Loneliness In Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an attempt at connection—a narrative woven by its three principal narrators that attempts to share their legacies, dreams, and destructive secrets. The novel begins with the sea captain Walton writing to his sister about his longing for a companion, a wish paralleled by the other collaborators of this tale. The whole narrative, therefore, is an effort to connect with others and alleviate loneliness and seclusion. It is fitting then, that this very notion of isolation is the greatest destructive force in the novel, as it facilitates and prompts monstrous behaviors. Emotional isolation from both family and society drives Frankenstein and his creation to dangerous and vengeful behaviors, which ultimately cause their

While at Ingolstadt, Frankenstein devotes himself wholly to the possibility of creating artificial life, going so far as to ignore his the changing seasons and his family’s letters, thus pursuing his self interest over natural connections. Though the world natural world passes by around him, Frankenstein’s “eyes were insensible to the charms of nature” despite it being a “most beautiful season” (37). This observation serves as a metaphor for Frankenstein’s relationship with nature, demonstrating the extent to which his isolation has alienated him from the rest of the world. His “insensible” eyes blind him, therefore showing a detachment from basic natural connections. Further, it is these “same feelings which made [him]…forget those friends who were so many miles absent” (37). It is evident here that Frankenstein’s lack of connection with nature correlates with his lack of human connection, which he similarly detaches from, causing him to cease writing to them as a method of connection and communication. He wants to “procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of

When Victor proves unable to make a female companion for his monster, the creature laments that though “each man shall find a wife for his bosom...[he will] be alone…while [he] grovel[s] in the intensity of [his] wretchedness” (140). The monster in his quest for companionship has been thus far driven by one singular pursuit: to escape its eternal isolation and alienation. The realization that his hopes have been in vain is a damning one, the severity of which is shown by the monster’s tone of despair. However, the monster yet asserts that his capacity for “revenge remains” and tells Victor that he shall again with him “on his wedding night” (140). Frankenstein, due to his emotional disconnect with his family, perceives the target of this threat to be himself, but instead on the fated night finds Elizabeth, his own companion, “lifeless and inanimate…[with the] mark of the fiend’s grasp on her neck” (165-166). Elizabeth’s murder causes Frankenstein “the agony of despair,” to the extent that he is made to feel “the heat of fever” in recollection of the event (166). In killing Elizabeth, the monster effectively mirrors onto Victor the pain felt at a lack of companionship, thus ensuring that Victor’s emotional isolation from his family becomes absolute—just as the monster is absolutely alone with the abortion of his own companion. It is