Power Struggle In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Power Struggle in Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, uses a constant power struggle to enhance the character relationships in the novel. Each character handles power in their own way, and each has their own motivation for pursuing it. Most of the characters in the novel meet their demise because of the terrible ways in which they express power. The way characters interact, such as Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, show who has the power and how it affects the other characters. The society in which the main characters live also play a role in the power shift, affecting their level of power, whether positive or negative. Mary Shelley shows how quickly and violently power can move between characters, illustrating it through …show more content…
All of these murders however, came out of a lack of love and a cry for attention. The Creature knows no other way to reach out to Frankenstein and express his anger except through murder, which gives him power. Mary Shelley designed the novel in a way that made the reader sympathetic toward the Creature because of the rejection he felt, despite his best efforts to fit in. Also, Mary Shelley draws parallels between the Creature and Prometheus. Much like the Creature, the gods created Prometheus as the first human and abandoned him. After leaving him on his own he stole fire from the gods and gave it to the humans, however, the gods discovered him and punished him every day for eternity. Prometheus, and the other humans, threatened the gods with the power of fire, in the same way the Creature caused Frankenstein to feel threatened. The Creature’s ugly guise and lack of typical human appearance made the other characters draw conclusions that he was dangerous. Therefore, the Creature holds power over the society they live in because of the fear he constantly arouses in …show more content…
The most prominent example of this comes from the emotional abuse of the Creature. His hideous death-like appearance caused everyone to flee from him, except DeLacy. DeLacy felt no fear when around the Creature because he could not see what the Creature looked like. Whereas no one else could see past his outward appearance, DeLacey gave the Creature his first real opportunity for friendship. In the same instance, the Creature saved a little girl from drowning only so the bystander could accuse him of trying to drown the small child. The behaviors the people around the Creature display cause him to act out due to the extreme loneliness they force him to feel. The civilians involved in the novel hold power over the Creatures newly developed emotions, ultimately hurting the abandonment issues he struggled with internally. The society in which they live also hold the power to place blame, as do most other societies with governing bodies. The civilians falsely accuse Victor Frankenstein of murdering Henry Clerval because of his poor timing upon arrival to the crime scene. They had the wrong reason for punishing Frankenstein but in doing so poetic justice was served. Losing all of his family and friends at the hands of the creature served as punishment for abandoning his creation. In the same way, the time he served in jail acted as his punishment for the murder