What happens to a person when he is borne unto a world, is taught its culture, values and norms, and then through a series of experiences, realizes that despite the presence of others, that he is totally unlike them and that he is truly externally and internally alone? In many respects, Mary Shelly’s monster in her short story, “Frankenstein,” addresses this.

In birth, the creature is described near the beginning of chapter four of the first volume as one whose “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath,” of one whose “hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing,” of one who had “teeth of a pearly whiteness and watery eyes that “seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set” (935). In this section, the creature is described and referred to as a man. By looking beyond the obvious difference from one actualized from Christianity’s God, a being not of human origin, one does see him as such. However, merely an image of one does not constitute his humanity, at least in most peoples’ view. His external image becomes, as Cynthia Hamberg states in her web page on her description of him, as “the cause of all his problems” because “[p]eople are frightened when they see him, which keeps […] him from making contact with them” (“My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein – Character Descriptions”). And so, as he is brought into the world of the living, he already is externally differentiated and is set up to be ostracized and be set at the margins because of his physical difference. With relation to “true” human beings, one only needs to look to oneself and recall those moments of loneliness when one felt estranged because of lack of physical relation with others, whether with others of one’s sex, body type, skin color, or other physical feature, to get an inkling of the creature’s forthcoming feelings and emotions. And if not with one self, then to those many people with physical “ambiguities” and disabilities who feel betrayed, shunned and criticized for not being like the norm. This disdainful dejection that Frankenstein’s monster feels consequential to his general public’s (his creator, the De Lacey’s, Clerval, and others he encounters) refusal to accept him because of his appearance (because of fear) and often times also because of their association of him with the ghastly and hellish, drives him to hatred and murder. That which was Frankenstein’s two years of ongoing devotion in hopes of bettering the state of humanity instead becomes, as stated in the web page, “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Myth for Modern Man,” a “horror, not joy” (Neal 4).

With Victor’s refusal to take responsibility for his creation, his choosing to not make an effort to help or teach it, his show of dissatisfaction and disappointment for it that his unearthly child later reads in his journal notes, and his change of mind to make a companion for it, his creature becomes enraged and sets out to cause his destruction (936; 1001). In the perception of the creature, feeling that he truly does not fit anywhere in the “Great Chain of Being,” there was not any other plausible alternative. Revenge, he says, is his motive. The creature’s comment after Frankenstein’s refusal to make him a mate implies this: “Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever” (1001). However, from this, so is his intent on getting his creator’s attention as his comments to Robert Walton near the end of the story imply: “For whilst I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned” (1033). Specifically, his purpose was to make Frankenstein miserable, but also to have someone to pay attention to him because no one else would. When Frankenstein died, there was no other purpose in his existence because there was no one left to give him any sort of semi-long-lasting attention (regardless of its polarity). Within the context of today’s world, this, too, becomes the case, except the decision to gain attention and ultimately to kill its creator is not so literal (it is in the mind), but where the lack of feeling of communal connection, as was the creature’s case, greatly is. His creature turns into what he never wanted: abhorrence. In the light of the general, human public where its members are also the creators, sometimes these creatures, too, manifest, and like the creature, in the end also decide to sadly end their own lives.

For Victor Frankenstein’s monster, his ultimate loneliness was just too much to handle. Not only was he dejected by his creator and his people, but he also had none of his own kind to relate with. The hatred that he feels toward himself, unlike the explanation offered by Cynthia Hamberg that it was because “of all the murders that he has committed,” is rather because of his own inability to either create another of his own or to relate with his creator’s. Because of his appearance and their unwillingness to look beyond his externalities and to not dismiss his actions that, as Franz J. Potter says in his synopsis of Gothic literature, “mimicked the society that encompassed him,” he truly does become both outraged and depressed, lonely and vengeful (“My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein – Character Descriptions”; “The Gothic Literature Page: Essays”). Like a possible outcome of a dream deferred, the creature takes on the possible scenario of explosion, much like many extremely depressed people take on the possible scenario of suicide. For the creature and its symbolic representation of extremely ostracized people, the result of external and internal loneliness becomes the ultimate form of separation, isolation, and disconnection: death.

Many questions abound from this reading. Among the more important are these: Who is the real monster? Is it the creature, or its creator?; Is responsibility to one another one sided? If not, how is balance and equality achieved?; Does Shelly’s work touch on prejudgments that we all make of others? And if it does, what commentary is she making about our condition and responsibility in owning up to these choices in actions we take? Whatever answers one may decide or just simply ponder on, the underlying truth is that we are all ultimately all alone; no one will ever truly understand who we are but ourselves. The more quickly we can grasp and understand that concept, the faster and easier it will be to move on to better internally connect with one another through shared experiences that transcend the external boundaries of our bodies and limited understanding. Unlike Frankenstein and his creature, we do not have to play out that outcome of poignancy because our stories are not written by the whims of some author. As a non-believer of pre-destiny might say, our paths in life are determined by the choices we make, not by the circumstances that come up. We are our own authors. And, with direct literal and figurative respect to Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” we must not think ourselves grander than the forces of the Universe because we might just create something horribly distant from our possible good intentions that we may not want to take responsibility for, but that which will still leave a remarkable imprint.

Works Cited

• Abrams, M. H. and Jack Stillinger. “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. Ed. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2000. 912-1034.
• Hamberg, Cynthia. “My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Frankenstein: Character Descriptions.” Online Posting. 13 March 2002 <http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~hamberg/Frankenstein/characters.html>.
• ---. “My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Frankenstein: Summary.” Online Posting. 13 March 2002 <http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~hamberg/Frankenstein/summary.html>.
• Neal, Patricia A. “Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein: Myth For Modern Man.” Online Posting. 13 March 2002 <http://ntserver.shc.edu/www/Scholar/neal/neal.html>.
• Potter, Franz J. “The Gothic Literature Page: Essays – The Age Of Reason And Decay.” Online Posting. 13 March 2002 <http://members.aol.com/FranzPoet/Fstein.html>.