One
thing I found significant in today’s reading was De Lacey’s blindness and how
it influenced the Creature’s relationship to the family. The Creature pays
close attention to blindness because he realizes “that the unnatural hideousness
of [his] person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly
beheld [him]” (146).
I
believe the main reason the Creature becomes so enamored with the De Laceys is
that they are literally blind to what he sees as his one deformity. He admits
“no father had watched [his] infant days, no mother had blessed [him] with
smiles and caresses” (137). The De Laceys become a surrogate family to the
Creature without their realizing it. I believe the Creature wants the one thing
he can never have—a father or family. The Creature sees De Lacey as the father
Victor never was, even describing the family as “patriarchal” (143). He does
the chores Felix is responsible not only because it makes the De Lacey’s happy,
but because he sees them as a filial duty and expects that if he does them he
will be part of the family.
What
he does not realize is his own blindness and naiveté. Objectively, he seems to
realize that he is not really part of the family as he is “shut out from intercourse
with them, except through means which [he] obtained by stealth, when [he] was
unseen and unknown,” but he still refers to them as his “fellows” (136).
When
the day comes for him to introduce himself, the Creature realizes what I saw
all along—the De Lacey family can only see him as a stalker-like mutant
creature.
However,
what is incredibly interesting to me is the murderous rage the Creature feels
after his “family” deserts him. I think he forgives the other humans who reject
him because they do not know and understand him, just as he does not know and
understand them. However, because he feels like he is part of the De Lacey
family, he seems to believe that they should see around his faults, just as
they are able to see past each other’s faults. When Felix’s actions get De
Lacey and Agatha thrown into prison, they forgive him, but the same is not true
for the Creature’s liabilities.
De Lacey’s blindness lured
the Creature into a false sense of family. He seems to realize that he does not
belong in the human world, shown when he asks for a mate of his own type and
promises that they will live far away from civilization (158).
I think that when the Creature is shunned by the De Lacey family he sees it as another instance of paternal neglect. Because he has taken so strongly to Milton's work "Paradise Lost," the Creature identifies with Satan's experience of being shunned by God.
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued with Emma's statement on the "rejection" portion of the creature's interaction with the De Lacey family. In his short life, he constantly feels rejection upon rejection. To go off Lauren's statement about paternal neglect, the creature has experienced no actual social interaction without there being a single bit of rejection of who he is. Well, expect the small part when the blind man's first meeting with the creature. But besides that, these rejections cause tremendous amounts of emotional suffering and misery upon the creature, which ruins his misconception of his ever being apart of the human world. Thus, like Emma states, he realizes he needs a mate of his same species to thrive in this world.
ReplyDeleteThe emotions expressed by the creature, while well reasoned, are markedly just as impulsive as Frankensteins own Emotional tornados. The sole exception to this being in his dialogue with frankenstein where he sees opportunity to acquire what he "ardently desires", a partner (157).
ReplyDeleteThe rage the creature feels afterward, as Emma described it, strikes me a childish, an un-throttled tantrum in the body of a giant. The creature misguidedly seeks a replacement for the relationship he feels he should have with the creator within the De Lacey family. As pointed out by Liezel the creature see's the De Lacey's rejection as different when in reality it is no less or more than when he was chased out by the villagers. The creature becomes just as "wretched" and tortured by these rejections as frankenstein is by his morose fits. The difference i see being; Victor is tortured by self-disappointment and the emotional entrapment he allows himself. While the creature gives into an emotional prison of reject, accepting it as a unchanging reality and seeing a
"partner" as his only respite.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that the creatures excessive rage at his rejection by the De Lacey can be explained in light of Emma's insight that the creature took the tale "Paradise Lost" as a "true history"(143). The creature seeks in the finding of harmony with others to complete the creation myth that he sees as hi destiny. Just as Adam found Eve and each species was formed with its respective sexes so must presumably have been formed for some sort of intercourse with other beings. The creature laments in his own words that there is a "chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded"(158). I believe the chain of existence to which the monster refers is the biblical tale he sees himself as predestined to play out. Because (as Emma observes) the creature had no guidance in his education. He has no other framework in which to set his life than the biblical patriarchy in which he is the product of a benevolent creator who has placed him within a system of compatible beings. I therefor agree that he is attracted to the family through a desire to be part of a family but frame that desire more in religious and spiritual than psychological and emotional sense. I disagree with Morgan's assertion that the creature reacts in a "childish" way to his rejection. He is after all trying to cope with the utter collapse of his world view. A rather logical world view. The best one he could construct with the tools available to him. As Emma says he goes from infantile to adult status in matter of a year. I'd understand some teething problems, however bloody they may be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the poster above that the monster is acting perfectly justifiably and that our preconceptions are clouding our judgement. The act of creating the monster and then leaving him alone and friendless is tantamount to giving a five year old child a gun and then leaving him in a room full of bullies. The sheer irresponsibility of Frankenstein is the cause of their deaths - Frankenstein's certainty that he is the murderer is perfectly correct. The so called monster is only a child, in terms of age. Despite his monstrous appearance, he doesn't know right from wrong. It cannot be blamed on the monster -- who indeed attempts much self improvement -- if he never had an adequate teacher.
ReplyDelete