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Isolation In Shelley's Frankenstein And Paradise Lost

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In Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Victor Frankenstein and his creation represent the idea of unusual and mysterious origins, which help to shape their personality and relationships. Victor’s story is made to reflect themes of isolation, and the consequences of unchecked ambition. Each character's origins can be directly tied to representing the themes present in the story. “Frankenstein” also parallels Milton's "Paradise Lost" and its portrayal of Satan's rebellion against God can be pulled to reinforce these themes, purposefully this was Milton’s story was one the creation read during his time in isolation. Mary Shelley leaves Victor Frankenstein's mysterious origins to help develop not only his character, but the themes throughout the book. …show more content…

The creature is also referenced as the “Devil” further adding connections to “Paradise Lost”. Victor's creation of the creature closely parallels Satan's defiance of God, as both characters strive for power over natural creation. Victor's decision to define natural life by animating a corpse results in consequences that ultimately lead to his downfall. Through Victor's actions, Shelley reinforces the dangers of unchecked ambition and the consequences of defying natural life. Frankenstein, and his creation, possess a relationship that is the product of rejection and abandonment. This helps to mirror themes of isolation and rejection present in "Paradise Lost." After bringing the Creature to life, Victor is horrified, a result of defying natural life and letting his lust for power rule. Bound to the origins of abandonment, the creature falls into bitterness and hatred. The Creature struggles with his identity and purpose in a world that rejects him, just as Satan is rejected to Heaven and condemned to Hell for his rebellion. In both stories, the characters' origins play an important role in shaping their outcomes, as their actions can be linked to their identities as

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Most people know who Frankenstein is—or at least they think they do. Because of the way Mary Shelley’s brilliant 1818 novel has been adapted to f ilm, most Americans think that Frankenstein is a towering, scar-faced monster who brings terror wherever he goes. In Shelley’s novel, however, the real monster is Victor Frankenstein, the scientist who is the monster’s creator. In her story of how Victor Frankenstein creates the monster and what he does after the monster comes to life, Shelley conveys several timeless messages about the dangers of science, the dangers of isolation, and the importance of being a good parent.

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Throughout Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victor to warn the reader of the dangers of aspiring to godliness, and the consequences one faces in the aftermath doing so, even going as far as to compare Victor to Satan, tempting the crew of Walton’s ship, in the book’s final pages. The Victor Shelley creates is very similar to the Satan created by Milton in his book, Paradise Lost, which explores the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. In Frankenstein, Victor speaks of his desire to create the Creature, saying, “I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-creatures.” (152). Shelley’s diction choices, such as the word “useless” exemplify Victor’s excessive hubris, portraying him as a man who creates his Creature for, in his mind, the good of society.

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In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, The creature may be known for his monstrous and unforgiveable acts, but it is his creator, Victor, who is the true monster. Mary Shelley was an English novelist, best known for her gothic novel “Frankenstein”. In “Frankenstein” the question of who is the true monster, Victor or the creature, is a prominent theme throughout the story. While the creature's actions are certainly gruesome and horrific, it is the Monster who ultimately holds the title of the true monster. Through his neglect and mistreatment of the creature, Victor demonstrates a complete disregard for the life he has created.

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In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the audience views the monster as the most sympathetic character as Shelley utilizes a basic understanding of human nature in order to emphasize the innocence of the monster and force the reader into siding with the underdog. Additionally, Shelley furthers her position on why the monster is the most sympathetic by alluding to and referencing John Milton’s Paradise Lost as well as the relationship between God and man. Through this, Shelley forces the reader to abandon the conventional narrative that the monster is evil simply because he inflicted death upon others by looking at the motives that drove their actions. Shelley’s novel follows the life of Victor Franikenstein, an aspiring scientist who is fascinated

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The monster receives a violent rejection from the society due to his deformed figure which causes him to lead a life of isolation. The creature always faces rejection due to his appearance as shown through his encounter with the De Lacey family. As of the victor’s rejection towards the monster, he feels as if the De Lacy family is his last hope for his social acceptance. As shown when the monster says “I have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them; but they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome” (144).

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In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the theme of exile and isolation closely mirrors the idea of education and scientific discovery. This romanticism, and renunciation of the Enlightenment, is most clearly witnessed in the dual characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. In her novel, Shelley, through the life of Victor Frankenstein (including the version of him that the audience sees in his monster) makes it clear that true scientific education and knowledge comes in tandem with isolation, as romantic education does with exile in nature. Each character’s pursuit of knowledge leads them to the ideals of romanticism, as well as to the arctic plains of ice.

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To clarify on the topic of emotional isolation, it is a form of mental individuality. One does not need to be physically alone to experience emotional isolation, which is portrayed by Robert Walton. From the beginning of the novel, it takes place on a ship with Robert Walton and his crew with a ship to the Arctic Ocean. Although Walton is physically with other men, he mentally isolates himself from them mainly due to the fact that he thinks he is more intelligent than his companions and his crew would not understand the meanings of his voyage and journey. Due to the fact that he is well educated and his mates are not, it sets a barrier and in his mindset he states that “But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil.

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“Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god” (Aristotle). Romantic period writer and author, Mary Shelley, depicts two characters in her soft science fiction novel, Frankenstein, that is exquisitely similar to those who “would find delight in solitude” as quoted by Aristotle in his Politics. In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the parallel of Aristotle’s two presented personas consists as Victor Frankenstein as a god and his horrific creation, the Monster, as a wild beast. Unambiguously, Victor is indeed the god of the Monster because he created him, consequently bringing the Monster into existence. The Monster too is merely a wild beast from the perception that he appears to be a frightening and violent creature.

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As he does not even have a name as a marker of identity, he longs for parental recognition from Victor in order to end the confusion about who he is, and the more he understands the fear and hatred he unintentionally provokes in others, including Victor, the more hopeless his view of the world and his future becomes, which leads him to try and gain that recognition through violence. The murder of William, as Knoepflmacher argues, marks also the irreversible loss of “the ‘benevolent’ or feminine component” of the creature’s identity, which makes him “indistinguishable from Victor Frankenstein, similarly alienated from his feminine self” due to the loss of his mother and later on, his wife. The identities of the two are, indeed, intertwined and become fragmented in relation to Milton’s Paradise Lost, to which the novel constantly alludes. The creature reads Milton’s work and although he at first sees himself in Adam, he soon finds himself forced to identify with Satan. Chris Baldick argues that not only the creature but Victor himself starts to feel more like Satan than God – with whom he should identify in this instance – as the story progresses in the sense that “he too bears a hell within him”.

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Being abandoned by his creator, the monster has no one to guide him, no one to teach him right from wrong and good from evil. When the creature is first abandoned by Victor, he’s confused and doesn’t understand that he has been abandoned. The creature explains how he felt when he woke up, “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses” (Shelley 99). The creature won’t fully realize the impact of being abandoned until later in the story. Victor also suffers from isolation from his

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