Alienation

The final stage of the creature's childhood is alienation. The creature feels and experiences the distance between himself and society because the creature feels that he should belong, but does not fit in. When the creature tells Victor his life story, the creature mentions how hostile people are toward him. When the creature arrives at a random village, he says, "The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, I grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel ..." (74). The creature has people attack him because he looks different; therefore, he is alienated because people fear him.

The creature's shelter in the woods is his protection. The creature is unsafe anywhere else. After observing the De Lacey family for a few years, the creature decides to make his presence known:

Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung; in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick [....] I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel. (97).

The creature mentioned earlier that the De Lacey family is kind to one another, but when the creature shows bravery and wants to make himself known, the family attacks him. The De Lacey family shows no compassion toward the creature because he does not physically resemble them. People fear what is different from society, and because the creature has a distinctive look, people are mean to him.

William's name-calling is the last straw for the creature. When the creature first sees William, he thought that he could educate the kid to ignore his deformity. William grabs the creature's eyes after the creature has seized him and shouts: "Let me go! [...] monster! Ugly wretch! You wish to eat me and tear me to pieces --- You are an ogre --- Let me go, or I will tell my papa! [....] Hideous monster!" (102). William's reaction stems from the creature looking different from people. However, William's relations to Victor angers the creature, which the creature reacts by strangling the young boy. The creature explains his malignity after strangling the young boy, "I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation, and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, 'I too can create desolation … and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him" (102). William's death is the beginning of the creature's criminal life. The criminal behavior represents alienation because the creature is treating humanity the same way he was treated by those around him and those that he feels should love him.

Diane Reese explains Rousseau's Social Contract in her article and how the social contract explains the miscommunication between the creature and his human counterparts. Rousseau's social contract explains interest groups and how each group interacts. Reese explains, "[...] Rousseau terms both the interest of the individual in isolation and that of a particular social group. It causes the particular interest to be both the essence and the obstacle to the general interest because the existence of 'partial societies' is said to inhibit the general interest from expressing itself" (11). Reese's explanation fits the creature and Victor's relationship almost perfectly because the creature is supposed to be part of a different social group, and because the creature is trying to blend in with people, it forces the general public (people) to act aggressively towards the creature.

Cindy Lacom's argument explains Reese's article on moral code. Lacom's article is focused on disability studies and how Shelley's novel can be shown through a disability lens. Lacom debates that the term disability was supposed to "[Develop] capitalist economic theories and an ideology of self-help, a national obsession with empire building, the growth of industrialism, and a variety of legal discourses" (547). Lacom is arguing that the term "disability" was created to differentiate people in the workforce and what each employer can bring in a capitalist economy. Lacom's argument is partially agreeable because the capitalist economy is based on what citizens can contribute to the working society; however, her point should not excuse the people's abusive behavior. Lacom proves that the creature is alienated because since he is not welcomed in a capitalist society, people see no need to include him.

Lacom explains the creature's non-purpose in capitalist society. Lacom states, "that physical disabilities and deformities [...] were fairly common. Why, then, the arguably excessive reactions of other characters [...]? [...] because he will not or cannot participate in a marketplace economy that commodifies human bodies and subjectivity" (548). Lacom's argument is compelling and unique because she makes an accurate statement with the history of disabled people back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The creature's physical deformities and his superhuman height would not serve in a capitalist economy because he was a science experiment. However, Lacom's argument is mainly disagreeable because her argument is too far of a stretch and should not excuse Victor's ignorance not only toward the creature but creating out of curiosity.

Reese explains the desperation of the creature and his constant jab to fit in with humanity. Reese states, "The monster […] represents a particular interest literally cut loose from any particular interest group and striving to produce one. His existence thus amounts to a total collapse of the difference between particular and general [....] he is excluded from the human in general because of his relationship to a group — a group that does not yet exist" (59). The creature is not supposed to be a part of the general group, and because his particular group does not exist, thanks to Victor, the creature is an alien who pushes himself into human contact. The creature wants to have a group of people, but because he is not in the general group, he has no group.

William's strangulation leads the creature down a dark path. Since the creature feels rejected by the general group, he kills people of the general group to release his anger. After killing William, he frames Justine by placing William's locket into her pocket while she sleeps. Justine later had a trial and pleaded guilty because she had evidence against her: "And on the morrow, Justine died [and] she perished on the scaffold as a murderess" (60). Justine had to die because Victor neglected his child, and yet, the creature still feels alienated by his father. The creature still carries wrath for Victor, who grows more hostile for killing his loved ones.

Henry Clerval is the creature's next victim after Victor goes onto a boat and throws the female creature's remains into the ocean. Victor lands in Ireland and is accused of murdering a man whose corpse was found in the sand near the ocean: "I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me" (129). Victor fell sick for months after Henry died: "A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death" (130). Victor begins to feel depressed after losing those closest to him. Ironically enough, Victor is falsely accused of murdering his friend, the same as Justine. The creature is intelligent and shows it by killing Victor's loved ones to make him not only feel abandoned but feel the wrath of destiny.

