Introduction
Frankenstein has been a very famous fiction novel in British society. Since its creation, it is still regarded as a very famous novel today. Frankenstein is about a monster that was created from corpses by a scientist named Victor. The monster creates havoc and ends up killing Victor’s brother William as well as his wife Elizabeth.
Victor, in rage, seeks out the monster but who confesses his crime and begs for mercy and a mate to help fight his loneliness. Victor creates the mate but then destroys it fearing the consequences. Because of that, the monster kills Victor’s bride and nearly evades Victor. Victor later dies but the monster, regretting everything, flees to die also.
Shelley’s Biography in Connection to Frankenstein
Through this novel, Mary Shelley sought to teach her audience not to view others with evil because of appearance but to view others with intentions and to understand that not all people that look like villains are villains. Through emotions, the audience is able to understand both sides of the story, and would also make better judgments on other people. This makes up the central issues that will guide this paper.
The creation of the monster traces Mary Shelley’s life and influence in science by her husband and father. Mary’s creation of the monster, in literary terms, is clear shown in her already known prowess that she has gained by writing other novels as well as literary articles.
In the novel, Frankenstein grows up as child who has no obvious satisfying life. Mary depicts Victor as young man who, therefore, is not happy and, thus, all through his life, before the creation of the actual monster, in the science lab, has being searching for happiness. The name of the novel as Frankenstein conceals the major occurrence of the novel, hence, masking the intentions of the writer at first.
As a result, the reader is not forewarned of the impending scary nature of the scenes and what is going to transpire and, therefore, Mary averts preconceived judgments against her work. It is only after reading the work that we, readers, get to knowing the harrowing details of scientist’s creation of monster that executes the people he loves.
Mary’s childhood life was full of misery and poverty that restricted her search for emotional fulfillment. In her love life, she was not well lucky to maintain her husbands to her life to the end of age. As a result, Mary Shelley’s life would be characterized as one that had tasted misery and, sometimes, loneliness.
She had experienced desperation at one point of her life to the point of committing suicide only to be persuaded otherwise by her fellow friends who loved and cared for her (Grylls, p. 5- 25). As a result, therefore, when she presents Victor as one who is searching for happiness. It becomes clear that Mary has a personal background in the issue. Victor Frankenstein’s life could not have been different from Mary’s based on the facts mentioned above.
Is Frankenstein’s Monster Guilty?
However, this concern of this paper is the search for reasons to believe that the monster acted out of innocence. Frankenstein’s creation of the monster was a search for expression that should have found its forms in different contexts and activities.
By concentrating on him and forgetting on the rest of the world, his interests in alchemistry and philosophy led him to lose the reasoning needed to evaluate and analyze the consequences of his actions. Truly, Victor would have first rationalized his concepts before creating such a monster since philosophy is an illustration of applied critical reasoning. The fault, therefore, lies initially with Victor before even the creation of the monster.
The fact that Victor Frankenstein had seriously sought answers on questions concerning these studies from his tutors reveals that he had the capacity to profile information as well as actions. As result, therefore, Victor was in a position to prevent his actions from hurting others.
The creation of the character Victor by Mary points to one fact that Shelly wanted the reader to know, in that human actions, may be sometimes guided by foolishness despite such persons having achieved lofty ideals and positions in the society. In more replicas to her situations in life, she might have been castigating those instances in her life when actions illustrated such gullibility yet the owners had proved through other methods were capable of intellect and reason.
This was especially true for her marriage wows with Godwin who had influenced the 18th century society by his article Political Justice. Godwin left her for another woman with obvious depreciation of his initial intelligence and brightness. His behaviors must have demoralized Mary who already had experienced desertion from her previous love life.
By creating a monster, Mary sends a message to the reader about the occurrence of evil in the minds of people who might seem straight. Victor, in his childhood life as well as his teenage life, had not espoused any characteristics that would have associated him to evil. It is from this point of view that the monster should be understood, that humanity is flawed and its intentions can only be evaluated after an action.
In the critics of the works of monsters, Chris Baldick in Smiths (p. 439), observes that the monsters were used in an effort to showcase vice on the stage in order to vindicate virtue. By the sole statement, the reader can find its application in the creation of the monster in the novel Frankenstein. Mary’s concern was not about the monster but about Victor Frankenstein as a representation of humanity.
