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How Does Mary Shelley Present The Wretch In Frankenstein

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The following quote is found on the title page of Frankenstein: “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me man, Did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me?” (Paradise Lost, X, 743-745). This quote represents the anguish experienced by a creature who was involuntarily brought into existence only to live a life of suffering, not only at the hand of society, but of his own creator. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses examples of society’s treatment of the wretch in combination with Victor’s callous attitude to not only rationalize the wretch’s behavior, but to elicit a piteous reaction from the reader. The creature’s account of his early life shows the extent to which his dreadful encounters with humanity affect his development …show more content…

Upon the creature’s first encounter with humans, he is attacked and chased away by the people of a village he visits. After this, the wretch becomes wary of humans, relegating himself to silently observing a family through their window. Eventually, isolation and longing for companionship make the creature miserable and desperate. When the creature reveals himself to the De Lacey family and is rejected, he is devastated and vows to seek revenge against humanity, saying on page 124 “From that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me.” The anguish and loneliness the wretch experiences at the hand of human society drives him to anger and …show more content…

In this way, it is almost as if the wretch is speaking directly to the reader, allowing for a much more personal connection and sense of sympathy between the creature and the reader. An example of this technique can be found on page 131, where the creature says, “Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind and perish in the attempt to destroy them.” The wretch thereby poses this question to the reader, imploring that the reader attempt to understand what he is going through. This allows the reader to experience the feelings of the creature, while also contributing to the idea that the wretch’s behavior is a result of his lack of nurturing from his creator,

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The creature is no different than humans in the way that humans can kill, be kind or be violent and miserable, which the creature shows and experiences. As the creature learns more he encounters villagers with "gentle manners" and some barbarous villagers" who treat him like trash. If humans are so called humans because of their sympathy and compassion, then humans shouldn 't be considered humans if they kill or become violent. The men the creature meets are just as defective as he becomes. Just like any human around the creature 's "heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy", but he also experiences "misery" and "violence" he is "filled with an insatiable thirst for vengeance" (190).

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The creature learned what "bitter indignation" was and how to be "cruel" based on the way the villagers and his own creator treated him. The Creature is human because he has all the same emotional traits as we do, he may not look like us, but the thing that makes us human is making mistakes, " My feeling hurt. My heart aches. I cry. I feel sorry for myself.

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The creature's views were warped by all of this. Even when he learned to read, write, and speak, he learned to love others, but after all of this, he could not. If society learned to stop judging only appearance, the creature himself would have lived a better life. Not a life consumed by

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An eye for an eye or the law of retaliation is the principle most people live their lives by. For the characters in Frankenstein, this concept is apparent as the main character, Victor, creates a monster and instantly abandons him which sets off the chain of events revolving around revenge. However, as Gandhi once stated, “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind” (Gandhi). Throughout the novel, the creature and Victor engage in a recurring cycle of vengeance, but these acts of revenge are bittersweet as in the end it destroys both of them. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley reveals how revenge consumes and destroys those who surrender to it.

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