Lastly, Elizabeth is the last to die. After she and Victor marry, she is murdered on their honeymoon. Victor states, "Suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired [...] she was there, lifeless and inanimate [...] the murderous mark of the fiend's grasp was on her neck" (144-45). The creature succeeds in killing all the people that mean the most to Victor. The creature does this to alienate Victor, to show him how it feels to have no one to depend on and to love and be loved by. Victor states, "A fiend had snatched me from every hope of future happiness: no creature had ever been so miserable as I was" (146). The creature's criminal behavior is to project how alienated he is because the creature becomes a criminal who feels the need to avenge himself because of mankind.

The creature's request for a female creature "as hideous as [him]self" (105) is first granted to make the creature disappear and leave his loves ones alone. Victor Frankenstein's commitment toward a female creature at the beginning is a project that he decides to destroy. Victor's reason for deciding against the completion of a female companion is "they might [..] hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and [....] She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species" (121). Victor projects his hatred and his own opinions of the creature onto the female spouse and wants to find reasons not to give the creature a companion. Victor then destroys the female and denies the creature any access to love.

Garrett's idea towards the plot signifies the curiosity of man and ignoring the responsibilities toward creating something, but also relates to parents who mistreat their children, and how their children become metaphorical "monsters" as a way to express their abandonment, isolation, and alienation. Granelli's argument contributes, "a child neglected by its parents, shunned by its peers, and prevented from identifying with anyone around it will take on a negative identity…" (3). The creature takes out his aggravation in the form of revenge. The creature murdering Elizabeth is equivalent to Victor destroying the female creature; it shows how powerful the creature's desire for love is. Taking the life of the most critical person to Victor gives the creature justice in his separation from society.

Martha Stoddard Holmes is another researcher who relates the novel to disability studies. What may have also led the creature to revenge is the fact that the creature acts like a human but is treated as a monster when he commits good deeds. Holmes states, "Neither the Creature's physical grace nor his good deeds—saving a woman from drowning, for example—can disavow his perceived deviance... In fact, the existence of good deeds may serve to heighten his monstrosity, becoming legible only as further evidence of stigma" (380). People are more focused on the creature's appearance rather than his good nature, which leads the creature to project what society has treated him as. The killings represent the torment he lived.

The creature's revenge is comparable to Victor because the two have turned against each other. Peter K. Garrett's article talks about creating life, and then the creation turning into a "monster." Garrett says, "We recognize the parallels between the student of unhallowed arts and his author...and thus can also recognize the differences as well as the similarities between Frankenstein and the later stories of dangerous technology for which it has become a precedent" (92). Victor creates something extraordinarily advanced and takes no responsibility for what has been created; therefore, leaving the creature to transform into a "monster." The creature's revenge is a metaphor for alienating what has been created to show Victor what it is like to be alone.

The creature is forced to thrive in a world that is difficult for him to survive. Garrett iterates, "Deviation from an expected outcome, like the ways monsters turn on their makers, is also common in most narratives that hope to keep our interest, but such plot turns become particularly interesting when they figure the loss of control that turns monster stories into story-monsters" (93). The idea is an interesting plot because it shows what may happen when something is created and abandoned, and what happens when people invent out of curiosity.

Stuart Sim takes a more futuristic/modern approach toward the novel, Frankenstein. Sim's article is about AI/AL robots and how the creature is similar to a robot. Sim states, "... Frankenstein's creation….soon turns into our worst fears of what artificial life might become: an alien life-form motivated by a deep hatred for the human race, whom he feels, not unreasonably, has rejected him and must be punished for having done so" (149). AI robots mimic people's emotions, but can also turn against what has created them. The ending of Shelley's novel is ironic because it does give off a technologically advanced creation that has turned against its creator because of rejection. Ironically enough, the creature's hatred for humanity stems from humanity's hatred of him; the book and Sim's article explain what happens when something (like a child) is created and then alienated by the people that gave it life. Furthermore, Sim's argument is agreeable because the creature is treated like a robot, he is treated like he does not have emotions, wants, and a mind.

Shelley never intended for the creature to be a victim, but the creature did have a victim mentality for a while. It is when the creature reaches his demise he takes accountability for his actions. He tells Walton, the ship captain, "Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! …. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing" (163 and 165). The creature realizes his poor behavior and takes full responsibility for the violent he projected onto humanity. The creature shows that he is not a victim because he takes full responsibility for his mistakes, thus realizing that he injured and killed innocent people because of someone that despised him. The consequences should have stayed between Victor and the creature, but the innocent were murdered because the creature took his problems out on random people.

Victor Frankenstein's creature tells the saddening tale of a forgotten child. The creature's distinctive look causes him to receive mistreatment by society and to experience three stages of adverse reactions. The creature's three stages of abandonment, isolation, and alienation lead to damaging consequences to the creature himself and Victor Frankenstein. The effect of the rejection the creature feels is that his inadequacy causes him to desire Victor's attention, and the more Victor pushes the creature away, the more the creature comes around. The creature is isolated from society and has to fend for himself, thus leading him to fear human interaction. The creature's alienation stems from how abusive people are toward him; this leads him to exceed revenge.