The Monster As A Misdeor In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Kyle Lyon Professor Ed Steck AWR 201 F3 14 April 2015 Annotated Bibliography Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Hunter, Paul J. Norton Critical Edition.

If you thought that you had daddy issues, then you haven’t read Frankenstein. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is about a man named Victor Frankenstein, who defies the laws of nature by creating a freaky being made from science. This being, The Creature, grows up around and observes humanity. It’s education consists only from what it encounters, given by nature. Ultimately, The Creature is rejected by humanity, and he reacts by seeking revenge upon Victor, killing his friends, family, and finally Victor.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a gothic novel that tells the story of scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and his obsession with creating human life. This leads him to creating a gruesome monster made of body-parts stolen from grave yards, whom upon discovering his hideousness, the monster seeks revenge against his creator, causing Victor to regret the creation of his monster for the rest of his life. Shelley uses the literary elements of personification, imagery, and similes to give a vivid sense and visualization of Victor Frankenstein’s thoughts and feelings as well as to allow us to delve deeper into the monster’s actions and emotions. Throughout the novel, Shelley uses personification of various forces and objects to reflect the effect in Victor’s actions.

The moment Victor Frankenstein successfully infuses life into his creation he is overcome with horror and disgust. Without further examination he is certain to have created a monster, not a human being (Shelley 35-36). However, despite his grotesque appearance, Frankenstein’s creature was not born malicious. During the first stages of his existence, unbeknownst to Frankenstein himself, his acts are motivated by innocence and virtue, which even earns him the title “good spirit” (79). Frankenstein did not create a monster.

With more broadcasting of evil each day, the question; “what makes a monster” is often asked. Monstrosity is the state or fact of being monstrous. Monstrous by definition can mean having a frightening opinion, extremely large, or a person who is outrageously evil. Many artists and journalist have tried to tackle the question, though two authors in particular stand out. In Frankenstein Mary Shelley uses the hideous looks of the monster along with the average looks of Victor to show her readers that monstrosity comes from within.

In many monster stories, there is not a single embodiment of evil, but rather the story reveals the capacity within each character for wickedness and virtue regardless of one’s ability to conform to societal norms. These stories challenge a reader to question his or her own definition of what constitutes a monster and to consider whether or not he or she could be labeled as such given previous behaviors. Through this process, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” and Lilo and Stitch delineate intolerance and mistreatment of individuals who struggle to conform in a society. The definition of a monster that will be used in this paper is a character who claims a disposition in which he or she intends to cause another harm (emotionally or physically) under unfair or unjust motivations.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797 in London, England and died in February 1, 1851. She was the daughter of William Godwin the philosopher and political writer and Mary Wollstonecraft a famed feminist. Shelley’s mother was the author of “The Vindication of the Rights of Women” in 1792. Unfortunately for Shelley she never had the chance to know her mother who died after giving birth to her. Her father William Godwin took care for his daughter Shelley and her older half sister Fanny Imlay.

The novel “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley tells the story of a man named Victor Frankenstein, who decides to go against the laws of nature by bringing to life a being constructed with decaying body parts. Victor believes in natural philosophy and science, which leads him to the idea of creating this Creature. Although this novel can be interpreted in many ways, I believe that Mary Shelley is shining a light on the harmful and dangerous impacts that prejudice and assumptions can have on people who are considered different. Shelley may be suggesting that humanity is the true 'monster ' due to its socialized ideologies that make ambition, self-greed and rage fulfilling. Even to this day society is known to shun those who we do not see as equals.

The monster is repeatedly discriminated against and cursed at for his malformation, something that differentiates him from the conceived normal, and this negative reinforcement associates unpleasant appearance with stigmatizing inferiority. In Chapter 12, when the monster sees himself in a transparent pool, he is “unable to believe that it [is] indeed [him] who [is] reflected in the mirror…” (Shelly 116), however, when he is “fully convinced” (Shelly 116) that it is reality, “[he is filled with…mortification” (Shelly 117). The creature feels disgraced and ashamed of his physical appearance in contrast to the “perfect forms of [his] cottagers…” (Shelly 116) and this illustrates the social stigma and inferiority associated with deformity.

The Creature in Frankenstein Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” is an inspirational work of horror and science fiction; it is the narrative of an unorthodox act of creation, of a monster which torments his miserable creator. The author puts forth ideas, and reinforces it through the development of the plot, that mankind is capable of both good and evil. Shelly demonstrates the ‘humanity’ of the creature; his actions and his inclination are like those of mankind. Indeed, even the negative aspect of his character, demonstrated through his quest for revenge, has a parallel in the actions of his human creator. In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” the creature is represented as being vicious and murderous but he is not inherently evil or malicious.

While I prepared this paper, it was striking to see how the usage of the word monster developed, from not only the outward appearance but moreover to one’s behavior or character. Which might derive from the early assumption that a person’s outward appearance is bound to make a clear statement about his personality. Sure, it is an undeniable fact that the outward appearance is a tool to show character and personality, however the assumption that a person might be a little too stark on the dark side of life just because he likes tattoos and piercings, hence is studded with them is purely prejudiced. Prejudice is the monsters’ main problem.

Do you consider the monster a human? We are already know the meaning of human, but are we know what the monster is? The monster in people’s mind generally is the one who has horribleness, ugliness, or the unnatural body. Will it have some people do not look only appearance but his or her heart.

In the novel Frankenstein, the monster created by Frankenstein shows some human qualities. Some qualities that make people human are reason, pain, anger, sadness, growth, and ultimately being made by God; the monster expresses the human qualities of pain, anger, sadness, and reason, but he does not have the quality of being made by God, and growth. One of the first qualities that the monster exhibits is reason. When the monster is sharing his story with Frankenstein, he explains how he discovered the rules of fire by saying, “ I quickly collected some branches; but they were wet, and would not burn.

Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley about a man named Victor Frankenstein and his life and how it came to be. He had created a monster and brought it to life by studying and learning natural philosophy. Mary Shelley brought the emotions forward from the main characters by the amount of detail she put into the book. Most of the detail was brought in by the suffering that happens throughout the book caused by Frankenstein’s monster. The monster in this story is a tragic figure that is the main cause of suffering that occurs to everyone.

So it is not, as if the unthinkable, the unlivable, the unintelligible has no discursive life; it [does] have one. (Meijer, Costera, and Prins 281). All in all, Butler explains the situation our social concepts retain. An abject body does not necessarily need to be a disabled person and thus unable to be accepted as a normal living person. It goes beyond just suffering disability or other visual, physical “damages”.