Frankenstein Blog Post Three

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brought his monster to life without fully understanding the discoveries that he made. Frankenstein, even though he believed what he was doing was simply making scientific advances, was conceiving an unnaturally made child. Although he was not technically produced in the natural way, Frankenstein’s monster still developed in ways similar to that of a normal human. When the monster was first brought to life, he was a confused “child” that didn’t know his place in the world. When Frankenstein ran and hid in horror, this cruelty was one of the first things that the monster was exposed to. In some ways, Victor Frankenstein abandoned his “child” at his “birth”. Right from the start the monster was exposed to injustices that shaped his new, undeveloped mind. In parallel to modern times, if a parent isn’t present during the early stages of their child’s life then the abandoned child is likely to be in a bad living situation and engage in risky behavior. Frankenstein was that “parent”; he left the monster homeless, and without a family to nurture him so he was exposed to the hardships of the real world very early in life. As the monster was living on his own in the woods, he again found the cruelties of the world when he tried to connect with the blind, old man. Without being able to see the monster, the man was accepting of Frankenstein’s monster because he could not see the imperfections that others would exploit. However, once his family returned they exposed him for being the yellow skinned, black lipped, eight foot tall creature that he truly was out of fear and paranoia. Again the monster was wronged; but the cruelty doesn’t end here in the novel. When he comes in contact with William Frankenstein, the child is terrified for his life because of the gruesome features of the monster. Here, another human judged him for his exterior. Later in the novel, after Frankenstein revokes his promise that he will make a companion for the monster, he has finally been betrayed by all humans that the monster has encountered. I believe that if the monster had someone like him to keep him company that they would live peacefully in exile together. The only reason that the monster committed any of the crimes he did was to get revenge against the one who wronged and abandoned him from the moment he was brought to life. Overall, I feel that the monster’s actions were justified by the way he was treated by his creator and that Victor Frankenstein deserved the comeuppance that the doctor received.