The Rhetorical Lessons Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

There are many lessons to be learned through Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, but many of those messages are diluted or lost all together in the digital world that we live in today. The access to digital media has indeed proven to be more convenient than those of traditional books but what some digital media fails to do is convey the rhetorical lessons in the same way that the author originally intended, such as the 1931 film version of Frankenstein. More times than not, the digital form of a text provides rhetoric of its own, which morphs the original lessons of the story creating a misconstrued message. Although some may find the film version of this text to be more entertaining due to added dramatic irony, it cannot uphold or compare …show more content…
Everyone that the creature encounters judges him on his appearance, which mirrors today’s judgmental and condescending society. His own creator who chose each and every part that would become of him couldn’t even stand to look at him and instead turned him away. Victor says shortly after the creation of the creature, "I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs” (CH 5). The creature reached out possibly for help, or to seek affection, but it was assumed that he meant harm because of his wretched appearance. Similar occurrences appear throughout the novel, which provokes sympathy in the reader. This allows for the lesson to be further reiterated that one should not judge on appearance alone. The phrase “Do not judge a book by its cover” has transcended through time because it continues to be an issue that plagues our