The Importance Of Experiences In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Experiences a person has been through in real life shapes a person and their morals. Whether the so-called experiences are good or bad, they have an impact on someone and on the way they think and act. A prime example of this is in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. In Shelley’s novel there are numerous instances where the leading characters are put through difficult situations, and they’re mindset is changed. Characters experience a plethora of emotions such as rage, vengeance , and grief, which changes their characterization as a whole.

The event that shaped the whole plot in the novel was Victor’s mother’s death. Undeniably a death in the family has a crucial impact on a person’s well being, and the way people cope with death is

The creature does not start off inherently bad in the novel in actuality he’s quite empathetic and observant of the De Lacey family, he even notices that "they were not entirely happy”, though he didn’t know why he “was deeply affected by it'' (Shelley 77). Eventually the creature comes out of his hiding to talk to the blind old man, though he is caught by Felix, who beats the creature up. Even later on in the novel, the creature saves a little girl who’s drowning, but again he’s harmed, in this case shot, because someone thought he was evil based on his appearance. After continual bad experiences coming face-to-face with human’s he starts hating himself. In fact during his first encounter with Victor the creature is aware “‘All men hate the wretched'”, and that makes him “‘miserable beyond living things’” (Shelley 68). In addition to hating himself he hates humans, especially Victor after the unfortunate ways they treated

Understandably Victor has justified feelings of fear that he will be next, or someone else important will die. Though these feelings eventually morph into feelings of revenge, which has become a prominent theme throughout the novel at this point in the novel. At first Victor’s eaten up by feelings of grief and guilt knowing that he’s responsible for numerous deaths, and often needs solidarity to recover from a death. After the creature’s threat of haunting Victor on his wedding day, Victor “burned with rage”, and a motive starts forming which was to “pursue the murderer of [Victor’s] peace” (Shelley 123). His morals changed from sulking about himself in his house, thinking about how much he messed up to avenging his loved ones, sparked by numerous unfortunate deaths. A clear change of motives since Victor didn’t really have a motive at the start except for hiding from the