Negative Effects Of Prejudice In Frankenstein

Throughout history and in modern society, numerous individuals and groups have experienced and continue to experience prejudice. Victims of prejudice include in the United States, alone, include black Americans, Irish Catholics, Native Americans, and Jews. Most notably, of late, is Western society’s prejudice against Muslims. Prejudice today and even in the 1800s has had a negative impact on society. In the novel Frankenstein, the author, Mary Shelley, communicates to modern readers the negative effect of prejudice for individuals and society by utilizing the characters of the creature, Mr. Delacey, and William. One of the ways that the novel portrays the negative effect of prejudice is society’s attitude toward the monster’s strange appearance. When the creature converses with Mr. De Lacey, a blind man, the monster and the resident find a level of mutual respect: "I am blind, and cannot judge of your countenance,

When the monster approaches a young boy, he realizes that the child is unprejudiced due to the innocence of youth: “Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me, that this little creature was unprejudiced, and had lived to short of a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity” (100). The child glances upon the monster and screams; the monster attempts to quiet him, but the boy shouts that he is a Frankenstein and therefore utters his death sentence. The creature despises his creator, Victor Frankenstein, and any member of the Frankenstein family group, because Frankenstein conjured him in such a grotesque image. Since the child is a Frankenstein, the monster decides to murder him because of the monster’s bias that the Frankenstein family is evil. Shelley has the creature’s own prejudice end an innocent child's life and in doing so, demonstrates another example of the negative effects of