Frankenstein, By Mary Shelley - 1134 Words

Mary Shelley’s classic work, Frankenstein, has captured the imagination of readers for almost 200 years and has inspired numerous retellings and adaptations. Numerous depictions of Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature in plays, films, novels, comic books, television programs, and even video games have caused the familiar image of the lumbering giant to become embedded as one of the classic horror villains in the psyche of the average American. Most of these adaptations show the creature to be cruel, ignorant, and blood-thirsty by nature, but on examination of the original story there is ample evidence that the popular depiction of the creature is wrong. The creature does not enter the world bent on destruction, he is originally a kind,†¦show more content†¦The Creature is knows nothing but rejection from the very moment he is created. No sooner does the Creature breath his first breath than Victor declare his experiment to be a catastrophe and flee from his laboratory (Shelley)⠁  . To Victor the experiment was a terrible failure, a â€Å"frightening mistake that he wishes did not exist† (Hogsette)⠁  . According to Soyka, this rejection by a father, and a creator, can be compared to God s rejection of Satan in Milton s Paradise Lost. After experiencing this first, and perhaps greatest, rejection the Creature flees the confines of Frankenstein s house and finds himself alone in the forest outside the city. When the Creature later recounts this period of his life, he remembers very little other than the physical sensations he experienced at this stage. Light and dark, heat and cold are all he knows before he gains self-awareness. The first non-physical sensations he remembers on his evolution toward self-consciousness are the feelings of loneliness and fear (Gardner)⠁  . In this state of being the mind is like a blank slate, all of his emotions and motivations are innocent and child-like with no evil intentions or malice toward any one. The