Jenna Crowley Dr. Stephen Voyce ENGL:2010:0A06 24 March 2023 Monstrosity: Inherent and Learned Staunch social activist and writer Mary Shelley spoke often in opposition to Enlightenment ideas, especially the concept that science and logic could dominate the powers of nature and emotion. While Enlightenment thinkers of the era asserted that the empirical method could produce essential and pure truths about the world, Romantics like Shelley contested that prioritizing science over sentiment could produce its own set of horrors. In her science-fiction novel Frankenstein, Shelley considers the subject of “monstrosity” in ways that subvert the stereotypical definitions of the physically or visually malformed. She compares the monstrosity of man’s …show more content…
Although a man of refined and compassionate upbringing, Shelley makes it clear that Victor Frankenstein is not exempt from the monstrosity of the human desire to harness power. Frankenstein’s fascination with electricity is not inherently ill-willed or inhuman, but it is rather his application of that science to play a life-giver that crosses the line; essentially, his delusional hunger to create a “new species” that would “owe their being to me” (Shelley 39). This lust to dominate life and death, as well as the innate desire to be a sovereign figure to a particular group, is what Shelley continuously poses as monstrous and horrific. In fact, Frankenstein openly admits to Captain Robert Walton when retelling his story that he “lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit,” implying that his disregard for the consequences of challenging nature is what ultimately deprived …show more content…
As illustrated in his interaction with Frankenstein on the mountain, the Creature is an eloquent being who initially prioritizes intellect and passive resolution, driven to live on the outskirts of society if only to “excite the sympathy of some existing thing” (Shelley 112). While he is shown to react with frustration to Frankenstein’s indecisiveness and lack of consistency, this barely extends beyond verbal exasperation. Furthermore, his decision to not retaliate against the De Lacey family for acting violently towards him certifies this lack of malevolence (Shelley 103). Rather, it is Frankenstein’s decision to rescind his promise of creating the Creature a partner that fully enrages him beyond words. The repeated rejection, isolation, and accusations he experiences at the hands of his creator are what make the Creature as monstrous as his appearance suggests: “the creature’s ambitions are nothing more than to be, and to be treated as, human–in the ethical as well as the physiological sense. It is only bitter experience that teaches the creature to abandon this aspiration” (Cook). Frankenstein acts as a symbol for society as a whole, for he prevents the Creature from any sense of acceptance on the basis of his appearance, something he