Cervantes 1

Dora Cervantes

Professor Batty

English 102

10 November 2019

The Monster Within

Many people believe that everyone has their a dark side in them, that everyone has a

“monster” within. Many people struggle throughout life which causes them to have a different

side to them. One of the most known story around the world is Frankenstein, in which is a

classic that everyone knows yet many people do not know the true meaning behind the story. In

the story Victor Frankenstein Decides to test human knowledge causing him to create a creature

from human parts from the grave creating “the Monster”. Once the monster is brought to live it

scares his creator Victor Frankenstein away causing to leave the creature behind in the village.

Throughout the time that the monster spent in the village it learned how to read, write, and talk.

After time Victor Frankenstein realizes that the monster is capable to destroy humanity causing

him to go after the monster and try to kill it. At the end of the story Victor is slowly dying

causing the monster to go back to his creator making it realized the pain and the deaths it caused

Victor. Sometimes we perceive monsters as frightening creatures that are hiding and waiting to

attack. In the novel the monster is not the creature is the person who created it, showing the

desire to have godlike powers, impulsiveness, and the desire of immortality.

Immortality is one of the biggest factors that we saw Victor Frankenstein face in the

story. He wanted to create something that could last forever, in which was influence by the death
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of his mother. Through Victor’s eagerness caused him to create something out of the ordinary in

which himself is of. In the novel Mary Shelly states, “Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of

modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought

immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed.

The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which

my interest in science was chiefly founded” (Chapter 2, Shelley). The state that many the

scientist what they seek for is immortality but now that he created it is something that he highly

fears now. He knew this was something that humans were meant to make yet he still decided to

build the monster out of curiosity knowing that the outcome was going to be negative. In one of

the journals name The Uncanny in Frankenstein by Katrina Krulikas, They state “Much like

most humans, the monster has a fear of death” (Krulikas 1). At one point of the story the monster

states that it’s afraid of death yet it does not know what death means. This is something that

stood out because even the master knows that immortality is impossible, it is something out of

the human’s hands. Through victor eagerness he created the monster, making him develop a

“war” against his creator after the neglecting he got from Victor. Immortality is something out of

the reach of human hands, only people that have the desire to be god like will challenge the

impossible.

Through creating life there is a lot of power that goes along with it. When Victor realizes

that he creates life, he knows that he might just be able to control and has the power to create

something that other people are not capable to do. In the story Mary Shelly states, “Under the

guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the

philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention.
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Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish

disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!” (Chapter

2, Paragraph 11, Shelley). What victor is trying to tell himself is that if he is capable of being

able to create life, he is capable of helping the human race. This shows that once a person has a

small power in their hands they tend to want more without knowing the struggle or the problems

it might cause ahead. Victor believes that he has the power to be able to control and make

anything. When people have the smallest amount of power they usually tend to not know what to

do with it or they either tend to use in a negative way, some people may not be trusted with

power. When he state that he is capable of making a human do anything expect facing death

shows how his inner darker side is showing. Now that he has the little power in his hands he does

not know how to handle it, It shows his desire of being god like.

One of the desires that Victor Frankenstein has is impulsiveness, having the power to

drive forward. The desire to do more than he has already done grows each time Victor

Frankenstein . When Victor decides to go after the monster and kill it, he is honoring the deaths

of the people that the creature killed. In the story it states, “I knew that I was preparing myself

for a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master of an impulse, which I detested, yet could

not disobey” (Ch. 24, Shelley). He is telling himself that he is the creator of the monster and

should have control over the creature not the other way around. He does not want to feel like he

is the one that is being chased all the time. The impulse that Victor Frankenstein has to kill the

monster is what truly made him turn into the slave is considering himself to be. Even Victor

knows that he let his desires take over him which led to him feeling like a slave all the time after

his creation of the creature. In one journal named Who is the Monster in Mary Shelley’s
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Frankenstein? By I. Halmstad, it states “Similarly to the mobs that form against the creature”.

The person in which caused all of the problems was not the monster but the creator, Victor

Frankenstein. At the end he is realizing his mistake that he committed. One of the things that

Victor Frankenstein might have realized is that the events that happened were his fault for letting

his desires create a monster. The way in the character the monster is growing is shaped by Victor

and his resentment.