It is worth noting that the monster’s behavior in the novel emanates from not about his creation but rather as a result of the treatment he receives among his creator and the other humans who meet him. The monster feels unaccepted and lonely in the world that unfolds before him. His efforts to create warmth and rapport with humans resulted in hurt feelings and emotions. The humans let him feel and experience the vagaries of weather because of the fact that he did not look like them.
This means that humans valued the creature from its otherwise unpleasant looks rather than from what the creature felt about himself. At this juncture, Shelley’s work shed light on the human kind flaws yet they take the foremost fronts in the claim for love, warmth and freedom. By their actions, they sort to deny the creature freedom to express his feelings, hence, they may be seen as hypocrites.
Shelley creatively lets the readers discern the message by going through her novel step by step. By getting inspirations to other works that alluded monsters, philosophy, literature, history and religion, her work is a commentary about the concerns of human beings in their daily activities. She lets the reader powerfully observe that the human beings are evil that creature by thinking about him in terms that are contrary to what he thinks.
This, however, starts from Victor as the first degree of human who behaves in the most selfish manner. The ambitions that lead Victor to create the creature reveal a human who lacks the standards human action and judgment. He is in a symbolic manner similar to the creature in the fact that his thinking that leads to the use of stolen body parts and secretive chemicals mixed together.
After the creation of the creature, Victor demonstrates his monstrosity by the hate that he develops concerning the creature. This elevates to obsession of hate, hence, the creature experiences hate from its creator to the society (Dorn, p. 15).
This has the sole effect to reveal the flaws that humanity has. Victor’s shrouded secrecy in his actions of creating the creature as well as of destroying it reveal that the human intentions should not be first exercised before judging someone. Victor, therefore, stands condemned in the eyes of the reader when it becomes clear that he is the source of this evil.
Symbolically, therefore, the creature presents a double in the novel to refer back to him. The movement of the creature in search for knowledge and to understand humanity, the reader understands that Victor seeks to understand the society which is of higher creation from a higher scientific status than his (Shelley, p 68)
He, thus, finds that people are not humane at all and, therefore, evil is to human not to creatures or products of human knowledge application. Humanity comes out clearly as a system that believes and advocates for suppression of others as well as exclusion. The creature as a being that transcends any limits of the construction of humanity reminds the reader that it creates boundaries which are meant to only bring evil to the society (Smith and Shelley, p. 444).
The use of a monster by Shelley powerfully points to the fact that our selfish, thoughtless and restrictive society leads to evil things that eventually turn against us. These evils do not help but rather add to misery created and justified through high science and intellect.
This is evident on the fact that Victor runs away from his creation rather than training it to understand the humanity language as well as codes used in the society. The creature’s attempt to seek a relationship with its creator results in more anguish pain and death. Therefore, Frankenstein’s work is clear illustration of how the human society has created evil knowingly and later deserts from public limelight through secrecy and fear leading to the worst atrocities committed against humanity.
Victor’s knowledge of the real murderer of his friend Henry does not fulfill the reader’s expectation of his public acknowledgement of the situation. He, therefore, repeats the same mistake when his sister, Moritz, is accused of murder and he does nothing to protect her despite his knowledge.
It, therefore, becomes clear that Victor is the source of the evil nature of the monster. In any case, the creature starts to kill Victor’s persons of great love and interests in the effort to bring Victor down from his position of foolish pride and self attained divine nature (Bloom, p. 42).
The rejection that the creature receives from all sides of the society as a result of its ugliness results in hate and vengeance which violates more the human society standards of practice and beliefs. In this sense, therefore, the creature is one not to be blamed but its creator and, therefore, the evil nature as a result of human actions. Victor actually professes this when he observes that he may be the murderer of the persons that were killed by the creator (Glut, p. 69).
Shelley’s intentions of writing this novel, therefore, were founded early in her search for assistance from her father who was an innovative scientist in medicine. Shelley’s ideas meant that she would construct literary work that would help explain human suffering this time not as seen in her father’s treatment issues but the moral point of view.
