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Corruption In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein explores the theme of alienation and how it ultimately leads to the corruption of an individual. As Victor Frankenstein sought to discover and solve the secret to life by “bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (37), he erected a creature who was monstrous looking. As a result, the creature was continuously rejected and isolated from society due to his grotesque appearance, forcing him to navigate the world alone, unable to find any source of companionship or parental guidance leading him to become bitter and vengeful. Mary Shelley presents allusions to demonstrate how the creature’s identity in becoming a monster was forced upon him, due to the creature’s circumstances of social rejection and misinterpretation …show more content…

Once the creature was able to read and decipher Victor’s journal, the creature realized the circumstances of his creation and realized that he was regarded with disgust by Victor. The creature’s exclamation, “Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” (115), highlights his awareness of his monstrous appearance and the realization of the role it plays in his isolation from society. The creature’s physical otherness prevents him from finding acceptance or companionship in a world that is repulsed by him, further emphasized by the cottagers, specifically De Lacey who was blind and accepted the creature’s company and kind words. However, once his children entered the cottage, they were horrified at the creature’s appearance, with one of the children, Felix, striking the creature violently with a stick. This highlighted the idea that his appearance led to him being alienated from society which made the creature grow resentful, “from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me” (121). Due to the circumstances of alienation by the creature’s physical appearance, the creature grew vindictive and corrupt when he was consistently being …show more content…

As Victor insists that he and the creature continue in separate paths, the creature holds Victor accountable for his negligence and his lack of nourishment saying, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel… make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous” (84). By utilizing allusions to demonstrate the creature’s disdain towards his creator, it explains how the creature becomes bitter and vengeful in his desire for revenge against his creator for treating him more like Satan than Adam. He wishes to feel happy by simply not feeling alienated anymore, asking Victor for a female companion. He explains to Victor that if he complies, “neither [him] nor any other human being shall ever see me again” (131). This wish demonstrates that the creature only wants is to escape the human eye where all he’ll be seen as is a monster, instead fleeing with one of his

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In the modern world, when a person hears about Frankenstein, they think of an abhorrent and detestable monster, but that is not the case. In the book, “Frankenstein”, by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein is a scientist that pursues his dream of reviving a human. Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist, conducts a series of experiments and creates a monster. Abhorred by his creation, he leaves the monster. Through desolation and isolation, the monster is driven by society and Frankenstein to commit crimes.

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A kind, empathetic, and loving creature transforms into a terrifying and cruel monster after the sharp edges of society shape him as they see fit. Societal monsters are products of injustice. They do not fit in and for that, society ridicules them. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there are many instances of societal injustice. This prejudice can be traced back to other monsters in real life society.

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“Many people who’ve never read Frankenstein know of Victor Frankenstein’s creature as one of the most famous monsters in literary history. Adaptations of the novel have contributed to this misinterpretation by portraying the monster as a horrifying character who provokes fear. However, part of what makes Mary Shelley’s novel such an impressive accomplishment is her ability to portray the monster as multi-dimensional and complex. The monster is responsible for many violent actions throughout the novel. He is also legitimately frightening and grotesque because of his enormous size and composition from parts taken from corpses.

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The attainment of knowledge that the Creature obtained corrupted and improved him through the application of philosophical and scientific connections. The philosophical corruption starts when the creature confronts Victor about his abandonment and irresponsibility he showed creating him. He also tells Victor to establish his argument about the ethics of playing God with science and taking responsibility of being a father figure. The desire to be loved and accepted as a normal human being without being called a monster leads to his philosophical corruption. He says, “ I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me.

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After learning all that he can from observing the family and reading books, the monster attempts to seek affection from others. He finds great disappointment when he is cast out once again by the cottagers. In reflection of his unfortunate event, he tells Victor, “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.

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By Victor taking away what the creature saw at his only chance at happiness, the creature becomes furious and kills Elizabeth, Victor’s wife. By viewing the creature as a child, the opinions based on his image and actions are altered because a child is always considered innocent. The creature had the ignorance of a child when he first woke up. His actions and image then can be blamed on Victor for not teaching the creature like a guardian would teach a child.

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Seeing how Humans were terrible creatures this left a bad taste on the creature's tongue. This erupted a new type of emotion inside the creature. He tried to be angry but he was going to try again with society and try again to be friends and humans, only for it to backfire and leave the creature just inches away from snapping. After failing to befriend the family that he once called protectors and being chased out of the cottage, the creature started to rant to himself in the woods and was slowly starting to hate humanity. But he wasn’t going to give up hope yet, so he returns to the cottage hoping there was still hope for him to befriend the family, only for reality to come chasing down on him at light speed to see that the family was leaving all because the creature was there.

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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

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Lost within himself, the monster stumbles upon an abandoned satchel, in the bag is the book, Paradise Lost, this novel provides a benchmark for the monster as he tries to understand himself. Soon, the monster begins to learn about the world around him. He becomes more and more self conscious about his appearance and becomes depressed. In the wake of this rejection, the monster swears to revenge himself against all human beings, his creator especially.

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From the beginning, Victor Frankenstein’s abandonment of the creature

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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.

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Victor, his creator, “turned from [the Creature] in disgust. Satan had his companions… but [the Creature is] solitary and abhorred” (110). Consequently, his perpetual isolation from companionship distorts his genuinely innocent nature into violent loneliness. He is alone with nothing other than thoughts of his lack of companionship, his monstrous appearance, and how he may never gain friendship because of his appearance. These dark thoughts breed into deadly cruelty.

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In Shelley's Frankenstein, the Creature's encounters with exile through his interactions with humanity catalyze both personal growth and isolation, revealing the complexities and destructive effects of the nature of prejudice. The main desire of the Creature is to experience love, but despite numerous attempts to fit into society, it realizes that acceptance by humans will forever elude it. The novel Frankenstein depicts a series of painful episodes of exile that the Creature endures, leading to alienation. Right from the moment Victor brings his creation to life, the Creature is subjected to exclusion.

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”(Millhauser). This violent rejection is a repetition of Victor’s lack of acceptance for the monster and attention to his family. Victor knows that the monster will never be able to live within society and that his ability to create life is the only hope the monster has of achieving companionship. Victor's own aversion to companionship surfaces as he, “ fails to give him the human companionship, the Eve, the female creature, that he needs to achieve some sort of a normal life.” (Mellor).

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Throughout the novel, the main character Frankenstein, made many poor decisions that I would consider to be morally wrong and unethical. Frankenstein’s research and discoveries are ethically wrong because he was taking dead bodies from cemeteries, cutting off their limbs, and body parts to create a human like creature. He did not have anyone's consent to do this study causing it to be unethical, and he also should not be able to do this because he is playing the role of god. In the beginning of the book, Victor Frankenstein described to Walton that he had created a monster using body parts from a graveyard.

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