Frankenstein essay – end of semester

“A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me…”. In the book Frankenstein, the creature ends
up escaping and he is out exploring the world around him, learning and discovering his 5 senses.
With his exploration, he goes around searching the world he considers so beautiful with new
senses he discovers, and he looks at himself and thinks he’s a hideous and ugly creature that’s
rejected by society. For my essay, I will be talking about the creature’s search for identity and
acceptance in the book.
After the creature escapes from the laboratory, he goes out and starts exploring the world. To
start off, during the creature’s exploration of this new world he discovers, he looks around and
thinks the world is such a beautiful place and it brings him happiness. “The pleasant sunshine,
and the pure air of day, restored me to some degree of tranquillity…” This quote shows the
creature’s love for the world, its beauty and how the world around him brings him such joy and
calmness during his exploration. While his exploration of the world continues, he starts to get an
understanding and starts learning new senses that he’s never experienced and that helped him
explore the world even more now that he can see the beauty that brings him happiness, touch,
hear the beauty of animals and nature, taste and smell. To continue from the first point, the
creature learns that he has 5 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch and these senses help
with his exploration of the world. “… and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time.” With
this quote, we get a glimpse of the creature’s learning of his new senses like an infant learning
about their 5 senses. While learning with his new senses, he ends up using his sense of sight to
look and spy on a family and his sense of hearing to understand the human behaviour by
observing the family. Finally, while spying on the De Lacey family, he learns about the human
language and behaviour and learns quickly as well. “What chiefly struck me was the gentle
manners of these people.” As the creature is observing and studying the human language and
behaviour, he’s fascinated by how polite and gentle the family was compared to the people he
has seen around him. To conclude, the creature’s exploration leads him to learn about his new 5
senses, his love for the world and what brings him joy and is ability to learn the human
behaviour and language rather quickly.
As the creature’s exploration continues, he starts to realize that he isn’t meant to be where he is.
Beginning with the first point, when the creature sees the world as a magical and beautiful place,
he looks at himself and sees a not so beautiful thing, which is himself. “I had admired the perfect
forms of my cottagers; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool!” With
this quote, after the creature sees himself in the transparent pool, he’s mortified of looking at
himself, which is how the other people felt when they saw him. As he admires the family while
spying on them, he realizes that they’re close together and have each other. Now he starts
wondering what he is in this world because he has only himself and he’s all alone. “But where
are my friends and relations? No father watched my infant days…” Reading this quote, the
creature understands that he has never had any friends to have fun with or relations in his life that
could have a positive impact on him. As he has no one for him to befriend, he goes onto find
answers to his unanswered questions. Which connects to my third point, the creature has
questions that needs answers, but he can’t answer them himself. “Who am I? what was I?
whence did I come? what is my destination?”. This quote shows how the creature has questions
about what he is and where he is from as he doesn’t know why people fear him and why he is
being rejected by society. To conclude, as the creature goes and look at the world around him, he
has a lot of thoughts of what he is an ugly creature, why he doesn’t have anyone to befriend and
the questions lingering in his mind.
The more he tried to realize about what he is, he starts trying to find acceptance by society. At
some point, the creature tries to get violent but ends up restraining himself because maybe if he
tries to stop himself, he could be accepted by society. “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought
to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”
With this quote it shows that the creature can understand that he could be a threat to society and
just wants to be accepted. With the thought of wanting to be accepted, he also was a companion
to keep him companying. Which brings me to my second point, the creature wants a companion
and meets a man. “My companion must be of the same species and have the same deflects.”
Reading this quote, the creature asks the man who created him in the first place, to make him a
companion with the same deflects as him and being the species as him so then he wouldn’t be
lonely and have someone to befriend. In all, as his questions and realization linger in his mind,
he just wants to be accepted by society, so he calms himself down when he tries to get violent,
and he also asks for a companion to befriend and won’t make him so lonely.
To bring an end to my essay, the creature tries very hard to be accepted by society and find his
identity, from him seeing the world so beautifully, to him looking at himself as an ugly creature
in a beautiful world. Though he was an ugly creature, he tries hard to learn the human language
and behaviour quickly to be able to communicate with society and asks for a companion to keep
him company.