The True Monster In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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If a child grows up to be a serial killer, who is to blame? The authority figure in the child's life or the person who committed the acts themselves are both susceptible to blame. Society could have had a role as well. Some would consider the serial killer a monster, others would blame outside influences and claim that they made the child that way, and call these outside influences the monster. The same goes for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. From actual monsters to characters who exhibit monstrous characteristics to society itself, monsters are around from the beginning of the novel to the end. The most terrifying monster, however, is not the eight-foot tall, zombie like creation. The “creature” serves as the physical monster, Victor Frankenstein…show more content…
He intends to disprove theories of life in his time period, and has a god-like complex about himself. Frankenstein aims to prove himself superior. Trying to display himself as some sort of martyr, he claims that “if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections,” history would be completely different and would not have advanced nearly as fast as it did (34). Frankenstein compares his experiment to the conquering of Greece and destruction of Mexico and Peru's kingdoms (34). Frankenstein essentially abandons his friends and family for two years to work on this experiment, all the while neglecting his health. However, when his experiment that he had toiled over for years finally comes alive, Frankenstein's first instinct is to abandon the creature. Being born a blank slate, this is a very negative way to shape the creatures mind. The root of the majority of the creature's malicious actions are all a result of the lack of a first contact. Every killing and crime could have been prevented, had Frankenstein chosen to embrace the fact that he was now responsible for another human being, and show it affection or at least choose to end its existence. The creature does not realize initially realize that he has been abandoned, but soon understands, turning him into a vicious creature. He learns, through the De Lacey's, of his odd predicament. The monster questions “'But where were my friends and relations? No father had held me in my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing,'” (84). Later on in the story, the creature tracks down Frankenstein in the mountains, where he tells Frankenstein his story and also requests Frankenstein make a female companion for the creature. Frankenstein chooses again to influence
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