The Role Of Creature In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Frankenstein, the creature does not become evil until his creator and the human race rejects him. Mary Shelley’s book focuses on a scientist who creates a creature who is evil in the eyes of humanity. Mr. Frankenstein creates a being that is ugly, vile and a huge ogre in size. He is a wretch that when people see him faint and pass out. The story’s climax comes when the creature’s creator refuses to make another creature like him. The scientist knows that if he makes a second creature it could become worse than the first creature he created. The creature gets very upset and vows that his creator will be his enemy as long as they both shall live. The creature kills everything dear to Frankenstein. He vows that one day he will destroy his creator just as he did the rest of his dear loved ones. On the surface Frankenstein is a story about a scientist
who creates a creature that in the end becomes an evil demonic being. Mr. Frankenstein as we see in the beginning wanted to create a creature that would be beautiful and full of life. In the end when he is finished, he has created something he could not even have imagined. On page 51 of the book you will see his creation finished: “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance’s only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this, I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” This shows that Mr. Frankenstein was even shocked at the completion of his creation. The human race is the same way in the fact that its race creates monsters and evil that it does not want by having habits or sins that they can not get rid of. . Humanity creates evil by the things that it does just as Frankenstein does by creating this being that he does not want when the creation is finished. The book later shows that the creature does not become an evil monster until the human race makes him an evil monster on page 142: "I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to rob me of or bestow happiness on me forever. I struggled vainly for firmness sufficient to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my remaining strength; I sank on the chair and sobbed aloud. At that moment, I heard the steps of my younger protectors. I had not a moment to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, `Now is the time! Save and protect me! You and your family are the friends whom I seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!'
" `Great God!' exclaimed the old man. `Who are you?'
"At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung; in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.” From this experience, the creature transforms from being a human being to a devilish demonic evil monster killer. We see this on page 146: “For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my friends, of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects. As night advanced I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage, and after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, I waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my operations.
"As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the dry branch of a tree and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon nearly touched. A part of its orb was at length hid, and I waved my brand; it sank, and with a loud scream I fired the straw, and heath, and bushes, which I had collected. The wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues.
"As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of the habitation, I quitted the scene and sought for refuge in the woods.” In the book, it clearly shows that this creature does not become an evil monster until humanity makes him one. He becomes hell-bent on revenge towards his creator. He will do nothing short of of getting his revenge as we see at the end of page 146 and the beginning of 147: "And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised, every country must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? Among the lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted; I had learned from these the relative situations of the different countries of the earth. You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, and towards this place I resolved to proceed.” As you have seen in the book so far, the creature becomes evil after society rejects him. In our world, it is the same way; humanity forms evil in their minds and hearts. There are people in prisons and mental wards that have been ostracized and made to be outcast and considered evil by our society just as the creature is in Frankenstein. The audience will see that the creature becomes so evil that the creature assumes the role of an evil monster since he kills the creators son on page 150 and 151 because of the revenge he wants on his creator: "At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came running into the recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me that this little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth.
"Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him towards me. As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before his eyes and uttered a shrill scream; I drew his hand forcibly from his face and said, `Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to hurt you; listen to me.'
"He struggled violently. `Let me go,' he cried; `monster! Ugly wretch! You wish to eat me and tear me to pieces. You are an ogre. Let me go, or I will tell my papa.'
" `Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.'
" `Hideous monster! Let me go. My papa is a syndic -- he is M. Frankenstein -- he will punish you. You dare not keep me.'
" `Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy -- to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.'
"The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.
"I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, `I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.” The story clearly shows that the creature never intended to hurt or kill anyone but because of the rejection of his peers, he becomes increasingly evil.
He becomes hell-bent on killing his creator and anyone that is close to his creator. In Frankenstein we see, that evil does not form in the creature until he is rejected by society. Let us jump now to almost the end of the book where we see the creature ready to kill his creator. He talks about what possessed him to do this on page 238 and 239: “A frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even
imagine.
"After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey. Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!"
I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was rekindled within me. "Wretch!" I said. "It is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity as withdrawn from your power."
"Oh, it is not thus -- not thus," interrupted the being. "yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated.” In the end we see the creature describing why he became evil but letting the audience know that other things were evil also in the story and that it wasn’t just the creature that had evil in his heat. We see this on page 240 and 241: "You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.
"Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death is needed to consummate the series of my being and accomplish that which must be done, but it requires my own. Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.”
Mr. Frankenstein dies before the creature gets to kill him so with his revenge complete there is no reason for the creature to live anymore. The creature does the most evil act that mankind can do and that is he takes his own life and commits suicide as we see on the last page of Frankenstein: "Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them for ever.
"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell."
He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. In conclusion of this story the book shows that the creature never wanted to kill or be evil until he was provoked to do so. The story shows the worst side of humanity possible and the evil that humanity can create when they put their mind to doing something. This shows that evil is not formed until mankind creates things that are evil. The day is coming like in the book Frankenstein where the creature dies that evil will be exterminated some day in our society also. In Frankenstein the creator dies and someday Satan also will be bound in the lake of fire and at this time evil will cease to exist finally once and for all.