ipl-logo

Comparing The Creature And Safie In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1200 Words5 Pages

Mary Shelley lived during 1813, a time filled with many societal problems, including familial abandonment, violence, the French Revolution, and incredible gender discrepancies. Consequently, her first novel, Frankenstein, was rife with these issues, as Shelley took a stand for what she believed in. The novel predominantly focuses on women’s subordination and how unjust society as a whole was to the female gender. This injustice is most notably represented in the comparison of Safie and the Creature, for even though Safie is present in just three chapters of the novel, her impact is immense. This parallel between characters can be clearly seen as both Safie and the Creature share their “other” backgrounds, their motivations, and their learning …show more content…

This quest for love is the ultimate endgame and the two characters will stop at nothing to achieve this all-consuming acceptance. Safie recognizes love’s importance when she sees Felix, and this is further driven home by her mother. Her mother imparts on her the knowledge that by marrying a Christian man Safie will be able to “take rank in society,” a thought that was “enchanting to her” for Safie values acceptance, and love is her way to gain this (86). This quest for love brings her to Felix and the De Lacey residence. Similarly, the Creature decides that he wants a companion for life, someone that he can share himself with, and someone who will accept and love him. For by him being seen as frightful “from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned,” he realized how unfair it was that he did not have someone to love (83). He declares that he currently has “no link to any other being in existence” leading him to sorrow and pain and consequently violence (90). Love however, could breach that pain and bring about peace and happiness, as love has the ability to break through loneliness and misery and replace those harsh emotions with joy. Coincidentally, the characters’ quests for love bring them together to the De Lacey household, where they both attempt assimilation and

Show More
Related

Examples Of Love In Their Eyes Were Watching God

726 Words | 3 Pages

Janie thought that she would get the type of love that she had dreamed of for years. She thought she’d have “a bee for her bloom”. Unfortunately, this is not what she had gotten when she married Joe. She found change, and chance, and maybe a little adventure, but still she didn’t find the love she was hoping to have found. What Jody had with Janie was more of a type of lust than a type of love.

Read More

Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Analysis

2045 Words | 9 Pages

”19 It beautifuly links with the quote from his other work, Cat 's Cradle, “there is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look,”20 and by combining those two he creates the perfect utopia, with love, and with it, a family, the force that powers the world and the society. Both, the society and the family are interdependernt, the first needs the second to prosper, the second needs the first to

Read More

Similarities Between Victor And The Monster In Frankenstein

1009 Words | 5 Pages

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, shows how a character who is portrayed as a tragic hero, in the beginning, can become the monster in the end. Victor and the Monster in Mary Shelley’s captivating novel showed how rival enemies share striking similarities. The similarities between the two tragic characters are driven by their dreary isolation from the secluded world. A large difference is that they were both raised in two completely different environments but understood the meaning of isolation. Physical differences are more noticeable rather than their personalities.

Read More

How Does Mary Shelley Present Safie In Frankenstein

134 Words | 1 Pages

Mary Shelley includes the story of Safie in the novel to represent the creature's hope of being accepted into society. Throughout the chapter, Shelley communicates the many parallels between Safie and the creature. For example, both characters have neglectful fathers. The creatures observe Safie's father as "the cause of [the DeLacey family's] ruin,"(Shelley 3), similar to how Victor is the root behind his creature's suffering. Both characters experience alienation while integrating into new societies: Safie, an outcast for being a Christian Turkish Arab, learns to assimilate into the DeLacey family, and the creature, whom society rejects because of his monstrous appearance despite his kind soul, desires too to be accepted.

Read More

Annotated Bibliography On Frankenstein

1439 Words | 6 Pages

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

Read More

The Role Of Safie In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1224 Words | 5 Pages

becomes totally unlike her female compatriots and as totally unfitted to "harem" life and its "puerile amusements." (Lew 281). the arrival of the exotic Safie changes the physical and emotional milieu of the cottage as her presence inspires happiness and her wealth provides material comfort". The novel seems to suggest that this relationship between the European Man and the Oriental Woman can be stable, happy, and Fruitful. Yet one wonders about easily Felix accepts a parasitic relationship, living off Safie´s stolen wealth (Lew 279) Safie does not visit the De Lacey family empty handed "taking with her some jewels that belonged to her, and a small sum of money, she quitted Italy “

