Monstrous Love
A review of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
By Julia A. Keirns
The theme of love is significant in Frankenstein because the monster spends his entire existence searching for love and acceptance from mankind. He is driven and motivated in all he does by his desire and innate need for love. His early existence was filled with wonder and disappointment. The monster viewed “a gentle light over the heavens” and was able to realize that he enjoyed the feeling it gave him, but the moon could not fully satisfy the desires he began to feel on a regular basis, and the moon grew smaller each night. He enjoyed hearing the innumerable sounds ringing in his ears and being surrounded on all sides with various wonderful scents. The birds in the air and the flowers on the ground gave him much pleasure to listen to and to smell, but soon these also disappointed him as the birds flew away and the flowers wilted and died. He delighted in the warmth of a fire but discovered the disappointment once again as he “thrust his hand into the live embers” thinking it would feel even better, but instead groaning in pain as it burned him.
The cheering warmth of summer and the rustling of the leaves seemed a wonderful experience to him, but only turned out to be a disappointment like everything else as winter and cold weather closely followed. Eventually he entered a village which looked so pleasant and appealing and made him feel good inside. He no more than stepped one foot in when the disappointing feelings once again overtook him as the women and children screamed in horror and fainted at the sight of him. The earth and mankind had disappointed him as had the moon, the birds, the flowers and the fire.
A monster was created out of selfish desires and ambitions by a man who seemed to have no moral conscience, and then was left alone to suffer from a lack of love and acceptance in a world that was new and strange to him. Dr. Victor Frankenstein completely rejected and abandoned his monstrous creation at the very sight of him alive, regretting the decision to ever attempt creating such a horrible thing. The monster then spends all of his time searching for meaning and purpose, and struggling with his inability to be loved. He tries to force himself on others only to discover that because of his large stature and disfigured face he is detestable to those whom he wished to commune with, and therefore must truly be unlovable.
The monster finds a hovel to live in for a while and a family of humans to observe. He learns what love is by witnessing the benevolence and affection between his human neighbors. He longs to join them and feel love and friendship from them. He witnesses the devotion and respect the younger members feel for the elder blind man.
Each day they exchange signs of love and affection and he desires to have what they have. He feels a need to be loved in return. He finds love in this family. He rejoices when they are happy. It depresses him when they are sad. In his mind he loves and cares for them even though his feelings are not returned. In his own words he admits that he tenderly loves these friends he has come to know.
As he increases in knowledge he comes to the point of needing them to return his love, and he is once again disappointed. His efforts are met with hateful rejection. His heart sinks with a bitter sickness as they scream in horror and he is filled with anger and a desire to destroy all mankind. If he cannot have love then why should any of mankind be able to have love. He curses his creator and vows to find him and make him pay for the pitiful existence he has been forced to endure. He eventually tries to force his creator to create a female monster who will love him as he is.
The monster searches for and finally finds Dr. Frankenstein. The doctor does not even feel that his creation deserves the time of day, but is forced to listen as the monster tells him his story, and begs him to create a female like himself who will love him back unconditionally. As the doctor listens to the monster speak, he is quite surprised and moved by his gentle demeanor and amazing intellect.
The monster attempts to make his creator understand that he has spent all of his time searching for meaning and love and that he desires in some way to be connected to his creator as a child is beholding to their parent. He has been denied and it is not fair. He is once again met with disappointment and rejection, but the monster is successful in forcing the doctor to agree to his demands regarding a female companion. For a time he has hope.
The monster’s plight through the entire story was merely to find purpose and meaning in his existence. He had been created and then had been forced to fend for himself. He explained to the doctor that as he observed his family of human friends he learned what it meant to love and care for somebody. He blamed Dr. Frankenstein, his creator, for neglecting to provide a loving and nurturing environment for him as other children were fortunate to have. He should have been taught the proper way to live. He should have been given love and taught how to love in return. He demanded again a companion suitable for himself. The monster watched and waited in anticipation as the doctor began the process of making him a female companion.
The monster knew that the doctor was not willingly performing the task and so he kept a close watch on the process. When the doctor threw the unfinished female body away like trash in the lake, the monster lost all sense of decency. His last hope had been crushed and something inside him snapped.
Lack of love motivated the monster to seek revenge. The deep grief gave way to rage and despair for both Dr. Frankenstein and the monster. The monster had lost his only hope for love at the hands of the doctor as he dumped the female monster’s body into the depths of the lake, and Dr. Frankenstein had lost everyone he ever loved and cared about at the hands of the monster’s vengeance. In the end, his entire life and existence turns out to be nothing but a disappointment.
The monster leads the doctor to the height of the world where coldness and darkness endures, and where the doctor will suffer in complete misery. “Your toils only begin,” stated the monster, “…for we enter upon a journey where your suffering will satisfy my everlasting hatred” (Shelley 181). Without love, the monster’s life was a hateful existence, but even revenge could not satisfy the emptiness left in his life. As he knelt over the body of his dead creator, the monster felt loss, but still desired to feel love. In the depths of his soul it was all he needed. He cried out in anguish at the final loss of any chance he had to feel whole. He felt remorse and begged forgiveness from the air he screamed into. He resolved to die so that his desire for love would finally end, and he sailed off into the cold darkness on a raft, his life and existence having been a miserable event.