The Education of a Monster: The Role of Literature in Frankenstein
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, books provide Frankenstein’s creature with much of his understanding about the outside world, and also contribute to his own self-awareness. The three books that the creature takes from the De Lacey home Plutarch’s Lives, The Sorrows of Werter, and Paradise Lost, as well as Victor’s journal, expose the creature to “an infinity of new images and feelings that sometimes [raise him] to ecstasy, but more frequently [sink him] into the lowest dejection” (Shelley 89). While each work has a very specific effect on the creature, the four pieces combined provide the creature with a glimpse into the darker side of human nature, as well as an understanding of his own inferiority resulting from Victor’s failings as a creator. These revelations are one of the causes of the creature’s choices from that point forward.
The creature is deeply stirred by Sorrows of Werter, the tale of a man driven to …show more content…
Sorrows or Werter introduces the creature to the darker side of human passion and to the ideas of death and suicide. Plutarch’s Live lifts him away from these dark reflections through relaying the lives of ancient heroes, and also familiarizes him with the hierarchal nature human society. Perhaps the most influential work in his self-education, Paradise Lost drives him to learn more about his own creator through Frankenstein’s, only to find that himself burdened by the knowledge of Victor Frankenstein failings as a God figure, and angry and the repercussion this has for his existence. The intertwining themes and images pulled from each work heavily influence the creature’s quest for affection and vengeances throughout the rest of the novel, and shape Frankenstein’s monstrous creation into a being more enlightened than his
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, books provide Frankenstein’s creature with much of his understanding about the outside world, and also contribute to his own self-awareness. The three books that the creature takes from the De Lacey home Plutarch’s Lives, The Sorrows of Werter, and Paradise Lost, as well as Victor’s journal, expose the creature to “an infinity of new images and feelings that sometimes [raise him] to ecstasy, but more frequently [sink him] into the lowest dejection” (Shelley 89). While each work has a very specific effect on the creature, the four pieces combined provide the creature with a glimpse into the darker side of human nature, as well as an understanding of his own inferiority resulting from Victor’s failings as a creator. These revelations are one of the causes of the creature’s choices from that point forward.
The creature is deeply stirred by Sorrows of Werter, the tale of a man driven to …show more content…
Sorrows or Werter introduces the creature to the darker side of human passion and to the ideas of death and suicide. Plutarch’s Live lifts him away from these dark reflections through relaying the lives of ancient heroes, and also familiarizes him with the hierarchal nature human society. Perhaps the most influential work in his self-education, Paradise Lost drives him to learn more about his own creator through Frankenstein’s, only to find that himself burdened by the knowledge of Victor Frankenstein failings as a God figure, and angry and the repercussion this has for his existence. The intertwining themes and images pulled from each work heavily influence the creature’s quest for affection and vengeances throughout the rest of the novel, and shape Frankenstein’s monstrous creation into a being more enlightened than his