The Importance Of Love In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others.” Although Saint Augustine announces this statement of insight long before Mary Shelley’s writing of Frankenstein, he aptly illustrates a key motif within the novel. The storyline begins with Victor Frankenstein creating a hideous monster for the sake of self-achievement, and eventually spirals into a journey of vengeance and murders which the creature commits. Surprisingly, the fiend is inherently kindhearted until the base behavior of society torments his character. Within the Frankenstein piece, Shelley displays that while some crumble under the societal pressures for a positive reputation, others have the courage to break through these hateful expectations that culture induces.

Early on in Shelley’s novel, Victor Frankenstein’s parents pass a poor cot “while the number of half-clothed children [gather]” (16). Heartwarmingly, Victor’s parents eventually adopt one of the orphans, Elizabeth. Although a family of wealth and success, Victor’s parents decide to enter the messiness of others’ lives to hopefully aid in any possible method. To possess the confidence to break social class lines and use their rank to support the less fortunate is a truly admirable ability. Later on, Victor himself encounters an honorable man by the name of Mr. Kirwin. When Victor becomes extremely ill over his best friend Clerval’s death, Mr. Kirwin visits Victor’s bed and begins a comforting conversation in which “his countenance expressed sympathy and compassion” (131). Rather than distancing himself from Victor, who is currently ostracized for being the one accused for Clerval’s death, Kirwin reaches out to Victor and is eager to simply be a listening ear. Shelley later displays that Kirwin goes beyond listening and comforting, however. On Victor’s trial day, Mr. Kirwin dauntlessly “[charges] himself with every care of collecting witnesses, and arranging [Victor’s] defense” (134). On the day where the entire town desires a person to blame for Clerval’s death, in this case Victor, Mr. Kirwin obtains the valor to face the town in support of the adversary. Although Victor is essentially at the bottom of the food chain, the benevolent Mr. Kirwin sees him as an innocent human being and will not allow others’ opinions to conclude otherwise. Developed in kindness and selflessness, Kirwin upholds this command, that “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy” (Komarnicki). Far along in his storytelling to the mariner Richard Walton, Victor asks, “‘To you first entering on life,