Frankenstein

Social Geography and Monstrosity

Social geography plays a big role in a person's life. Social geography includes segregation, economics, class, and race. All of these factors play a part in how a person lives and the way they are treated in society. Another factor that affects a person's society is the way that a person looks. Monstrosity can affect a person's entire life as far as where they live and even their class. In the novels Frankenstein, The Monster and Native Son, there is a relationship between social geography and monstrosity. The characters in the novels were victims of the relationship between monstrosity and social geography.

In the novel Frankenstein, the monster was singled out because of his monstrous looks. The reason he had such looks was because of the unnatural manner of his creation. The monster was created with a mix of stolen body parts and chemicals. One look at the monster would make anyone want to get out of his path. Once the monster came to life he was abandoned by his creator without any direction. He was left to fend for himself and deal with the prejudices that people had without getting to know his situation. The monster also didn't know how to react to the reactions from people which made him start to commit crimes. The monster said, "I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on" (Shelley 19). This eruption of angry self-pity as the monster questions the injustice of how he has been treated compellingly captures his inner life, giving Walton and the reader a glimpse into the suffering that has motivated his crimes. While the monster was wandering the town he encountered a family, and he learned how to speak by watching them. The monster decided to introduce himself to the family. He decided to do this because the family never turned anyone away that needed assistance. The monster thought, "I dared not think that they would turn them from me with disdain and horror (Shelley 106)." Unfortunately, the monster was wrong. When he finally did go to their home he was greeted with looks of horror and shrieks. This is an example of how monstrosity and social geography have a relationship because the monster's looks affect his social life. The monster was segregated from the rest of the townspeople because he was different. Not only was he different but he was a monster. The Monster was turned away from people that have been segregated because of their class. The family and the Monster were tied together because they were both on the bottom of the totem pole when it came to class. Even though, they had that relationship the family still found themselves to be better than the Monster because of his grotesque looks.

In addition to the novel, Rewriting the Family: Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' in its Biographical/Textual Context discusses the relationship between monstrosity and social geography. In the article, Elisabeth Bronfen writes "the creature's revenge was on his creator and on the unjust human society that had rejected him" (Bronfen). This excerpt reiterates the fact that being rejected by society can have negative effects on the person being affected. Bronfen says that the misery brought about by rejection and injustice produced the creature's desire for evil. The creature desires evil because he has been hurt by civilization. He was continuously rejected which quickly changed his attitude of wanting to belong. He gave up on wanting to belong because he was an outcast. The journal also brought up the idea of Victor being more monstrous than the monster. Bronfen felt this way because of the way Victor showed no sense of compassion or empathy. She writes, "Victor has no sense of empathy or compassion, whereas the monster, although hideous and rejected by society as an outcast, has a warm heart and learns the value of love" (Bronfen).

In The Monster, Henry, a black man, also experienced segregation and class discrimination. In the novel Henry was severely burned in a fire and lost his face. Henry's situation was different because not only were his looks monstrous to the people because he had been burned, but also because he was black. In the novel Henry works for white people and at night he goes home to his segregated neighborhood. This situation is definitely a segregation, class, and race issue. In the novel it says, "For instance, it was plain from Henry's talk that he was a very handsome negro, and he was known to be a light, a weight and an eminence in the suburb of the town..." (Crane 122). This statement is important because it tells how he was important to his people but also a burden because of the special treatment he may have gotten or even the relationships that he had. This situation is absolutely a segregation, class, and race issue because it puts Henry above the rest of the blacks. This could have put him on the "outs" with his community because they may have penalized him for being liked by the whites. In the story words like "reprimanded" are used to describe Henry being punished. That one word shows that he was not placed above the others but it actually set the tone for the status Henry really had. It shows that he basically was seen as a child and not a fully grown man in society. This is a form of oppression that was seen throughout the novel. For example, Henry being sent away like a problem child after he was burned.

After being burned, Henry was discriminated against and disrespected more than before. The initial thought was that Henry did not survive the fire. There was an article about him trying to save the little boy and that he did not make it. However, Henry did survive and he experienced a lot of things that no human should endure. After being burned, Henry was segregated from his community, to live with someone, so that he would not scare the townspeople. Even though he was sent away, people still caught a glimpse of his appearance and were very fearful of him. One townsman said, "They say he is the most terrible thing in the world...he says he couldn't eat anything for two days" (Crane 222). People talked about Henry as if he wasn't human. They talked about him as if it was such a spectacle to see a black man without a face. The community was in complete terror due to Henry's accident. In Bill Brown's article "The Material Unconscious", Brown discusses why the community reacted to Henry the way they did. Brown writes, "The town's trauma results from the converse of a shortage of freaks, which is to say, an excess of monsters" (Brown 203). This quote is basically saying that because Henry is different he is being penalized by his community and they are being more monstrous than he looks. Brown