Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Who Is The Real Monster?
When discussing the story of Frankenstein, the question of “who is the real monster” is brought up more frequently than any other question. For many there is no question that the monster is Frankenstein’s creation, while for others the answer is not as simple as one or the other. Some might believe that the creature was created in the image of its creator; that the monster took many of its characteristics from its main source of inspiration, that inspiration being Victor Frankenstein. What is for certain is that the answer to this long debated topic is more complicated than it appears.
This question is such a difficult topic to cover in that it has a plethora of unique, varying viewpoints to argue from. In many cases it can be said that the …show more content…
While this point of view presents many valid arguments, it is limited to doing so by the simple physical meaning by which we classify something as being a “monster”. Much of this argument that the creature is the obvious choice in the “who is more monstrous” debate is based on the physical features of the creature. The label of monster that our society has continued to use for the initial creation of the word is “an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening”. The creature that Dr. Frankenstein created, if compared to this definition, would indeed be classified as a monster. While the creature does meet the requirements of what we know as a typical monster; large, ugly, and frightening, it is when we look deeper into the intellectual side of this so called “monster” that things begin to change. The monster that Victor Frankenstein initially created is only monstrous in the physical sense of the word. In more ways than one the monster is more humanlike that some would like to admit. It has feelings and emotions, desires and dreams, and if we were to ignore its physical appearance all together; it would be a normal human in every sense of the word. Much of the themes in Frankenstein play to this idea; this idea that something or someone can be labeled a monster simply because of their outward physical appearance. What is quite frightening about this fact is that if we were to rewrite the story of Frankenstein and replace the creature that Victor created by a human being, we as a society would not be labeling it as a monster, but instead would be labeled as a
This question is such a difficult topic to cover in that it has a plethora of unique, varying viewpoints to argue from. In many cases it can be said that the …show more content…
While this point of view presents many valid arguments, it is limited to doing so by the simple physical meaning by which we classify something as being a “monster”. Much of this argument that the creature is the obvious choice in the “who is more monstrous” debate is based on the physical features of the creature. The label of monster that our society has continued to use for the initial creation of the word is “an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening”. The creature that Dr. Frankenstein created, if compared to this definition, would indeed be classified as a monster. While the creature does meet the requirements of what we know as a typical monster; large, ugly, and frightening, it is when we look deeper into the intellectual side of this so called “monster” that things begin to change. The monster that Victor Frankenstein initially created is only monstrous in the physical sense of the word. In more ways than one the monster is more humanlike that some would like to admit. It has feelings and emotions, desires and dreams, and if we were to ignore its physical appearance all together; it would be a normal human in every sense of the word. Much of the themes in Frankenstein play to this idea; this idea that something or someone can be labeled a monster simply because of their outward physical appearance. What is quite frightening about this fact is that if we were to rewrite the story of Frankenstein and replace the creature that Victor created by a human being, we as a society would not be labeling it as a monster, but instead would be labeled as a