Dr. Ayres
ENGL 413-001
24 October 2016
Loneliness and Rejection in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelly, is one of her best written works. Written when she was 18 years old, this novels explores the themes of both loneliness and rejection, especially in the character of Victor Frankenstein’s creation. In the novel, Mary Shelley delves into the feelings of creature as he is rejected, ignored and abused by human society because of his appearance. However, in a sense, the novel becomes a reflection of the inner state of Shelley herself, reflecting on the losses and suffering that she has been through, as written in the article Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?, that she was the product of the …show more content…
In Victor, it is the relationship that he has with his family when he goes off to university and loses touch with them, despite his father and adopted sister trying to contact him. Shelley describes in great detail the relationship that Victor’s family has with him and, despite that, Victor does not make any effort to keep in touch with them and dedicates his time to science and his experiments. In his obsession for his experiments, Victor began to sink into his negative emotions and instead tries to use his experiments as a means to occupy himself and forget his loneliness. On the other hand, the creature makes it know that he wants to be a part of society and earn acceptance from his creator but continuously fails. He even compares himself to Adam from Paradise Lost, seeing himself as a person who deserves love and compassion from God, who created Adam and Eve, and expresses how his creator had abandoned …show more content…
Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery. (Shelley 245)
These feelings of both loneliness and estrangement only continued to grow within the creature as time passed. His creator, Victor, had already been repulsed by the thing he had created and does not want to be responsible for his actions, rejecting the thought that the creature actually exhibits feeling pain and other emotions just like humans. In this and the events that followed afterward, Victor was unable to terms with his emotions take control of him, leading him to lose everyone he loved and cared for to his creation and eventually die,