Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - Societal Prejudices Essay

this in such a way that the reader feels sorry for the monster, but we

  One of the main themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the importance of appearance and acceptance in modern society. In today's society, and also in the society of Frankenstein, people judge one often solely on their looks. Social prejudice is often based on looks, whether it be the color of someone's skin, the clothes that a person wears, the facial features that one has and even the way one stands. People make snap judgments based on these and other considerations and they affect the way that they present themselves to one, and also the way that the treat the judged person. In Frankenstein the society of that time is much like our own today. It is an appearance

<br>One of the main themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the importance of appearance and acceptance in modern society. In today's society, and also in the society of Frankenstein, people judge one often solely on their looks. Social prejudice is often based on looks, whether it be the color of someone's skin, the clothes that a person wears, the facial features that one has and even the way one stands. People make snap judgments based on these and other considerations and they affect the way that they present themselves to one, and also the way that the treat the judged person. In Frankenstein the

Social values such as relations with other humans and family values are neglected by Frankenstein. This is made evident early on when Frankenstein becomes absorbed in the creation of his creature and neglects his family, friends and social life. He says “Company was irksome to be... I abhorred society.” As such Shelley is able to symbolise how relentless pursuit of one thing can lead one to neglect everything else. On the other hand, the monster embodies this very value of humanity that is lost to Frankenstein. The monster, unlike Frankenstein, tries to integrate into society. But in doing so he challenges social conventions due to the fact that he was a “fiend with unparalleled barabrity” trying to form relations with humans. However like Frankenstein he too is rejected from society but due to his grotesque appearance. Shelley reflects the humanity expressed by the creature through his love, admiration and self-sacrifice which are characteristics believed to define humanity during the romantic era. Through the acts of the monster helping and regarding the De Lacey family in a positive light before they reject the creature and Frankenstein’s lack of compassion for the monster, Shelley is comparing society’s ability to be civil, compassionate and barbaric. Today these social values of compassion and relations with others continue to be current. Although, today society as a whole is more accepting of individuals on the fringe of society. These changing values and perspectives can be attributed to the differing historical and social context of

     Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein does indeed do a lot more than simply tell story, and in this case, horrify and frighten the reader. Through her careful and deliberate construction of characters as representations of certain dominant beliefs, Shelley supports a value system and way of life that challenges those that prevailed in the late eighteenth century during the ‘Age of Reason’. Thus the novel can be said to be challenging prevailant ideologies, of which the dominant society was constructed, and endorsing many of the alternative views and thoughts of the society. Shelley can be said to be influenced by her mothers early feminist views, her father’s

In today’s society, people are judged based on their physical appearance; lacking aesthetics in anyway may lead to rejection. Victor Frankenstein dedicated an endless amount of time to creating a new form of life. In reaction to the repulsiveness of his creation, he abandoned it, leaving it feeling rejected, which is what people with deformities usually experience. For the creature in Frankenstein, this was definitely the case. Due to the inferior mentality, race, and class in society in which Mary Shelley lived, the creature’s unappealing physical appearance played an immense role in the abandonment he experienced; to this day, physical appearance still plays a huge role in society.

“ I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (60). While in reality in his eyes he creates a monster with different skin tones and colors which seems to dissatisfy him“skin is yellow and his hair was black” (57). Instead of nourishing and being non judgemental of his physical attributes Victor abandons the Creature to fend for himself despite that the Creature has no sense of ability to live on his own. Victor’s judgements only comes from the Creature's physical attributes in which in his eyes is a complete failure of being ugly. Scholar Daniel Cotton also agrees that the physical attributes of the Creature plays pivotal role in Victor's expectations.

Often in society, people are separated or ostracized, from the town people, due to their appearance or persona. In Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, many characters are alienated from their community due to the value of attractiveness versus ugliness, self-proclaimed solitude, and the balance of loneliness and companionship. Victor Frankenstein, Victor’s creation, and Robert Walton are examples of the moral values of the time period and atmosphere surrounding the characters.

&nbsp;"What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?" This question, posed by Captain Robert Walton on page 22 of Mary Shelley's immortal Frankenstein, lies susceptible to interpretation to mean the ambition of man in one sense, but in another, the collective persecution and prejudice inherent in mankind.

In today’s society prejudice is a menacing thing that plagues the human world. The word literally means to judge someone or something beforehand, and hence the word prejudice arises when misperception is formed based on irrelevant characteristics and not on the importance of what really matters, So in society when someone doesn’t meet the expectations of what “normal” is, they are immediately isolated from the human world and are treated as an outsider, making that person feel worthless and in dire need of companionship. In Shelley’s masterpiece of a novel, Frankenstein she touches bases with how the mankind can be so evil to one person just because of how they look. In chapter 12 of Frankenstein, we come across a paradoxical(?) irony. When the monster approaches a pool and it showed a reflection of himself.

    The creature's ambiguous humanity has long puzzled readers of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In this essay I will focus on how Frankenstein can be used to explore two philosophical topics, social contract theory, and gender roles, in light of ideas from Shelley's two philosophical parents, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Generalizing is a common human mistake. Humans judge others naturally by their looks simply by instinct, without knowing others’ point of view. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein indirectly displays how people poorly treat outcasts, and can break personal connections with them from a lack of perspective. In order to display the unfairness of living, Shelley portrays humankind as judgemental beings that have trouble accepting differences which leads to the destruction of human relationships.

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is a story about how important having a family is to some, but also judging someone based on their appearance. Victor Frankenstein starts the novel by describing his childhood with his loving and supportive family. Family is very important to him because he did not have many friends growing up. While Frankenstein is away at school he starts to become very depressed and you see his attitude towards his family and his life change. Being away at school, he creates a “monster” by using different pieces of corpses and that becomes the only thing that matters to him until he sees how hideous it is. He immediately hates his creation just because of how he looks. Frankenstein begins to abandon everyone and thing in his life because of his obsession with the idea of glory and science, causing the novel to go from Romanticism to Gothic. The “monster” finds a family living in a cottage, by watching all winter he learns how a family should love and accept others. By seeing this, Frankenstein’s creations understand what was taken from him, and will do whatever he has to do to have a family of his own.

Beauty and prejudice have become commonplace in today’s society; the tiring cycle of living up to impossible beauty standards and facing the constant criticism of one’s image seems never-ending. However, this incessant obsessiveness over image has been around for thousands of years. In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, a prominent struggle between beauty and hideousness occurs throughout the book. Shelley uses the motif of undesirable appearances and the constant praise of beauty throughout Frankenstein to establish the theme of prejudice.

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, she calls attention to the not only how vital being beautiful is to a substantial role in the society, but how one can be an outcast if they aren't beautiful. The creature shows that even being extremely articulate doesn't necessarily matter if you have an ugly face. The creature who was abandoned at birth and made to be an out cast by everyone he crosses paths with, ends up alone but teaches himself all the basic ways to survive and how to read and speak. That alone is an amazing feat for a human but because he is a “monster” who isn't visually appealing he is unable to find a single person to look past his exterior. Mary Shelley uses the monster to show how society values beauty so highly that it can out weigh all other characteristic.