Theme of Beauty in Shelley's Frankenstein
Taylor Williams
English 1302
MWF 8:00pm
25 February 2012
Gauging Beauty Throughout the course of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley the theme of beauty influencing one’s actions, thoughts, and character both promote and incriminate certain characters in the book. The beauty or lack of beauty in scenes shift characters to act differently than they normally would. However in characters of the book, particularly Elizabeth and the monster, the ability to be beautiful affected their entire lives. Before going into what happens when there is an absence of beauty one first has to determine what is beautiful. In the novel, Elizabeth was seen as paragon of beauty. On page 20, she is described by Frankenstein as a being who “possessed an attractive softness” (Shelley). Throughout the story Elizabeth is praised for her beauty and is thought to be good and innocent because of it. Being beauty was a gift for her allowing her to integrate with society. Elizabeth was able to get formal learning, gain popularity, and even fall in love all due to her beauty. Elizabeth life would be considered to be an ideal princess dream little girls dream of prior to the monster’s birth. Even in death she was still seen as beautiful as shown when Victor Frankenstein saved her head for the monster’s bride.
On the other hand, the monster that was ideally beautiful because Frankenstein “had selected his features as beautiful” ended up being ugly and suffered for his ugliness (Shelley 35). The absence of beauty for the monster ended up affecting his entire life because he wasn’t accepted like the beautiful Elizabeth was. Even if he had been human the monster would had still suffered complications assimilating into a village. Melissa Bissonette explains that when teaching Frankenstein to a class the monster is placed into “one of two categories: the Monster is a victimized child, mistreated and misunderstood, or the Monster is evil.” The “evil” is seen more by villagers because the monster was
English 1302
MWF 8:00pm
25 February 2012
Gauging Beauty Throughout the course of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley the theme of beauty influencing one’s actions, thoughts, and character both promote and incriminate certain characters in the book. The beauty or lack of beauty in scenes shift characters to act differently than they normally would. However in characters of the book, particularly Elizabeth and the monster, the ability to be beautiful affected their entire lives. Before going into what happens when there is an absence of beauty one first has to determine what is beautiful. In the novel, Elizabeth was seen as paragon of beauty. On page 20, she is described by Frankenstein as a being who “possessed an attractive softness” (Shelley). Throughout the story Elizabeth is praised for her beauty and is thought to be good and innocent because of it. Being beauty was a gift for her allowing her to integrate with society. Elizabeth was able to get formal learning, gain popularity, and even fall in love all due to her beauty. Elizabeth life would be considered to be an ideal princess dream little girls dream of prior to the monster’s birth. Even in death she was still seen as beautiful as shown when Victor Frankenstein saved her head for the monster’s bride.
On the other hand, the monster that was ideally beautiful because Frankenstein “had selected his features as beautiful” ended up being ugly and suffered for his ugliness (Shelley 35). The absence of beauty for the monster ended up affecting his entire life because he wasn’t accepted like the beautiful Elizabeth was. Even if he had been human the monster would had still suffered complications assimilating into a village. Melissa Bissonette explains that when teaching Frankenstein to a class the monster is placed into “one of two categories: the Monster is a victimized child, mistreated and misunderstood, or the Monster is evil.” The “evil” is seen more by villagers because the monster was