FREE ESSAY ON FRANKENSTEIN

FRANKENSTEIN

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is filled with various underlying themes, the crux being the
effect society has on The Creature's personality. These topics have been discussed and
explored on countless occasions, and the novel has been compared with its contemporaries
of the Romantic Age numerous times. However, if one were to correlate and contrast
Shelly's masterpiece with another, the greatest work would be the creation story in
Genesis. Victor and The Creature are obvious representations of God and Adam, and the
events in the two accounts parallel and differ from each other in several ways. 
God breathed life into Adam and created him in his own image and likeness. He placed him
in a utopia and gave him authority over everything. With this authority, Adam used his
knowledge to distinguish right from wrong, and if he needed help, God was always there
with his unconditional love. Victor, on the other hand, assembled body parts from
different corpses and made a hideous monster in the heat of his madness. He left The
Creature to fend for himself in a world full of ugliness, violence, and hate. There was
no mutual feeling of love between Victor and his creation, only that of hate and fear.
An all-powerful being who was perfect in every aspect created Adam. God saw that he was
lonely and chose to make a mate for him to live with. When Adam sinned, he accepted his
guilt, obeyed God, and left the garden. Though his own creation went against him, God
loved Adam the whole time. A flawed mad man, whose intentions were only to satisfy
himself, created The Creature. He demanded that his creator make a mate for him so he
could have someone to share his love with. When Victor refused his request, The Creature
swore vengeance, and hate was shared by both. 
One of the main similarities between Adam and The Creature is the fact that their
creators went from one extreme to another at pivotal moments in the stories. Victor had
compassion for The Creature as he listened to his story in the cave, and God became angry
with Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit. Even though Adam broke the rules, God never
stopped loving him. Victor hated The Creature throughout the book. Never will I create
another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness(160).
Although these two tales are different in numerous aspects, both have morals and lessons.
Frankenstein teaches that man should not try to defy God, and that no one should be
judged by their physical appearance. The creation story shows that man should respect his
authorities. Victor, a flawed version of God, made the mistake of abandoning his son at
birth, and continuing to shun him the rest of his life. The Creature was flawed, but not
by his own fault. He was sent into an ugly world by himself, with no one to help him or
teach him. Mary Shelley used a deep, gothic theme to get several different points across,
and made it interesting by paralleling the main characters with the characters of a well-
known story.
Bibliography
none