Similarities Between Monkey Beach And Frankenstein

Sienna Ferroni Ms. Splinter ENG3U1 23 May 2024.

The Impact of Alienation, Mental Health and Grief on Wellbeing Although Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were written during very different eras, there are a number of commonalities between the two works that make them more alike than different despite the nearly two-hundred-year age difference. These include the themes of grief, alienation, and mental health and how these can affect a person's well-being. Alienation from society can have detrimental impacts on an individual's overall health, including their mental state. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Monster recounts to Victor his origin story and his life up until their encounter on the mountain following William's

The Monster remembers how, early in the morning, he entered a village town and encountered hostility and persecution due to his appearance: “I had hardly placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country” (Shelley 92). This excerpt from the novel describes how the Monster was treated when he initially attempted to enter the village. This made him feel alienated from society and motivated him to kill Victor's friends and family as payback for his appearance later on in the book. The Monster from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrates through his actions that social alienation can have detrimental effects on both the individual and other people. After speaking up about how she was tired of having the same four conversations every day at lunch, Lisa in Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach gets excluded by both her cousin Erica's friend group and the rest of the school. As a result, she is bullied and alienated from her peers and is perceived as an outsider by both groups. “Rather than