Aliénation on Frankenstein

« Alienation on Frankenstein The 19th century british novelist, Mary Shelley, has revolutionized European literature by writing “Frankenstein”, a pioneer gothic terror, experimenting with the borders between horror and sci-fi.

In the Greek mythology, its subtitle, “A Modern Prometheus,” refers to Prometheus, a god who brought fire to humankind.

This essay will establish how Alienation plays a part on characterizing and analyzing this work. Mary’s great novel “Frankenstein” had its inspiration due to a ghost-story competition organized by Lord Byron, friend of both Mary and Percy Bysshe-Shelley. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein is an ambitious and intelligent scientist, but his arrogance and unmeasured ambition makes him believe that he is the God himself.

His lack of accountability takes a big part on the unroll of the story.

With his knowledge on sciences, he creates a monster from various humans’ corpses, without thinking on the consequences.

He was eager to discover how far could he go based on the knowledge he had.

Like Mary Shelley said, his antinatural work only brought him to his disgrace. Frankenstein ends where it begins.

Frankenstein is about alienation and desire to belong.

It is universal and ageless but has also become predominant in current days. Both Victor and the creature are alienated characters.

Regarding to Victor, it is a selfimposed alienation, while the creature does not choose to be, but feels that way.

The theme of alienation in the character of Victor Frankenstein is something that he experienced his entire life in terms of his childhood, family, scientific work and society. Frankenstein friends and family love and support him, but it is his obsession who causes him to abandon them.

By generating the monster, Victor creates his own downfall, as he isolates more to focus on his work.

When he finally ended the work, the shame of what he did and having to keep it a secret, made him detach even more.

In the end, this alienation leads him to destruction. The creature now considered an alive “being,” kept on trying to obtain a position in the humanistic society, but fails to succeed, or better, he does not get the opportunity to be able to do so.

In general, he was made in a world by his maker, where everyone despised him for being deformed and “unique.” Acting or being different that is nonstandard to a society, can cause a civilization to reject a good and deserving person. Contrary to his maker, he feels alienated.

All that the creature wants is to feel loved and accepted by society.

His first encounter with humans is with Victor, his own “father” who completely rejects him.

Then he tries to engage with the villagers who also reject him, throwing stones at him.

“The whole village was roused: some fled; some attacked me.” He desired to seek acceptance among mankind and so he learned how to communicate by observing the De Lacey’s and improved his speech, by reading the books he found on the woods.

His eloquent and articulate speech did not matter, but only the appearance he had, so he was rejected by society.

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