “I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly”. This is the ultimate picture of suffering where death is better then continuing with his misery.
Walton's reaction to the creature is different to Frankenstein's. At first he is repelled by his creation's terrible looks “Never did I behold a vision as terrible as his face.” It is human nature to be repulsed by the beings terrible appearance. However after hearing the creature mourn his creation he feels “compassion”. Rather than instinctively loathing the creature as Frankenstein did Walton talks to the creature, listens to his story, and attempts to understand him also trying to deny that he has feelings or repents his murders. Walton sees that the creature is mourning something he intentionally caused “you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made”. Walton makes a judgement on the creature after hearing his story and not purely based on looks. Shelley uses Walton so the creature can put across his viewpoint and generate pity for himself one last time before his suicide. This gives the novel a clear ending with both the protagonists dead and their extreme misery finally at an end.
In Walton in continuation Shelley uses language to give a clear view of Walton's impressions of the creature and to give an impression of the creatures feelings to its creation. Walton describes the creature's monstrous looks through the language he uses to describe it. He calls it “loathsome” suggesting deep hate and that he already hates it due to its looks just as Frankenstein did. “appalling” suggests something to horrible and wrong to look at that should be cleaned away and put out of sight. It could also be something to be ashamed of for instance the appalling living conditions in third world slums something that we have indirectly caused and should be ashamed of. However when he sees the monsters mornings he feels “compassion” this suggests he sees the monsters human side and feels pity for it and even wants to help it. The creature describes the creator he murdered as his “victim”- the creature now sees himself as a monster who killed his own creator and is clearly ashamed. The creature describes his creator as “generous and self- devoted” suggesting that he saw Frankenstein was a good man who worked hard but made a mistake with him. However “self devoted suggests he thought only of himself and not of his creation so the creation recognizes his flaws or it could be perceived that he sees the effort he put in to create him.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a classic Gothic novel that looks at the themes of society and its way of treating outsiders and nature verses nurture. It has given me as a reader a new perspective on how I judge people based on appearances and the way society functions as a whole. The book is still relevant in today's society as scientists research into cloning and genetic engineering and many ethical questions are raised. It is also relevant in today's celebrity culture obsessed with perfection. It is due to this and the quality and originality of Shelley's writing that the story is still relevant today.
