What Makes a Monster?

Jones Loveall

Frankenstein, the classic novel that is heralded as the seed for the science fiction genre,

is a complex web of character interaction, horror, and a slight realism that shows all too much

about the human condition. Structured as layers of retold story through letters, recounts and

histories, the story shows individual terror and how each person perceives who the monster of

the story is. The story follows the creation of a creature made from reanimated corpses who,

despite his unfortunate origins, is naturally kind at heart and only wants to be loved. His creator

is terrified of him and runs away, driving the creature to murder. Throughout the book the

creature is called a monster, but is he really the monster of the story? And what makes one

“monstrous”. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein highlights how people think of others as “monsters”,

and what makes one monstrous, by showing how looks can deceive, how someone’s past

affects their actions, and how one’s decisions can haunt them.

By nature, people judge others by their looks. Judging something based on looks alone is

the first stage of one’s animal instinct when deciding if something is dangerous or mundane.

Throughout Frankenstein, the creature is left running and wounded because he is judged for his

looks and stature before he can explain himself. He is left feeling alone and desolate with no

friendship and no one that understands him. Even Victor Frankenstein, his creator shuns him,

which makes the creature believe that he is truly purposeless. “But these luxuriances only

formed more horrid contrast with his watery eyes……I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took

refuge in the courtyard” (pg.42,43). Everyone assumes the creature is a monster, but he doesn’t
want anything but to interact with others and to learn. The anger at being shunned is funneled

by the creature into a killing rage for his creator’s family. The creature’s looks don’t make him a

monster, but the way people react to his looks does.

The discrimination the monster faces leads to his child-like mind being twisted to vicious

anger. He becomes a murderer but, even though he doesn’t deny that he has killed, he feels

very sad for his actions and says that he hates that he has done so, and that he had no other

purpose assigned to him. His abandonment and desolation left him broken but still very human

in his desires. Meanwhile Victor, his creator, has become a figure of hatred and fear directed

towards the creature. Victor is changed by his work on the creature, and he becomes a husk of

his old self, making him less sympathetic and more aggressively reactive to others actions. “I

seemed to have lost all soul or sensation, but for this one pursuit” (pg. 39). By the end of the

book the creature and the creator are changed by their like past, the creation of the creature,

but not in the same ways. The creature is a shameful murderer and Victor is a vengeful spirit

drifting in hunt of the creature, his mind bent and broken.

Victor’s change starts with his original fear of the creature and is perpetuated by the

frequent killings of those he holds dear. He is always fearful of the creature’s imminent

appearance and is under the impression that the creature is always near him. The constant

paranoia that Victor feels alters him dramatically from his young vibrant self. “I shunned my

fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime” (pg.41). He goes from being a curious, bright

young man to a worn and untrusting adult all due to his choice to make the creature. Victor

blames the creature for this metamorphosis, but in reality, he is truly to blame for his own

suffering. He frequently uses his grief as an excuse to deny the creature’s claims, while in
reality he is the one who has turned an unsympathetic eye to creature. “You have made me

wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you

or not” (pg.82-83). Being able to cause such vast harm to the creature, who is innocent at

creation, and to justify it with his own suffering, which was self-caused, shows how little

humanity Victor has left.

So, what makes one truly monstrous? Does one’s appearance really create a monster, or

is it more our pasts and our actions? When faced with hard reality Victor’s creature gives in to

violence and rage, but he hadn’t another way to cope, being near to a child in cognizance.

Meanwhile Victor leaves his passions behind in the wake of fear and regret, despite being a

well-educated man. Though the creature is a killer, he is regretful, he is passionate. He is more

human. Victor portrays himself a victim, and yet he loses his ability to reason, to care, and to

live. Victor loses his humanity. All throughout the book the creature is called ‘monster’, ‘devil’,

and ‘fiend’. Yet, Victor, Victor who was raised in a privileged life, considers himself the victim.

While Pop Culture depicts ‘Frankenstein’ as being the monster, Shelly’s original clearly has

Frankenstein being the creator. Then isn’t it ironic that despite this misconception, Victor

Frankenstein is the true monster after all?