Identity Crisis In Frankenstein

Personal Perception: The Identity Crisis of Frankenstein’s Monster A specialist in infant and child developmental psychology, Dr. Philippe Rochat claims, “Self-awareness is arguably the most fundamental issue in psychology, from both a developmental and an evolutionary perspective” (Rochat 717). According to Dr. Rochat, a child gradually forms its self-perception through various early stages of its life, beginning with birth to four or five years of age. The concept of perceiving one’s self through another’s eyes, is a crucial milestone that a child achieves by “seeing” and “touching” throughout these early years of its life. Dr. Rochat also claims, that without proper guidance and support, this process of mastering self-perception becomes

Rochat believes benevolent support, in particular from parents, is crucial for a child to master self-awareness because it is through the eyes of others that it begins perceiving itself. The physical presence of others’ in a child’s life is critical for actualizing its existence. The Monster in Frankenstein is deprived of this fundamental support from the beginning of its life because Victor abandons him. The Monster is unable to distinguish between various feelings of sensations, as he says, “… a strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time…” (Shelley 118). The other people abhorred him at his very first sight. This reaction from others, is reciprocated by the Monster, too, when he shrieks at seeing his own reflection in the water. He starts to believe he is indeed worthy of being

According to her, both visual and verbal languages have an indelible impact on the mind of the listener. Mellor justifies Shelley’s use of linguistic construes to demonstrate the turning of the Creature into the Monster through her lines, “By consistently seeing the creature's countenance as evil, the characters in the novel force him to become evil” (134). The continued rejections and abhorrence that the Creature receives from each and every person he chances upon to meet, including Victor and the De Lacey’s family, force him to become the Monster, who is beheld in their