Alienation And Loneliness In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Alienation and loneliness are two things not to get confused because of the circumstances that revolve around arriving to that state of being. Alienation refers to the feeling of being isolated from society, while loneliness refers to the state of being alone and completely void of human interaction. In Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein, determined seafarer Robert Walton and headstrong protagonist Victor Frankenstein both face moments of complete solitude where they have reached their lowest point and there was no one there to offer them comfort, and they have both faced alienation, whether intentionally or unintentionally. However, the difference between those two characters is how they take action and combat their solitude. The way
His fascination with the “secret of life” and discovering it to later create it by bringing a horrific monster to life in avertedly caused the death of the people he loved dearly. The actual deed of creating a life and the following consequence leads to the manifestation of alienation in Victor Frankenstein by prioritizing his work and science over the relationships and communications with his family and loved ones. As expressed on numerous occasions through letters to his childhood sister or ”cousin” Elizabeth Lavenza and his father Alphonse Frankenstein, Frankenstein spend too much time on his work and not enough time in the company of family, which arguably led to the start of his demise. “I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation – deep, dark, deathlike solitude.” (Shelley, 61) Victor’s isolation becomes more pronounced after the death of his brother, and the guilt he feels for creating such a monstrosity and having a hand in the death of not only his brother, but Justine Moritz as well feeds his depression to continue to wallow in sorrow and solitude. “At these moments I wept bitterly, and wished that peace would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster who I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness.” (Shelley, 62) With Frankenstein’s malignant creation on the lose to do as her pleases, Victor can only grow in remorse, shame, repentance, and sullenness as the monster kills the people that he holds dear to his heart all the while not owning to any actions or faults of creating life that has clearly gone too far. By cutting himself off from the surrounding world