How Does Shelley Present Ideas In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a novel about a monster that was created by a human. The

monster was abandoned by his creator as well as the society right after he was born. Mary

Shelley presented the ideas of many writers in her novel, Frankenstein, and this essay will

explore the ideas put forth by different writers that are connected to Shelly’s Frankenstein.

Shelley connected William Blake’s ideas in her novel. Blake showed the hard life of Tom

Dacre, a little boy in his poem, Songs of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper where Tom had a

dream about many chimney sweepers all locked in a coffin and an angel saved all the children by

unlocking the coffin with a special key. In the poem, he mentioned, “And by came an Angel who

had a bright
…show more content…
Shelley connected John Locke’s ideas in her novel. Locke claimed, “Let us then suppose

the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters” (Trials of Modernity, 107). Locke

believes that a mind is like a white piece of paper when people were born. So that means a child

is born innocent and they will learn what their parents will teach them. Similarly, the monster in

Frankenstein was born innocent and Victor was his parent who didn’t care about his son. He

should have been proud of his creation but instead he was ashamed of it. The monster had no

friends, no family. He was frustrated for being very lonely and everyone ran away from him

including his creator, Victor which is why the monster turned himself into an evil but he was

innocent when he was born.

A monster is usually an evil creature everywhere. According to Thomas Hobbes, people

are selfish and evil by nature and they’re ready to fight. Hobbes stated, “So that in the nature of

man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly,

glory” (Trials of Modernity, 37). But Mary Shelley was against this idea. She supported the

monster in her novel who was innocent at the beginning but turned into a murderer because

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