does it thinking only of the enormous discovery’s he has made if he can successfully create
life.
‘his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance’s only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes’ Page 58
This is the description of the creation as it comes to life, instead of the image of an innocent
new born, he is described as almost and evil inhuman being. Victor Frankenstein is instantly
repulsed by his creations ugliness and he rushes out of the room. Neglected at birth the
creature could only leave to learn and find happiness.
To begin with the creature only ever wanted happiness and a sense of belonging, Victor
wasn’t able to give this so the creation went and searched for this feeling.
‘I longed to join them, but dared not’ page 113
This quote from the creature shows his feelings whilst he was observing the De’Lacey family
and didn’t want anything more than to join them, but once he realised he could never truly
belong to a family of humans with normal appearances he starts to show his dark side
becoming more and more evil as the story goes on.
‘I, like the archfiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up trees, spread havoc and destruction around me and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.’ Page 138
This shows what the creation is really capable of and how his mind is working in the reaction
to the treatment from others and the feeling of neglect and hatred. The creature even
thought of murder in a twisted thought of revenge, to find pleasure.
‘I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have gutted myself with their shrieks and misery.’
Mary Shelley has managed to pass the sympathy vote very easily in simply giving us the
creatures feelings and thoughts, we initially felt sympathy towards Victor Frankenstein,
however when the monster tells us his side of the story we shift our views completely giving
the sympathy vote to the creation and feeling angry towards Victor Frankenstein for
allowing the creature to go through such pain and neglect.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has a second title; ‘The Modern Prometheus’ Prometheus in Greek mythology was a titan who stole fire from Olympia and gave it to the humans. For this, the gods punished him by having him tied to a rock and each day large birds would feast on his organs, only for them to have grown back by the next morning meaning a lifetime of suffering. This story has to link with the novel or else it’s a pointless second title. Personally I feel that it links in very well with the novel because Victor Frankenstein is Prometheus, just like Prometheus Frankenstein thought that what he was doing was for the good of mankind, he only had the best intentions however it backfired and he was punished much like Prometheus but with the murder of his loved ones by his neglected creation.
Mary Shelley’s life involved a lot of traumatic times, whilst growing up she had no mother as she unfortunately passed away during child birth, she then gave birth to deformed children who went on to pass away. This could have been represented in the novel, portraying herself as Victor Frankenstein and her deformed children as the creation. However the creation in the novel doesn’t die, I think that she may have been thinking about how her children’s lives would have been had they lived to an older age, with people still making assumptions over looks and appearances. Also Mary Shelley lived in a very religious time where the abnormal were seen as a sign of the devil, if she grew up taking care of her children she would have been treated awfully and she would not have been accepted in her time, this is like Victor Frankenstein fearing people knowing he is responsible for the creation.
‘A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine; but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me’ page 83
Throughout the novel Mary Shelley seems to change her mind and shift her sympathy vote
between the two characters Frankenstein and his creation. It’s clear at the beginning that
her sympathy is all with Frankenstein, however by the end of the novel I personally believe
that its all with the creation. I feel this because at the end of the novel Frankenstein has
nothing, he’s lost his family, friends, and his loved ones, he has almost nothing left before
he dies. All that he does have left is an enormous amount of guilt and misery.
‘The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also lived’
The creature however is very interesting, the more evil and angry he gets, the more the
reader sympathises with him, persuading us that Victor Frankenstein is the evil one. This is
because Victor Frankenstein has caused this anger and frustration and we as the reader
want to end this for him, however all that we read is how Frankenstein neglects him further.
The creature is allowed to get his revenge, release all his rage on Victor, but he also ends the
novel with his life still in tact. This shows that he in Mary Shelley’s eyes while writing the
novel believes that he deserves this. For the majority of the story in my eyes both Mary
Shelley’s sympathy and the readers sympathy is sided with Victor Frankenstein’s creation.
This novel can be seen as a warning to society. Both back when it was written and today its
a relevant message to everyone. Boundaries are being pushed in science and development
across the globe in all areas, all the time. At the time the novel was being written the
industrial revolution was happening with boundaries being pushed dramatically just like
victor was in the novel, this could have provoked this idea and made Mary Shelley involve it
in her novel. Today’s message is linked quite closely, genetic modification and cloning are a
few of the scientific advances that are being made and new breakthroughs in this type of
technology are being found, however its all going ahead rather quickly and the morals
surrounding this issue are being opposed but still not solved. There may be serious effects
to these experiments just like there was in the novel, but we shall never know unless the
experiments are carried out, we just have to make sure that we learn from Victor
Frankenstein’s mistakes and take more care over our actions today and in the future.
By Joe Meikle
