The Monster In this essay, I attempt to determine the concept and the identity of the monster in the novel Frankenstein .
As mentioned in the website , it told the story of a swiss scientist , Victor Frankenstein , who is so horrified by the ugly creature he brings to life from assembled body parts that he abandons him , with terrible consequences. Victor in this novel describes the monster and he said “his limbs were in proportion , and I had selected his feautures as beautiful . Beautiful: Great God , His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath , his hair was black , his teeth a pearly whiteness ” P. 45 . In my point of view here the real horror seems to be the contrast: flowing black hair and white teeth juxtaposed with his face and straight black lips . Unfortunately , Victor is not the only one who is terrified of the monsteron sight .
The gentle family he is been spaying on in the forest falls to pieces when they see him , so we’ve established that he’s ugly , but we have not established whether he’s actually a monster or he becomes a monster . On the other hand , when the monster describes himself , it’s all sunshine and light . He admires Agatha and Felix as “Superior beings” 12.17 , he describes himself as having” goodDispositions” and he uses”(extreme labour” to rescue a young girl from drowning . But no matter what he soes , his actions are always misinterpreted because Felix and Agatha think he’s Alkhatib 2trying to murder the young girl instead of rescusing her . In the text , he said “This was then reward of my benevolence , I had saved a human being from destruction and as a recompense I know writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth .
Inflamed by pain , I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind”| 16. 19-20 . Essentially , shelly seems to be saying that society get the monsters we deserve .
By neglecting and shunning people with socially unacceptable appearances , we creat mass murderes . Also, the monster representes a hero, because he describes himself and ha said”I was dependent on none and related to none . the path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation.
My person was hideous and my stature gigantic 15.5 ” . I think that this is a perfect description of a romantic hero : radically independent dude who wont let the man tell him what to do , a kind of super hero who sets out to solve the mysteries of life . In addition to that when he said “I was not even of the same nature as men . I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet , I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame , my stature far exceeded theirs 13.
17″ actually I believe that , he had sound a lot like a better version of humanity , also the monster is used to demonstrare basic human needs such as food “food , however became scarce, and I often spent the whole day searching in vain pangs of hunger ” hunger here is often associated with monster, however, the creature shows human qualities as he is stuck with alimited supply of simple food .In addition, as mentioned in the novel , the monster has no community . Even satan , he says , had fellow fallen angels , but the monster is alone .
No wonder he has a death wish . the Adam/satan is important because one of the monster’s favorite book is paradise lost . Alkhatib 3In paradise lost , Milton suggests that Satan is jealous of Adam for having Eve and a sweet garden to live in and the monster here describes his plan for the future saying “I will go to the vast wilds of south America , my food is not that of man , I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite, a corns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment 17.9″Here the whole point is that the monster is both . he’s good and bad , he’s a little scientist , trying to figure out the secrets of life and then setting fire to the ants he’s been studying with a microscope , he loves people but he hates them . At the same time , he wants to be accepted by others , actually he was rejected because his physical appearance .
Moreover , the monster in some ways represents a baby because he has the mind of a new born and lack of knowledge of controling his body . Furthermore, he shows he has power and authority over his creator which challenges the theme of hubris , suggesting he is not as naïve as previously thought, and it may be represents Frankenstein himself as his resentful nature toward the monster is the same approach he has on the underlying homodexual connotations his behaviour has.Finally, the monster represents a range of ideas and concerns in the novel , it may be a symbol of science , society’s misogyny, human nature , parent child relationship and it may be a symbol of the outcast from society because the dispossessed and the comment on the way that society treats him .
