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Inner Beauty And Physical Beauty In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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The Ancient Greeks believed the gods blessed good people with beauty. Comparably, the Romantics shared a similar notion that inner goodness would externalize into physical beauty. Mary Shelley’s Romantic novel Frankenstein explores the theme of whether outer beauty correlates with inner morality via the Creature, a sentient artificial life who is highly intelligent but grotesque. The Creature’s monstrous appearance causes others to ostracize him and transforms him from an innocent creature to a morally ambiguous antagonist, contributing to the greater theme of outer beauty and inner good. In the beginning of his life, the Creature is innocent and virtuous. Despite how his creator essentially abandons him at birth, the Creature cares deeply …show more content…

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. As a result of his anger and loneliness, the Creature vows to seek revenge on the person who cursed him with his miserable existence, Victor Frankenstein. The Creature’s first of many victims, Victor’s younger brother, is killed after he insults the Creature by calling him an “ugly wretch… monster” (123). The Creature’s murder of William symbolizes the Creature’s descent to darkness, as his anger externalizes for the first time and he commits an act of violence out of uncontrollable rage. The Creature also realizes that the best way to gain revenge on Victor is to hurt those who Victor love, a twisted revelation stemming from the Creature's own limited experiences with companionship. However, through this barbaric murder, the Creature shows one of his most humanizing qualities: his insecurity about his appearance. This insecurity about his appearance makes him relatable, as if he is not just an artificial creature but

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