Throughout the story since many of the desires were taking Victor Frankenstein into a

different direction, it made him not think logically. Even though he was smart enough to build

the monster from different limbs from the cemetery, it still shows that he was not thinking

logically when Building the monster. In one of the journals named Desire, Gender, power,

language: a Psychoanalytic reading of… Frankenstein by Haidee Kotze, it states “Victor’s

almost incestuous relationship with his cousin-sister-bride is exposed as the forbidden desire for

the imaginary mother.” (Desire, gender, power, Kotze). What this shows is that if a person were

to read this they would that there is something wrong with being in a relationship with his

cousin-sister-bride. The author uses this as an example because it wrong not well thought out, he

is not thinking logically or that he might have a problem. Since Victor is considered a doctor we

expected him to be able to make better choices based on his thinking, a well educated scientist/

doctor would know that it is not a good idea to do things out of the ordinary, Victor should have

been smart enough to know not to play god. Victor Frankenstein not having his head in the right

mindset might have caused the creation of the monster.

Throughout many years people have made the monster as the villain in the story when in

reality the true monster in the novel might be considered Victor Frankenstein. Since the monster
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is the one that has caused many deaths throughout the novel he is considered in a way the villain.

In the journal Halmstad states, “ They often mistakenly think that Frankenstein is the monster,

which might not be so strange given the title of the novel. The aspect of the monster is perhaps

the most intriguing part of the story, but what will be shown in this essay is that appearances can

be misleading. What becomes of you as a person is based on your different experiences in

life” (Halmstad 3). What many people do not realize about the monster is that its character was

shaped by the events that have taken place. They believe that Victor Frankenstein was the victim

of the novel, when in reality his eagerness and desires caused him to challenge the impossible

and create the monster. The monster was the one of the victims in the story because his actions

were caused by what it sees around him. The monster learned from the people around it, he was

examining the village people for a long time, noticing what they do and learning form them.

The Monster within Victor Frankenstein was what he least expected. The monster was

not the creature but the actual psyche of the people who made it. In the novel the monster is not

the creature is the person who created it, showing the desire to have godlike powers,

impulsiveness, and the desire of immortality. Throughout the story we know that the character

Victor Frankenstein is the one who created the monster, but shaped it into who it is. With the

many desires that Victor has we know that he also has a monster within. At the end of the story

there tends to be a short resemblance between Victor Frankenstein and the monster since both are

struggling to find their true self. Everyone has their own desires but never truly realize what it

might have as a consequence or what people might it effect. When people have their own needs

they tend to not care about the things around them in which shows a different side of that person

that not everyone might see. 


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Works Cited

Aldonaka. “The Uncanny in ‘Frankenstein’." (Katrina Krulikas).” Literary Analysis, 30 Aug.

2017, http://exegeses.web.unc.edu/2017/08/the-uncanny-frankenstein/

Bangerter, Alison. “Freud and the Monster.” Freud and the Monster, 13 May 2003, http://
www.public.asu.edu/~hiroshi/eng400/frankenstein/project/student/bangerteressay.html

Barnette, Rachel. “PSYCHOANALYZING MARY SHELLEY THROUGH ‘FRANKENSTEIN.'"

Critical Approaches to Literature, 5 Sept. 2016, https://ctlsites.uga.edu/engl3820w-fall2016/
pyschoanalyzing-mary-shelley-through-frankenstein/

Frankenstein;” The Project Gutenberg E-Text of Frankenstein.” by Mary Wollstonecraft

(Godwin) Shelley, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/84/84-h/84-h.htm.

Feldman, Paula. "Probing the Psychological Mystery of Frankenstein." Approaches to Teaching

Shelley's Frankenstein, 1990, https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1297&context=engl_facpub

Halmstad, Högskolan. "Who is the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?." http://hh.diva-

portal.org/smash/get/diva2:537563/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Kotze, Haidee. "Desire, gender, power, language: a psychoanalytic reading of Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein." Literary 21, Apr. 2000, https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/
download/440/601