She lets the reader figure out that Victor’s lack of sense of morality in human actions could find solutions in death of the various creations in human decayed society. She observes that lofty ambitions lead to immoral actions that lead to fallen states of human nature. The fallen states only lead to death and, therefore, Victor advises Walton to abandon his ambitions of travels to the icy North. This would have led to his death and also cause misery to the family of his fellow men counterparts (Shmoop, p.13).
Shelley further treats the idea of secrecy just like morality. According to this work, the need for the society to know and acknowledge the truth through recognized and measured standards leads to the release of burden and free of guilt. It is only after Victor lays bare his secrets to Walton that the whole situation becomes rested. Frankenstein discovers the eternal ideals that help him to realize that he is on the wrong through actions.
It is this confession that also leads the monster to confess and seek for the termination of its life after getting to know its creator’s mind. Shelley, therefore, pegs the importance of truth to life changing situations and revelations that are necessary and, hence, placing it as a center of right and wrong (Levine, p. 58).
If humans observed and allowed truth to prevail, then the ills of the society like the one caused by Victor would be no more (Literature Essays n.d.). In this position, Shelley places herself at a higher moral point than the reader and, hence, requires people to exercise truth in all of their lives.
The expectation of punishment is self meted in the case of Victor and justice for the creature is attained by the soul and body afflictions of his creator. As for Victor, he gets his rewards in kind and this is what he realizes at the end of his life. He recognizes that those were empty pursuits that should not be followed by any human being who values his life and sanity (Smith and Shelley, p. 450).
In the novel Wicked, this theme finds strength just in Shelley’s work. Maguire clearly depicts the consequences of living a life that too well is known to cause despair and death. In this novel, conspiracies created by Maguire creatively depict betrayals murders that occur in the witches land as a result of lies that bind. What becomes of these witches by the end of the day is death and pain the truth gets revealed by different parts and characters interested in setting things for own personal gains.
In this novel, the author Maguire presents the story of Elphaba as a no ordinary child destined for sorcery but born in a religious family. Elphaba’s relationship with the members of her life and friends is characterized of sorcery which emanates from her inheritance. She is, however, different in that she does not use her meaning to threaten and kill other people unless as it becomes necessary (Levine and Knoepflmacher, p. 46).
Her life is filled with strange instances that depict her evil nature a descent of the father’s inheritance as a witch. By the end of the novel, Elphaba’s actions are paid by her death when she gets poured a bucket of water. This confirms Maguire’s intentions of writing the novel in that he wants the audience to understand that the consequences of the actions that we do in our lives come to haunts and to some lead to our fall.
Upon examination of these two novels, therefore, Shelley and Maguire examine the issues of truth and its implication to the human as well as super human experience. It becomes clear that any attempts to withhold truth, at one point, lead to evil situations that are dangerous (Milner, p. 49).
Conclusion
This paper supports the proposition that the monster in Frankenstein text can be absolved from blame since the evil in its is a reflection of the human society characterized and embodied by Victor. At the same time, it is clear that Shelley used this monster in order to describe the inadequacies of human nature from limitless position in the society. Indeed the monster realizes the gender codes for real humans to be very confusing and unbelievable, hence, the translation that human society is full if flaws.
The fact that human’s rejection of the monster led to its evil nature Shelley observes that human nature is evil. To add salt to injury, humanity through stupidity leaves things to sort themselves out after serious triggering the occurrence of such scenarios. Maguire’s work reinforces the idea of the need for truth.
If truth is allowed to prevail in both novels then the situations that lead to such ugly scenes and loss of life will be averted leading to peaceful societies. The intention to the audience for these works can not be underemphasized since they deal with issues that are presented from the moral point of view, hence, reflecting some the demarcations of human life.
The question of morality in Shelley’s work takes center stage to convince the reader that each member in the society is responsible for his action. She clearly outlines the weaknesses of human kind through the reflections of mirror like monster and, hence, creates the need for self examination in the reader.
By representing Victor one who had gained enough intellectual light Shelley to some extent castigates high intellectuals. She seems to attack the very profession she has known all through her life and probably cautions the lack of self control in such pursuits. It is, thus, worth noting that in these works, the authors do not celebrate such deaths but rather their depiction is to set the stage for the audience to think about them deeply and seek to change issues and problems that may lead to such instances.
Works Cited
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