Incomplete Education Of Frankenstein And His Creature example essay topic

In my opinion, many people have negative reaction to Frankenstein, who is a fiction character. Many of us who have read the book may agree that Frankenstein causes mainly negative feelings. Especially, watching the movie just increases negative reaction. In this essay, I will attempt to look on what makes Frankenstein to be so negative. As Frankensteins creation, the creature is also exiled from the two important categories of existence known to society- God and Man. Unlike Frankenstein, however, who tries to put himself above other men, the creature is portrayed as being caught in between Man and animal.

Yet, the creature seems to obtain an understanding of human life as a complex interwoven fabric from his observation of the De Lacey family and from the books that he reads. From the Sorrows of Werner, the creature becomes acquainted with the tremendous range of human emotions that he found accorded well with my experience among my protectors. By reading Plutarchs Lives, he learns high thoughts and discovers that, through the processes of his mind and the examples of great lives of other men, he is able to be elevated above the wretched sphere of his own reflections. He also reads Paradise Lost in which ideas like free will and predestination are discussed.

The creatures develops a critical insight into his own life, as Plutarchs Lives is not only a historical work but also a series of character studies, which reveal a persons morality. Moreover, in reading Paradise Lost, he is able to put words to his own condition, drawing parallels between himself and Adam and exposing the differences. Unlike Frankensteins choice of a solitary life, the creature yearns for the support of a family and the companionship of a female. Hence, one finds that Frankensteins encyclopedic knowledge is undermined by his lack of self-knowledge and of the nobler aspects of human emotional life, which, ironically, is compensated for in his creature, which he rejects. Not simply a stock symbol for a part of Frankensteins psyche, the creature also portrays a natural and innocent man who becomes the victim of his social conditions because he reacts to the adversity he faces with negative emotions.

After being convinced of the De Laces high level of nobility of character, the creature attempts to introduce himself into their lives with disastrous results. In their rejection, the creature witnesses and experiences the contradictions in human behavior when Felix attacks him without asking him his story and Safe runs from the cottage without stopping to assist Agatha who has fainted. The creature, however, is not simply a victim of his socio-political circumstances. He also chooses to react in hatred and bitterness to his surroundings and to allow the full play of his feelings for revenge. In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a monster that has the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat and the tail of a dragon. Sometimes it is also portrayed as having two heads.

I find it apt as a symbol that represents the incomplete education of Frankenstein and his creature, and as an image, that draws our attention to their conditions. Frankenstein possesses detailed knowledge of the physical world but lacks in that of the emotional world. He tries to combine the fantastic with the real and creates the creature that possesses a mind as human as any but is trapped in a body that is a tragic travesty of the human body. Both are chimerical and together, they form a chimera, linked to each other but in a monstrous way, which all makes Frankenstein to cause negative feelings among readers.