Frankenstien Paradigm Essay, Research Paper

The Frankenstein Paradigm

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley is a complex novel that was written during the age of Romanticism. It contains many typical themes of a common Romantic novel such as dark laboratories, the moon, and a monster. However, Frankenstein is anything but a common novel. Many lessons are embedded into this novel, including how society acts towards the different. The monster fell victim to the system commonly used to characterize a person by only his or her outer appearance. Whether people like it or not, society always summarizes a person’s characteristics by his or her physical appearance.

Society has set an unbreakable code individuals must follow to be accepted. Those who don’t follow the “standard” are hated by the crowd and banned for the reason of being different. When the monster ventured into a town”…he had hardly placed his foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one women fainted” (Shelley 101). From that moment on he realized that people did not like his appearance and hated him because of it. If villagers didn’t run away at the sight of him, then they might have even enjoyed his personality. The monster tried to accomplish this when he encountered the De Lacey family. The monster hoped to gain friendship from the old man and eventually his children. He knew that it could have been possible because the old man was blind, he could not see the monster’s repulsive characteristics. But fate was against him and the miserable had barely conversed with the old man before his children returned from their journey and saw a monstrous creature at the foot of their father attempting to do harm to the helpless elder. “Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore the creature from his father” (Shelly 129). Felix’s action caused great inner pain to the monster. He knew that his dream of living with them “happily ever after” would not happen. After that bitter moment the monster believed that “the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union?(Shelly 138) and with the De Lacey encounter still fresh in his mind along with his first encounter of humans, he declared war on the human race.

The monster?s source of hatred toward humans originates from his first experiences with humans. In a way the monster started out with a child-like innocence that was eventually shattered by being constantly rejected by society time after time. His first encounter with humans was when he opened his eyes for the first time and witnessed Victor Frankenstein, his creator, rush out of the laboratory. Would this have had happened if society did not consider physical appearance to be important? No. If physical appearance were not important then the creature would have had a chance of being accepted into the community with love and care. But society does believe that physical appearance is important and it does influence the way people act towards each other. Frankenstein shouldn?t have made him if even he, the creator, could not stand his disgusting appearance. There was a moment however when Frankenstein “was moved” (Shelly 139) by the creature. Frankenstein “felt what the duties of a creator” (Shelly 97) were and decided that he had to make another creature, a companion for the original. But haunting images of his creation gave him an instinctive feeling that the monster would do frightening acts with his companion, wreaking twice the havoc the monster has caused. Reoccurring images of painful events originating from a first encounter could fill a person with hate and destruction.

We as a society are the ones responsible for the transformation of the once child-like creature into the monster we all know. The public needs to know that our society has flaws and they must be removed before our primal instincts continue to isolate and hurt the people who are different. With such a large amount of technology among us, some people may wonder why such an advanced civilization still clings on to such primitive ways of categorizing people.