The Monster In Shelley's Frankenstein

It is most commonly accepted as a universal truth that the way a child is raised plays a major role in their development from infancy to adolescence. The monster in Shelley’s Frankenstein is no exception. Although born into an adult body, the monster’s development adheres along many stages in the science of childhood development. Despite his grotesque appearance, the monster in Frankenstein has a human persona- a fact that Victor failed to realize upon the monster’s creation. If Dr. Frankenstein had understood the human component of the monster’s personality, the story of Frankenstein would be drastically altered as lives would not have been lost and the monster would not have lived the majority of his life in vengeful isolation. Despite being

This includes Victor, the father of the young girl he saved from drowning, and the DeLacey family. With his newfound knowledge, the monster now has a better understanding of humans and their decorum, and consequently it only makes life appear that much bleaker to the monster as Chao writes “Acquiring language…is both medicinal and poisonous, “a mixture of pain and pleasure,” in that the better he masters human language, the more knowledge he is able to gain, and the sharper his awareness of his deformity and his friendless life” (Chao 224). With his new poignant outlook on life, the monster becomes bitter and dejectedly expresses his frustrations to Victor saying, “I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph” (Shelley 147). Through his anguish, he not only describes the difficulties he has had to overcome, but also expresses the regret he feels from his previous actions regarding William Frankenstein and Justine Moritz. From this, it is possible to infer that the monster respects life and strongly desires acceptance from not only society, but also his creator, Victor. Once he realizes that acceptance will never be given to him, the monster asks Victor to construct a female monster to fill the lonely yet human void that had haunted him since his

Born as an eight foot tall child, the monster is shown to have had the ability to develop like a normal child, but because of his ghastly appearance, he was never given the chance to mature like one. Instead of being taught the proper way to conduct oneself properly, the monster grew up on his own adopting crooked values and believing misleading