The Themes Of Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, many themes motifs and symbols appear throughout the duration of the novel including themes of isolation,rejection revenge and dark romanticism, motifs such as letters, abortion, and retrospection and symbols of the moon, light and fire and god. However the most important theme, isolation, seems to be the backbone behind it all. Isolation has a remarkable effect on the way both,Victor and the Monster act and participate in society.

At times it can cause people to feel isolated, and distant from their friends and family around them. In the novel Frankenstein, Victor abandons the monster he has created. He created a creature that he thought would be beautiful, but unexpectedly it turned out the opposite, he had created a monster. Victor was terrified of the hideous creature and abandoned his creation, unknowingly leading to its destruction and distress. The novel is an example of how being different from society can cause people to feel ashamed of themselves.

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein wrote the novel as an attempt to be involved into a group ghost story writing competition what she did not know was the effects it would have on literature for the rest of time. The story Frankenstein is about a young man named Victor Frankenstein who is obsessed with discovering something that has never been seen or done. In seeing a tree being stricken by lightning he gets the idea to create life out of dead skins and body parts of the dead to create this being. What he did not know was going to occur was that this monster would be the death of him. Mary Shelley uses the idea of progress which is the consequences or effects of a person or a thing in another one’s doing. Throughout the book Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley, in her book, Frankenstein, has a reoccurring theme of isolation, in which she isolates the main character, Victor Frankenstein, from the rest of society in order to create a creature. Likewise, the creature that is created is also isolated from the rest of society as he is rejected from his creator as to his appearance. The theme is present throughout the novel as it reinforces Victor’s downfall from a normal boy to a grown man intrigued with creating life as he slowly becomes a madman that everyone soon fears. Isolation causes a loss of humanity as it affects the mind and body. Isolation from society does not teach social interaction, causes regret about oneself, provides one with negative feelings, and causes regretful actions.

William Thrailkill Prof. Sample English 1302 2/10/18 An Outcast Creates an Outcast There is no other creature in existence that is as communal and gregarious as human beings, due to this, whenever one feels deserted or segregated by the rest of society, they tend to become cold and bitter. In Frankenstein, or, The Modern Day Prometheus, Mary Shelley portrays the monster, as well as its creator, as outcasts from society. Although, Victor has a family, and a wife while the creature does not, Victor feels he is emotionally detached from the rest of his loved ones.

This caused a lot of anger for the monster, and he would then release this anger onto Victor to make him pay for abandonment. In the end Victor’s death was “caused by his creature” or really by “his own vengeful pursuit of it” (Lowe-Evans). The monsters death was through “self-immolation” because of the murders he committed to get back at Victor (Lowe- Evans). Both man and monster life was ended in cruel

This shows the humanity in the monster and his tendency to be amiable. He was also able to learn from his mistakes. For example, the creature realized that he needed to stop stealing the family’s supplies after he noticed how much they needed them. Victor, however, didn’t learn from his mistake of creating the monster, and created another. The monster also refers to the family in the cabin as “[his] friends” when they didn’t know of his existence (103).

All the monster wants is to Victor to suffer until his death. The monster little by little causes more and more harm to Victor. First by killing his Younger brother then by killing his best friend and at last by killing the woman he most loved Elizabeth. At last the monster made Victor suffer a little more at last by making Victor to go search for him. This leads to Victor’s death by natural causes and Victor never gets revenge to the monster due to the fact that he did not find him.

The creature wants to take revenge on Victor for abandoning him and causes Victor grief by killing the people he cares about. When the creature kills, Victor feels responsible and guilty of the murders. He continually breaks down with each death by “his” hands, which makes him go mad. The task of creating a monster turned Victor into a monster

How does Mary Shelley’s construction of the secondary characters reflect upon the protagonist? Throughout Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, character parallels and analogies between Victor Frankenstein and the creature are strongly emphasized. More evidently, the character doubles between the creator, Victor, and his creature are presented through their demeanor, their desires, and their demands. Shelley emphasizes parallelisms of nature, alienation and vengeance to underscore their similarities, leading some readers to interpret Victor and his creature being so similar that indeed, they are the same person. Both lonely and outcasts in the world, Victor and his creation live forlorn and dreary lives, hungry for the love of another, desperate for

Consumed with the idea of creating life, Victor did not think of the effects his actions would create. The creation of Victor’s monster completely changed Victor both mentally and physically. It also changed society because the monster was the reason why specific people were killed. The chain reaction that was started created a whole new world of chaos. The only thing that saved the rest of the world was the fact that Victor kept the secret of life to himself.

Despite the fact that Victor is isolated in the end and isn’t happy about the outcome, “Winter, spring and summer passed...so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation"(Monster of Mary Shelley), conveys the tragedy of Victor’s creation. By spending most of his time deprived in his experiment, never going out in reality, but focusing on what is making him successful, made him crazier than he’s ever been. In spite of the fact that Victor was the creator of his monster, he had responsibilities which he ignored. “After the fact that he made ambitious mistakes, he could've acknowledged his authorities and save himself from desolation. Out of pride and ambition, his mistakes brought him to the point of unhappiness and devastation to himself and to his loved ones, most importantly his creation.

The monster was deserted without an advocate to speak for him, as his appearance would not allow him the opportunity to be heard. Despite the monsters revolting appearance he still manages to display many human characteristics such as compassion, love, and intelligence. Victor is both guilty of negligence and the murders, as he did not guide his creation is the ways a creator

It is quite telling that the most severe punishment in our society other than the death penalty or torture is solitary confinement. Although, isolation is in itself a form of torture, it can drive someone to the brink of insanity. Although published nearly 200 years ago, Mary Shelley clearly understood the potential detrimental effects of isolation, as demonstrated in her famous novel, Frankenstein, where both main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, suffer from and cause isolation for the other. Mary Shelley directs the reader to believe that isolation is the true evil, not the monster, Victor or any emotion inside of them. At the beginning of the novel, Victor is isolated from other people, causing to forget his scientific

The monsters revenge on Frankenstein, drives him too to be full of hatred and need for vengeance because he destroyed everything good in his life. He feels as the death of his loved ones is his fault because he is the one that created the horrid creature in the first place (Brackett). “As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them” (Shelley 158). The monster wanted Victor to feel the same thing as him, lonely and sadness. The monsters revenge works, Victor becomes rejected by people and has nobody but himself.