Isolationism In Frankenstein Essay

Isolationism is present throughout the novel of Frankenstein in many ways, through Victor Frankenstein even the monster. Through isolationism Shelly suggests that Frankenstein and the monster will fail socially if they stay isolated. Frankenstein and the monster both suffer mentally and physically due to the fact that they stay isolated from other. When Frankenstein is locked away for months in the lab with no outside communication or interaction with another human being he became incredibly ill. Victor Frankenstein was alone in his laboratory in Germany working on his creation with no contact to the world outside. He was also around a lot of chemicals and body parts of dead people. "Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became
nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime."(p55) This shows the long term affect that isolation and loneliness will have on a person. If they don’t communicate with other people they will become antisocial and awkward in public. Another way in which Frankenstein shows this unhealthy demise is when he refuses to tell someone about the monster that he had created. "I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide to him that event which was so often present to my recollection but which I feared the detail to another would impress more deeply."(p66) Isolation is shown through this quote and has moved away from physical isolation involving other people, to Victor being isolated mentally. Creating the monster turned Victor into someone so paranoid he is afraid to tell anyone anything even if it were to make him feel better. Because of Victors situation and the things that he has gone through, Victor finds himself trapped in his thoughts. Because Frankenstein isolated himself from the monster, the monster didn’t know how to interact with outside world because of the way he looks which caused him to scare off people he tried to interact with the public. When Frankenstein is alone thinking about what the monster said when he confonted him on the mountain. "And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man."(p115) This quote talks about how the monster realizes that he is a creation and he realizes that he is a monster with nothing, and turns him into an outcast not welcomed in any society. The monster becomes isolated by his own fate, he blames Victor for this doomed outcome. Critic Proshanta Sarkar who is a Research Scholar from the Department of English at The University of Burdwan in West Bengal, India. He states that, ”The monsters hideous appearance causes anyone who sees him to flee because, as the society clears out, the very appearance of the monster contradicts his inner goodness. It does not support the form of beauty and order.” In the quote he talks about how because of the looks that Victor Frankenstein doomed on the monster no one will give it a shot in society. So after being abused by society the monster decides to isolate himself making him even worse in public. Throughout the novel of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley there are many examples of isolation, mentally and physically. Not only through the viewpoint of Victor Frankenstein but also through the monsters viewpoint where there were many examples of isolationism. In the novel both fail socially one due to the lack of teaching and experience and the other because he spent months locked away in a lab.