Nature of Isolation

   Frankenstein’s Monster laments, “I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat” (101)! The story that the Monster paints for Frankenstein is, purposely, a story of human’s thirst for knowledge and acknowledgement—and the doom that comes with it. Like Adam, tasting the forbidden fruit is what leads to the fall of man. But, as Monster points out, at least Adam had a lovely lady to share misery with. Monster is left in total isolation, and worse loathed by people. His creator fated his creation’s despondent loneliness by creating, as Monster describes, “a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust... my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance” (111). I found that the saddest part of Monster’s ill-fate, is the complete self-awareness he has of people’s negative (and violent) reactions to him. When he speaks to the old, blind man whose family he had been observing, he describes the prejudice he feared his friends had against him, even though he was kind and beneficial (114). His crushed hopes in humanity, lead him further into isolation. This begins his descent into violence and vengeance, which he enacts after being rejected for a woman by his creator. In a classic case of “if you can’t join them, beat them,” Monster spreads his unhappiness, tormenting his creator and killing the woman who Frankenstein felt a duty to protect. Finally, Monster waits for what he believes to be the only way to overcome the depression that accompanies the gain of knowledge—death.

   The tragedy, I find, in Frankenstein is that Monster learned about violence and prejudice, it was not in his nature. Man drove him to desperation during Monster’s search for some meaning in life. But because of the rejection of his fearsome exterior, they hardened the softy that was inside. In his quest for love, which is given to all creatures by their creators (parent-child, God-humans), he only found hate and rejection.