Frankenstein And Moral Values Through Frankenstein, Mary Shelley shows the values of companionship, fear, trust, and happiness. All of these values the monster wants or portrays, but due to society, he is unable to achieve them. The monster tries to understand these values throughout his life but cant because of the injustice he receives from the humans. When the monster finds his first home at the house of the De laceys he understands humans better and tries to mimic them.
While his stay here the monster watches avidly to learn how to act “human”. The monster feels he can help them out and does so by doing odd jobs during the night. After the monster lives among the family for many years he decides that he will confront the family and tell them about his experiences while living there. Unfortunately the family does not accept the monster and he is scared away. After this incident the monster vows to never help anyone out again because of the mistreatment he endures. Now the monster sets out on a killing spree to get revenge upon his creator so he can understand how he feels.
The monster finally meets up with his creator and begs for a equal counter part. As the monster is speaking to Victor he states, “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous” (84). This moves Victor emotionally and he decides to make the monster his counterpart, as long as he promises not to hurt anymore of his family. Victor now understands that even though the monster is a fiend he still needs companionship, the lack of fear, trust and happiness.
As you can see the monster wants to be good but bad thing have drove him away from this. Throughout the book the monster tries to become more civilized but all the madness turned him into a fiend. While the monster is going about his ways he is attacked by a village full of men who no nothing more than to hurt the unwanted. This the monster explains as, “The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge” (91). From that moment on he realized that people did not like his appearance and hated him because of it.
If villagers didn’t run away at the sight of him, then they might have even enjoyed his presence. This is the monsters first lesson of man. The monster receives nothing but ravage men chasing him out of their town. This instills a great deal of fear that the monster knows he doesnt want to deal with again. What this does to the monster is drives him further away from all good and puts him into a deep depression.
After this the monster tells Victor, “Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man” (91). This is where the monster finds his first stable home. While in this state of mind the monster moves into a little shack where he meats the De Laceys. While living with the De laceys he learns all about happiness, sadness and feelings of love.
Happiness is the one virtue that is the most ironic because he only feels happy when the family does but he never feels it for himself. When the monster meets the De Lacey family his first impression is that they are a suitable family that get by easily. Although when the monster lives with the family for a considerable amount of time he soon finds out of their troubles. While living there he finds out that the young boy works constantly and so does the sister. The monster feels he can help out the boy and make him ecstatic by doing so.
The monster wants to belong so much that he collects the wood for the family to see them happy. The first time he does this “the young woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth joined her who also expressed surprise” (96). This is what makes the monster want to stay, seeing the happy expressions on the families faces. Once the monster meets up with his creator and expresses his wants for a companion he states, “Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel.
Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!” (131). With this the monster simply states he wants Victor to trust him and create him a counter part to make him happy. The monster just wanted him to trust him enough so he can have a companion. Since Victor, the family or villagers didnt trust the monster he now believes that he can never be able to communicate with humans because of his form. All the monster needed was a little trust because after that he would be able to tell everyone of his troubles. Trust, I believe, is one of the most important values in this novel.
I think that with trust the monster would have been able to communicate with the humans and express his views. The monster puts it like this, “I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with the companion you bestow I will quit the neighborhood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker” (132). The monster simply tries to show with this statement that Victor needs to trust him because if he will the monster will not kill another human if he cooperates.
The monster just wants a counterpart so he can feel companionship firsthand. Since the monster couldnt fit in with the humans he wanted Victor to make him a mate. At first Victor wanted to help the monster but then decided that it would not be such a good idea. Finally the monster persuades Victor to make him a counterpart.
The only reasons Frankenstein decided to do this was because he felt sorry for the monster and wanted to help him out. After Frankenstein started to produce the second monster he stopped making it because he did not want to monster to have any companionship because then they would procreate, but the monster cries out “I swear, by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear” (133). The monster states this because he wants to emphasize that if Victor will agree to make him a counter part he will never bother him again. As Victor sets off to start his toils he goes about by doing so the same way he created the first monster. After he starts the production of the first monster he soon stops and tears up the monster.
When the monster finds out about this Victor says, “Be gone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness” (153). After the monster hears this he replies with, “It is well I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night” (153). With this comment the monster vanishes and leaves Victor breathless and worrysome. Frankensteins intent was to create a being unlike any other, superior to all human life and so he picked the most perfect body parts and beauteous features, all to be pieced together in great anticipation. However, the results are horrific and irreversible. Accusing Frankenstein of bringing him into a world where he could never be accepted, the creation realizes his creator’s faulty idealism.
Through all of his troubles Frankenstein learns that the monster was unable to fit in due to his ravenous looks and hideous ways. If the monster would have been show any of the values that I have stated I believe that the monster would have been excepted into society and would have been able to fit in. But since the monster was evil in his ways he was unable to experience any of these virtues which cause him to become evil and which starts his killing spree.