Read More

Daddy Issues In Frankenstein

1223 Words | 5 Pages

One character, Justine, is very passive and used as a device to make Victor feel guilty for creating The Creature; as her major contribution to the plot was The Creature framing her for her brothers death and shortly after, being sentenced to death. Another female character, Safie, is used to teach The Creature how to speak: “My days were spent in close attention…and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian…I could imitate almost every word that was spoken… I also learned the science of letters” (Shelley 106). Even the most prominent female character in the book, Frankenstein's lover and wife, Elizabeth, is killed by The Creature on their wedding night, in order to again make Victor regret creating The Creature, and eventually die of his unhappiness. Mary Shelley's depiction of women might be her indicating the roles of women at the time as inferior, a similar thesis brought about by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication on the Rights of Women.

Read More

Why Does Mary Shelley Use Of Personification In Frankenstein

656 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Social Belonging In Frankenstein

987 Words | 4 Pages

By denying both main characters the sensation of domestic affection, or any other kind of social belonging, Mary Shelley highlights the importance thereof. The resulting isolation became the driving force behind both Frankenstein and his creation’s abominable actions which, in turn, shows that trying to avoid isolation and seeking the feeling of social belonging is the primary message of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and of

Read More

The Importance Of Family In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

395 Words | 2 Pages

Another characteristic that they share in common is that both Shelley and the creature were neglected by their fathers at some point in their lives. For the creature it was early on in his life while for Shelley it came after she eloped at the age of 18 and her father “all but disowned her” (Aldiss). As it has been observed by others before “Frankenstein is peculiarly a book of male parents” (Phy). Consequently, Frankenstein’s mother dies early on in the story, the DeLacey family is absent of a mother figure, and Safie is raised by her father as her mother also passed

Read More

Tabula Rasa In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

340 Words | 2 Pages

In the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein created the monster and the monster has incomplete knowledge of the world around him know as “Tabula Rasa.” He learns about life through the De Lacey’s, and the two books he reads, “Paradise Lost” and “Ruins of Empire.” The monster met the De Lacey’s at a cottage he found in Germany. While he was with them, Safie came along and joined the cottagers household.

Read More

The Role Of Icons Of Modern Culture In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

106 Words | 1 Pages

There are so many guides and commentaries for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that it might appear to some that the field is saturated. Audrey A. Fisch’s book, however, is a welcome addition, formed as it is by the specific objectives of the Icons of Modern Culture series (edited by David Ellis). Fisch expresses these objectives very clearly in her Introduction: her aim is to “unpack the story of the Creature in the popular culture tradition, unearthing a range of complicated Creatures, not all of whom are huge and mute, and many of whom, though different from Mary Shelley’s Creature, are intriguing in their own right” (7).

Read More

Duality Of Human Nature In Frankenstein

819 Words | 4 Pages

Duality is shown in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, a gothic tale of a scientist whom looks to advance the life-giving qualities of mother nature. Through this novel, Shelley proves that good and evil in human nature is not always simple to define, and that everyone has both of these qualities within them. The duality of human nature is shown through the characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, who are both heroes in the novel while simultaneously displaying anti-hero qualities. Shelley forces the reader to sympathize with them both but also creates gruesome ideas of the two. Frankenstein’s creature places himself in a submissive position when he begs his creator to have mercy on him and asking the creator to “create a female for [him] with whom [he] can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for [his] being.”

Read More

The Monster's Alienation In Frankenstein

782 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel Frankenstein,by Mary Shelley, the mysterious and unnatural origins of the character of Frankenstein’s monster are an important element. The Monster, having been created unethically and haphazardly, is at odds throughout the novel, resulting in his alienation from society and prolonged feelings of anger, desertion, and loneliness. Shaping his character, his relationships with other characters, and the meaning of the work as a whole, the Monster’s origins are what define him. The Monster faces rejection and violence every time he attempts to make contact with the new, foreign world he has been thrust into.

Read More

Frankenstein Critical Analysis Essay

883 Words | 4 Pages

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Critical Analysis About the author Naomi Hetherington is a member of the University of Sheffield, the department of lifelong learning. She is an early researcher in sexuality, religious culture, the 19th-century literature, and gender. She holds a BA in Theology and religious studies, an MA and a Ph.D. in Victorian Literature. She currently teaches four-year pathway literature degree at Sheffield University for students who have already attained foundation degrees. Among the books, she has written the critique of Frankenstein.

Read More

More about Comparing The Creature And Safie In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Related Topics

Open Document