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The Use Of Diction In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is used to show that people need companionship. She does this by showing how both the monster and Frankenstein are alienated by each other. Plot, imagery, and diction are used to get her point across.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses diction to show how the monster is alienated from society and how this affects him and ultimately Victor Frankenstein as well. The monster describes his first experience as being "endowed with perceptions and passions and then cast abroad for the scorn and horror of mankind" (Shelley 119). This is describing the monster's first awakening in which he knew nothing. Upon coming to life, the monster yearns to learn, feel, and communicate with others just like any other human would, but he was cast aside by Frankenstein to fend for himself. This use of diction …show more content…

First it is used to show how the monster had to fend for himself, " I[the monster] escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I beheld in the village" (Shelley 116.) This describes the conditions the monster was living in. Without the use of imagery, the description of the house would have been lacking. It would not have captured the same picture of loneliness that the descriptions did.The imagery also shows how the alienation of the locals affected the monster. This is seen in his glee at the destruction of house of the only ones he could even come close to calling friends. He explains "I lighted the dry branch of a tree and danced with fury around the devoted college,...I waved my brand; it shook and with a loud scream I fired the straw, and the heath, and the bushes I had collected. (Shelley 118.) This imagery gets across the point of how evil he has become, even if at one point he wasn't. Without the language being used the evilness wouldn't be equally

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