Frankenstein: A Lesson For The Advanced Society

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a lesson for the advanced society that still clings on to primitive ways of categorizing people based on his/her appearance. Whether people like it or not, society always judges a person's characteristics by his or her physical appearance. Society has set an unbreakable code that individuals must follow to be accepted within the majority. Those who don't follow the standard are loathed and unloved; the "monster"in Frankenstein fell victim to this system as he searched for love, knowledge, and ways to fit in, but in the end the majority for the reason of being different banned him.

Reoccurring images of painful events originating from a first encounter could fill a person with hate and destruction. The so called monsters' first encounter with humans was when he opened his yellow eyes for the first time and witnessed Victor Frankenstein (creator) who, "[rush] out of the room" (p.58), and immediately abandon his "miserable monster whom [he] created (p.59)." In a way the monster started out with a child-like innocence that was eventually shattered by being rejected by his father figure.

From that moment on he realized that people did not like his appearance and hated him because of it. If villagers didn't run away at the sight of him, then they might have even enjoyed his personality. The monster tried to accomplish this when he encountered the De Lacey family. The monster hoped to gain friendship from the old man and eventually his children. He knew that it could have been possible because the old man was blind (p.135), he could not see the monster's repulsive characteristics. But fate was against him and the wretched had barely conversed with the old man before his children returned from their journey and saw a monstrous creature at the foot of their father attempting to do harm to the helpless elder.

In volume two of the novel, once again the "monster"