The Role Of Suffering In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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. The first major cause of suffering in Victor’s life was when he received a letter from his father and the letter entailed that his youngest brother, William has been murdered by being strangled to death. The Frankenstein family had been taking an evening stroll in Plainpalais and had extended their walk

William and Ernest, who is also one of Victor’s younger siblings, had run ahead of the others to play. Victor’s father was waiting for the boys to return, because it was becoming dark and finally Ernest had come back and asked if that they had seen William come back. They had been playing hide and seek and William ran off to hide himself, but then could not find him so he waited for his return that never came. They searched for William until dark, then went back home to see if he returned there, but he did not. Victor’s father and Elizabeth then went back out with torches to search for him in the night. It wasn’t until early in the morning that Victor’s father found William dead on the grass. “About five in the morning I discovered my lovely boy, who, the night before I had seen blooming and active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless: the print of the murderer’s finger was on his neck.” Pg. 47 Ch. 7. This caused suffering to Victor later on when it was revealed that it was the monster