Reputation: Advantage or Disadvantage?
Reputation can make or break an individual. It determines how people view one another and it also decides how people treat and react to each other. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the monster, Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza face struggles with their reputation and how it defines them. Also, in Othello by William Shakespeare, Iago, Othello and Desdemona are presented with similar struggles to the ones the characters in Frankenstein face. The presentation of reputation in both works allows the readers to understand how the characters interpret each other, how reputation can cause an inner struggle within a character and how reputation can cause a characters ultimate downfall.
Reputation plays a large role in how the characters interpret each other. In these particular works, reputation gives a false understanding of two specific characters. In Frankenstein, the monster is completely misunderstood by the people around him. His grotesque appearance gives him a violent reputation, which even the monster himself recognizes. The monster says, “I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man” (Shelley, 119). Although the monster does display acts of violence during the duration of the novel, killing William Frankenstein for example, it is because he was thrown into a world with no one similar to him. He doesn’t understand how to act, and also he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of right and wrong. The monster just hopes for understanding, love and attention from anyone, but especially from his creator. When the monster says, “Cursed, cursed creator? Why did I live? Why in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of life which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not” (Shelley, 137), it becomes visible to the audience that the monster is aware the he is unnatural and it displays his confusion towards his own creation. A being with a truly evil nature would and could not wonder why they
Reputation plays a large role in how the characters interpret each other. In these particular works, reputation gives a false understanding of two specific characters. In Frankenstein, the monster is completely misunderstood by the people around him. His grotesque appearance gives him a violent reputation, which even the monster himself recognizes. The monster says, “I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man” (Shelley, 119). Although the monster does display acts of violence during the duration of the novel, killing William Frankenstein for example, it is because he was thrown into a world with no one similar to him. He doesn’t understand how to act, and also he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of right and wrong. The monster just hopes for understanding, love and attention from anyone, but especially from his creator. When the monster says, “Cursed, cursed creator? Why did I live? Why in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of life which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not” (Shelley, 137), it becomes visible to the audience that the monster is aware the he is unnatural and it displays his confusion towards his own creation. A being with a truly evil nature would and could not wonder why they
Cited: Shakespeare, William. Othello. Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1989. Print. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. United States of America: Tom Doherty Associates, 1988. Print.