Question

What statement is Shelley making about human nature in Frankenstein? Is it as simple as asserting that all humans are capable of being vicious and cruel? Why or why not? Support your response with evidence from the text. Your response should be between three and five paragraphs long.

Answer 1

In Frankenstein Mary Shelley explores human nature, but she does not merely demonstrate that humans can be vicious and cruel. Through the experiences of the creature, Mary Shelley shows that all living beings can be monstrous when they fall prey to prejudice and hate. However, that same being can be good-hearted when it is influenced by love and compassion.

Through the creature’s experiences with the De Lacey family, Mary Shelley exposes the limits of human love, which may not extend beyond the family.

The creature, which is not really human, shows a greater capacity for forgiveness than any of the human characters in the novel. For example, after the De Lacey family drives him away, the creature still makes an effort to rescue a drowning girl.

The monster’s love of nature gives him a compassionate and caring heart. The monster expresses his love of nature, and it comforts him at several points in the story: “My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy."

As the monster gets closer to humans, he grows more despondent: "I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool!"

Before the monster meets humans, he feels a universal love for living things. He chooses to be a vegetarian. It is only when he encounters human hatred that he loses his love and compassion.

(PLATO)

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

In the novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, the relationship of external apperence and internal feelings are directly related. The creature is created and he is innocent, though he is seaverly deformed. His nature is to be good and kind, but society only views his external appereance which is grotesque. Human nature is to judge by external apperence. He is automatically ostracized and labeled as a monster because of his external apperence. He finnaly realized that no matter how elequintly he speaks and how kind he is, people will never be able to see past his external deformities. Children are fearful of him, Adults think he is dangerous, and his own creator abandons him in disgust. The creature is treated as a monster, therefore he begins to internalize societies view of him and act the like a monster. Man by nature, judges people and things by their appearance. If a person is pleasant looking then they will be given more of a chance to express their internal self. If they are ugly, or cosmetically deformed, they usually aren't given much of a chance to show who they really are. Grotesquely ugly people are sometimes thought of as monsters, and are ostracized. Many cosmetically inferior people are afraid to go out into society. Mankind seems to be fearful of the unfamiliar and unknown. People are afraid of what they do not understand. Deformaty is something that most people can not comprehend. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophy, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endevoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! - Great god! His yellow skin scarcely...

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...ves for my destruction. Shall I not hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable and they shall share my wretchedness." ( the creature, page 97)


Yes, this means that Frankenstein made this creature into a monster due to isolating it from the society. But in the end, the creature told Frankenstein on how it survived in this world.