Frankenstein: Correlation Between Physical Appearance And Society's Perception

Research Paper Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley began writing her famed gothic novel Frankenstein in December 1816 when she was eighteen years old. Mary Shelley’s mother died eleven days after her birth and was left to the care of her emotionally distant father. A detail often overlooked is that she eloped and got married with Percy Bysshe Shelley after Percy Shelley’s wife died of suicide less than a month before Mary and Percy’s marriage. Mary sought for Percy’s help in “providing suggestions to enhance her work, offering constructive criticism and encouragement showing a sincere appreciation for his partner’s literary skill” (Mercer). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein grew to be a famous novel which serves as a pillar of Gothic literature. Mary Shelley

The vivid description of the monster’s physical appearance fails to entice the readers imagination, but Mary Shelly compensates by making the monster a good speaker to induce sympathy. Additionally, “characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein desperately seek but never find ideal sympathetic companionship, and the novel’s plot ‘repeatedly dramatizes the failure of social sympathy” (Britton). Marry Shelley used other elements like plot and dialogue to establish an emotional connection with the readers. Furthermore, “the monster’s artificial body creates artificial circumstances that isolate sympathy’s physiological or visual elements which, by their absence, force him as wells as the novel’s other characters to seek alternatives” and “throughout the novel, moments of narration, transcription, and transmission are consistently marked by experiences of sympathy” (Britton). Marry Shelly pioneer’s a distinct way of promoting sympathy for the characters undermining their physical appearance. In the novel, Marry Shelley fails to properly name the monster where it is referred to as “monster”, “demon”, “it”, and “Creature”. The fact that the monster has no name preserves the anonymity of the character which allows readers to figuratively identify themselves with. The namelessness also strengthens the fact that the monster is not acknowledged as an equal or animal by anyone even by himself. The namelessness is used by Mary Shelley to express her secret or unacknowledged existence, just like the monster. An example of when the monster acknowledged the fact that his physical appearance negatively affects his social relations. Upon reading his creator’s preposterous letter as to how he was created, he exclaimed, “God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.