The Creature In Mary Shelley's 'Modern Prometheus'

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Jiayin Zeng Mr. Friedman English Pd. 7 January 1, 2015 What Will Never Be Humans are not born evil; they are products of their environments. It is the conditions and circumstances under which they grow that affect the outcome of their morals. In Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley creates a character who doesn’t resemble a human physically, but has many human qualities. Like humans, the Creature in the novel is not born evil and seeks acceptance and love from others; however, he is forced to become evil because of the characters who deny him access to the human community. The Creature is “a comically monstrous eight-foot baby - whose progenitor rejects him immediately after creating him” (Oates 32). Like a baby, the Creature…show more content…
The Creature enters a hut in which an old man was preparing breakfast and upon seeing the Creature, he “shrieked loudly, and, quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable” (89). He enters another cottage and is once again attacked and and bruised with stones by the villagers. Later, the Creature finds shelter in the DeLaceys’ shack and anonymously gathers wood for them after he learns that they suffer from poverty. While observing them from his hovel, he notices that the family communicates through articulate sounds. The Creature is aware that it is his displeasing appearance that causes humans to treat him with hostility but he “still believes that it can find a place in the world of man and nature” (Tropp 19) and tells Frankenstein: “I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their language, which knowledge might be able to make them overlook the deformity of my figure” (95). The Creature views language as “both the tool he needs to enter into relations with each other and a model of relation itself” (Brooks 374). After mastering language, the Creature confronts the elder De Lacey, a blind man, and wins his sympathy. However, upon seeing the Creature, Agatha faints, Safie…show more content…
Repeated rejection from the human community results in his destructive behaviors. For the first time, the Creature feels “revenge and hatred” (119) and doesn’t try to control them. He allows himself to give vent to his anger and blows up the cottage along with destroying the garden. The Creature also goes on to murder Frankenstein’s family and friends, strangling his younger brother, William, then framing his servant, Justine, for the crime, causing the death of his best friend, Henry Clerval, and his bride, Elizabeth. Bent on revenge, Frankenstein chases after the Creature. Shelley shows how the Creature has “patient, unquestioning, utterly faithful, and utterly human love for his irresponsible creator” (Oates 31) when he helps Frankenstein in his search and even leaves food for him. When Frankenstein dies, the Creature is beside him crying and calls him a “generous and self-devoted being” (183). The Creature says that he doesn’t have a purpose in life anymore. Shelley presents the Creature as someone who can feel human emotions and who is aware of the actions he take. He calls himself a wretch because he “murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing” (185). This shows how the Creature, an inhumane creation, “becomes increasingly human while his creator becomes increasingly inhuman, frozen
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