Mary Shelley Frankenstein: Ugly Society Essay Example

Jessica Voshell Eng. VO1B T/Th 12:00 10/28/10 Ugliness in SOCIETY Frankenstein is full of horrible elements about human society. Mary Shelley shows many of the sides of human beings that are not necessarily positive attributes. She really gives a kind of critique on mankind’s judgement of others. In this novel, a major theme is that in society people judge people by their looks and this judgment may cause negativity, this can be seen through the characters, Victor and the creature, when they judge other characters or are judged themselves. When you meet someone, the first thing you do is start judging them on what their wearing or how their hair is styled, and this is not always a good thing. Immediately after Victor gave the monster the last touch to spark life in it, he simply judged the monster on its looks only. Since the creature was very ugly looking, this did not bring up a very positive situation for Victor. Victor described the first contact with the monster when he says, "I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived"(p.68). If I was to witness this without knowing the prior events I would be frightened. Although, since Victor knows exactly what is going on as he is giving the monster life, it is odd that he should be so frightened. Its so bad that Victor nearly rejects the creature at conception. In accordance with Victor's actions towards his initial contact with the monster, Shelley kept the theme of mankind condemning an individual due to its looks by having Victor scared of the monster strictly due to its ugliness. This is different than if I was the one in the laboratory, I would be very scared as would anyone. However, due to the fact that Victor had worked on it for a couple of years and knew the situation exactly, he had no real right to be scared by the plain sight of the