Monday, February 24, 2014
A Damaged and Hateful Heart
By the end of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein I was torn between sympathizing with Victor or his monster. Undoubtedly both were wretched creatures with a wretched existence, but who had it worse? The monster's grotesque and unlovable form was a sentence worse than death that committed him to a disturbing resolve to impress upon his creator the same damning fate Victor impressed upon him. After all Victor's loved ones fell at the monster's hand, Victor made a similar vow saying, "...to pursue the demon who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal combat. For this purpose I will preserve my life ; to execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun..." (220). Both the monster and Victor, in the wake of pain and hate, resolved to sooth their agony with the blood of the other. These vendettas illustrate Frankenstein's and his monster's similar nature to void the conscience and commit oneself to evil as the monster eloquently describes, "I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good" (238). Unfortunately the sweet solace they thought revenge would bring turned bitter. Upon Frankenstein's death the monster laments at his wrong doing as he says "No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalog of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty goodness" (239). This is where the real horror of Mary Shelley's story is found; how easily a benevolent creature, like Frankenstein's monster, can be scorned and transformed into a vessel of a hate and disdain. Equally frightening is that a monster such as this, contemptuous and angry, is necessarily going to spread his evil. This ability to adopt evil and infect others with it is the most terrifying theme in Frankenstein.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It seems that you are leaning towards sympathizing with the monster and, if that is the case, I would have to agree. My main reason for siding with Frankenstein’s monster over Victor comes down to the issue of choice. Victor makes the decision to create a being through unnatural means, chooses to abandon his creation, and then proceeds to constantly reject his creature’s basic needs to selfishly focus on his own happiness. Clearly, the monster has no say in any of this. He does not decide if he should be brought into existence, and he is unable to choose his outward appearance. On top of these two, he must deal with the abandonment of his creator and rejection by a society he does not understand. While I do not condone his violent actions, I completely understand why he does what he does. He has no other way of getting back at Victor and he truly wants to find a place that he can fit in. Since Victor denies him this simple request, he is left with no choice but to make Victor understand and share his pain.
ReplyDelete