Frankenstein Key Themes and Quotes 2

Isolation and loneliness
1. The monster longs for companionship and affection and his unhappiness and subsequent violence result from his awareness that he will never experience the love he sees around him.
  1. "I am malicious because I am miserable."
2. Victor is isolated in his laboratory during the creation process
  1. "solitary chamber or rather cell."
3. The monster is abandoned already at 'birth', by Victor who is in essence his parent.
  1. “[the Creature] held up the curtain of the bed…one hand was stretched out,”
4. Theme of isolatation being destructive
5. The monster is already isolated from society due to his appearance
  1. "I was dependent on none and related to none … my person was hideous and my stature gigantic."
  2. What society deems as beautiful (theme of critique of society)
Fear of sexuality
1. By creating the monster and taking on the role of women, Victor is also rejecting normal human sexuality.
2. Victor's terrible nightmare after the creation of the monster supports he idea that he is repelled by normal sexuality. When he attempts to kiss Elizabeth she turns into the corpse of Victor's mother, indicating heis frightened by incestuous desires.
  1. Psychodynamic reading by Freud
3. The monsters threat - "I will be with you on your wedding night!" - is misinterpreted by Victor. Since it is said soon after Victor destroys the female companion, to the reader it seems quite clear that they threat is to Elizabeth. Yet Victor interprets it as a threat aganst him and he leaves Elizabeth, aiming to save her from the combat he expects, alone in the bedroom to be murdered by the monster.
  1. ""Oh! peace, peace, my love...this night, and all will be safe: but this night is dreadful, very dreadful."
4. Idea that monster is an externalisation of Victor's sexual impulses, the ugliness of the monster suggesting his horror of normal sexuality.
  1. The monster assures Victor thjat he will be with him on his wedding night, the time when Victor can no longer avoid confronting his own sexuality. He leaves Elizabeth alone, but the part of himself he rejects, his sexuality, does not disappear.
    1. Instead , it turns destructive; he unleashes upon her this ugly voilent thing: the embodiment of his twisted sexual impulses.
Innocence
1. The monster is born innocent, naive to the world, almost child-like. Is he a product of the cruel world he grows up in?
2. Victor is innocent to the consequences of his scientific pursuit. Can he be blamed for feeding his passion?
  1. "Felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth." - Victor quoting Isaac Newton
3. Elizabeth - described as a stereotypical delicate and angelic female; her main qualities being her beauty and her love for Victor.
  1. "A pictured cherub - a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills."
Thirst for (forbidden) knowledge
1. Victor has a burning passion for science which has adverse effects - is it a punishment for going too far? Playing God?
  1. "one man's life or death was but a small price to pay for the acquirement of knowledge which I support."
2. The monster desires to learn about the world he has been born into
  1. By learning that he is different to the humans around him, he becomes damaged.
    1. "Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was."
    2. Theme of critique of society
  2. He uses his emotional knowledge to his advantage in his revenge against Victor.
    1. "I will be with you on your wedding night."
  3. The monster begins to resent society as he learns how cruel the world is
    1. "My protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world."

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Frankenstein Key Themes and Quotes 2

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