Loss Of Humanity In Frankenstein Essay

Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein merges the ideas of science, humanity, and being human. Within this novel, Shelly tells the story of Frankenstein and his creature through many different points of view. These different viewpoints add to the story in that they show the feelings that several characters have towards Frankenstein’s creature. However, the creature himself shows the reader who he truly is and how he can interact with society. By doing this, Shelly shows that the creature is very human in his feelings, actions, and thoughts. This lies in stark contrast to the feelings that other characters have about the lack of human traits present in the creature. In this paper, I will argue that Frankenstein’s creature demonstrated traits of humanity, …show more content…
Throughout Frankenstein, humanity is mentioned many times. Several of these mentions are in reference to Frankenstein’s creature and the lack of humanity that the other characters see him to have. While in the park in Geneva, Victor sees his creature in the distance and states, “A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me… more hideous than belongs to humanity” (56). With this statement, Victor demonstrates his feeling that his creation is not truly human, nor fits in with humans. However, throughout the novel, the creature demonstrates many human characteristics. These include using logic, having compassion, and understanding morality. As a human being, logic and reasoning skills are used in everyday life. Compassion is a characteristic that allows human beings to understand and communicate with one another. The ability to have morals and to understand what is right and wrong is one of the main building blocks of human society due to the chaos that would ensue without it. However, Frankenstein’s creature is still not seen as human by other characters in the story, regardless of his demonstration of these traits and many …show more content…
While speaking to the old man in attempt to find friends, the creature describes his relationship to the cottagers by stating, “I tenderly love these friends; I have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them” (109). Through this, the creature demonstrates his ability to have feelings and to love others, even though he did not interact with them but from afar. With this statement, the creature also reveals the kindnesses that he did for the cottagers, such as collecting wood for them, simply to make their lives easier. These feelings and the care that the creature had for the cottagers shows how compassionate he truly was. After Felix finds the creature in the cottage, Frankenstein’s creature describes his attack as, “Felix darted forward…he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained” (110). In this, the creature shows that while he could have killed Felix or defended himself, he held himself back in order to not harm Felix. This demonstrates the amount of love that the creature had for Felix and the care he took in not hurting him. Through his actions, Frankenstein’s creature demonstrated his ability to be compassionate as well as how much compassion he