In Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's monster serves both as a “horror” device and as a means of revealing and commenting on the story's other characters.

    The monster resembles Frankenstein in several aspects. Like Victor, the monster is extremely intelligent. Although Victor first studied alchemy (to the chagrin of his better-informed teachers), he quickly “transmutes” his knowledge of alchemy into expertise in chemistry. Victor's talents are transmitted to the monster – it learns to understand human interactions, to speak eloquently, and  to read in less than two years of observing its “protectors.”

    As well as their intelligence, Victor and the monster share the tendency to lose control when confronted with something adverse – they both break down several times during the story. For example, when the monster kills Victor's friend, Clerval, Victor becomes physically and mentally ill. He sits in the prison until his father retrieves him, unable to communicate that he is not guilty of Cleveral's murder. Similarly, the monster becomes unstable when circumstances are unfavorable. The monster falls into “a state of utter and stupid despair” after frightening his “protectors.” (Chapter 16.) Later, he regains his senses and decides to convince Victor to create a mate for him, but becomes irrational after Victor reneges on the deal – his murderous deeds do not satisfy him, but further increase his self-loathing.

    In addition to doubling as Victor, Frankenstein's monster doubles as Victor's cousin and wife, Elizabeth. In the 1818 edition, Elizabeth is Victor's cousin who is orphaned in childhood. Her similarity to the monster seems profound – neither of them have “parents” in the normal sense. However, the stark contrast between them is more important - the monster's power serves as a balance to Elizabeth's passivity. Victor is dominant with respect to Elizabeth in the story – she doesn't challenge his strange behavior toward Justine after William's murder, she lets him leave for two years before they are to be married, and in Chapter 2 Shelley implies that Elizabeth is not as intelligent as Victor. Unlike Elizabeth, the monster is never dominated by Victor – he lives in constant fear of the monster throughout the story. This contrast shows that Elizabeth and the monster are the two extreme responses to Victor's quest for domination of nature.

    This desire to thwart nature leads to Victor's Promethean undertaking. Victor explains to Walton how he “saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted” (Chapter 4) and then how he endeavored to alter this natural course. This ambition and his dominant relationship with the females in the story (Elizabeth is not the only passive female in the story – for example, Victor's mother marries Victor's father shortly after he “placed her under the protection of a relation.”) reveal his desire to be revered as the ultimate man.

    When describing the beings he plans to create, Victor says  “No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.” (Chapter 4) This quote is telling because he directly implies that a normal father would have to share the gratitude of his children with a mother. This is repugnant to Victor because the feels the females he knows are unworthy of such an honor.

    Victor doesn't give his “child” a chance to express gratitude, however – after he brings the monster to life, he flees in terror. In the 1931 film, Frankenstein immediately fears the monster because it shows itself to be uncontrollable by strangling someone. In the novel, however, Victor continually describes the monster's appearance as the reason for his fear. He talks of the creature's “yellow skin” and “watery eyes,” proclaiming that not even a re-animated mummy could be “so hideous as that wretch.” (Chapter 5) This reaction is important because it shows that Victor considers himself above receiving the gratitude of an ugly creature – he desires the esteem of a real human. His creature's ugliness represents his failure to replicate nature completely. He fears association with this failure – he lets innocent Justine be executed before he admits that the monster is his creation.

    This self-importance is what leads Victor to misunderstand the monster's claim that it shall be “with him on his wedding-night.” Victor is convinced that the monster intends to murder him, never considering that the monster might have a “less important” target like Elizabeth. When reflecting on the monster's threat, Victor thinks the night is “fixed for the fulfillment of my destiny” (Chapter 20), and arms himself for a confrontation. When he sends Elizabeth to wait for him until after he kills the monster, his mistake is revealed – the monster kills her.

    Shelley uses Frankenstein's monster to reveal how man's ambition and hubris can lead to downfall. Her story endures nearly 200 years after being written not only because it is an entertaining horror story, but because it touches on issues that have become important since its publication – gender relations, fear of technology, and the prospect of playing God.

Works Cited

Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Project Gutenberg eBook from original 1831 edition. Retrieved 20 May 2007. <http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext93/frank15.txt>