Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein centers around the life of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created. Victor’s life starts out quite well he had a happy childhood but it all goes downhill when he is introduced to a book regarding the sciences of Agrippa. The book leads him down the path of making his monster. The monster searches for love and affection from his creator but is denied when Victor runs away from him. The monster goes into human society instead find the love but regrets his intentions and goes to seek for revenge on his creator. As a he result Victor’s life becomes a living hell due to the monster. Jean Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss philosopher whose theories were based around the effects of society on people. He thought that society
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Rousseau’s ideas feature in the novel by showing the effects of society’s corruption on the monster and Frankenstein.
According to Rousseau, in the beginning of their lives, people are naturally born good. Victor, reminiscing on his childhood feels this sentiment. “I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self” (27). Victor finds his childhood “exquisitely pleasurable” subject because for him I was such a great time in his life. Moreover the fact that he finds it exquisite connotes that this point in his life was one of the best, if not the best further pointing to the idea that Victor was “good” in this period in his life. His description of life afterward is “misfortunate” and “gloomy” shows that his life after his childhood was quite dark. Similarly the monster also admits his positive intentions in his origins. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine”(229). The …show more content…
The monster after killing William Frankenstein puts into practice one of these lessons. “Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress” (145). The monster had watched “the society” of Felix and his family for a long period of time. The constant vision was all he became exposed to so it was easy for him to pick up the trait. The mischievous and sanguinary however that was not in the monster’s nature, it was a trait that was taught to him, it was unnatural. In fact that was not the only thing the monster learned from Felix’s family. “What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers” (108). The monster’s observed that this “society” acted with such a gentle manner. This brainwashed his mind to believe that was in the manner they would act towards him. That was the reason he desired it so much, he wanted that kind of “unnatural” gentleness that they had. What stopped him short was the other side of that: hate. However the constant image of unnatural gentleness would defeat him. Likewise Frankenstein was exposed to unnatural wants at his college. “Chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception,
Rousseau’s ideas feature in the novel by showing the effects of society’s corruption on the monster and Frankenstein.
According to Rousseau, in the beginning of their lives, people are naturally born good. Victor, reminiscing on his childhood feels this sentiment. “I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self” (27). Victor finds his childhood “exquisitely pleasurable” subject because for him I was such a great time in his life. Moreover the fact that he finds it exquisite connotes that this point in his life was one of the best, if not the best further pointing to the idea that Victor was “good” in this period in his life. His description of life afterward is “misfortunate” and “gloomy” shows that his life after his childhood was quite dark. Similarly the monster also admits his positive intentions in his origins. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine”(229). The …show more content…
The monster after killing William Frankenstein puts into practice one of these lessons. “Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress” (145). The monster had watched “the society” of Felix and his family for a long period of time. The constant vision was all he became exposed to so it was easy for him to pick up the trait. The mischievous and sanguinary however that was not in the monster’s nature, it was a trait that was taught to him, it was unnatural. In fact that was not the only thing the monster learned from Felix’s family. “What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers” (108). The monster’s observed that this “society” acted with such a gentle manner. This brainwashed his mind to believe that was in the manner they would act towards him. That was the reason he desired it so much, he wanted that kind of “unnatural” gentleness that they had. What stopped him short was the other side of that: hate. However the constant image of unnatural gentleness would defeat him. Likewise Frankenstein was exposed to unnatural wants at his college. “Chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception,