Critical Paper on Frankenstein free essay sample

The men that surrounded Shelley were not concerned with feelings. Her own father, â€Å"whom she adored,† â€Å"neglected her, leaving her feeling unwanted† and her husband’s â€Å"lack of grief [when] their babies died augmented this conviction in necessity for women in society,† as stated in the essay, â€Å"Frankenstein: Shelley Use of Masculine and Feminine Roles† (1). She grew up without her mother and a neglectful father, much like the creature, which often called to question her abilities as a parent—â€Å"this is expressed in Victor Frankenstein’s complete failure in parenting† (Sokolow-Walsh, 1).Shelley’s subtle, and not so subtle, examples of a nurturer being needed to be successful in life are shown throughout the novel. The creature’s crimes and yearning for a female presence supports Shelley’s idea that nature is not enough for human development, a woman’s nurturing is essential for succ ess. â€Å"In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and thoughts about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development† (Sokolow-Walsh, 1). Her fears were established very young due to the fact that her mother died giving birth to her and thus, she grew up without a mother—aside from a stepmother who never attempted to bond with her. She always felt ill-prepared for life not having a mother to guide her. She leaned on her father for the nurturing she craved and cared for him deeply but he was a man of the times and did not believe in showing emotions—he often separated from her leaving her feeling neglected.Mary wondered, throughout her own pregnancies and births, if she was equipped to be a mother and give a child what they needed for development. Her first child, Clara, was born premature and died just a few weeks later. As any mother would be, Mary was devastated but her husband showed no grief as was the way of that era. In fact, only one of Mary’s five children outlived her. At age nineteen, when her second child, William, was six months old Mary had a nightmare that began the story of Frankenstein. The story was the first to discuss pregnancy fears that women faced.However, her story resonated with other women of that time who felt the same anxieties and it allowed men some insight into the emotions of pregnancy. Through Victor’s character and how he treated the creature, â€Å"Mary was expressing her fears related to the death of her first child, her ability to nurture, and the fact that her mother died having her† (Sokolow-Walsh, 1). Like a typical women’s pregnancy, Victor Frankenstein’s creation labored on â€Å"for approximately nine months† (Sokolow-Walsh, 1). However, Victor’s reaction to the â€Å"birth† is not at all what a mother goes through.He did not feel love and nurture towards the creature as a mother would have but instead felt contempt and disgust at his appearance and sub sequentially, ran away from his creation â€Å"leaving him to fend for himself† as told in Jen Minutillo’s essay, â€Å"Motherless Parenting: The Role of Responsibility† (1). This reaction from Frankenstein proves â€Å"his poor parental acceptance of responsibility† (Minutillo, 2). Loving this â€Å"child† was not an option for Victor as he could not stand the sight of the creature so much that he ran and hid from him for years.He was embarrassed and disappointed in his creation and wanted to kill him off as soon as he saw him. Of course Victor has no one but himself to blame for the creature’s appearance—he made him after all. However, it was not his intent to make a beautiful creature that he could raise up and parent, rather; attaining prestige and glory was his goal. The beautiful parts that Victor claimed to choose for making the creature were scientifically great specimens, individually, but he did not take into account how they would look once combined into a being.He did not think of these details as he was constructing his project—the creature’s appearance, how humans would perceive and accept him, if h e had a good soul, or if he would be a successful member of society. He simply wanted to create a masterpiece that would make all other men envious. These were not questions Victor pondered when trying to reach his end goal as a mother would have when planning for her child. Victor looked for the quickest route to fame and fortune with total disregard for the living being he was bringing into the world.Shelley made Victor a poor father figure to contrast the idea that a mother figure would have been more equipped to prepare and plan for a new life. At the moment of â€Å"birth† Victor exclaims, â€Å"After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires, was the most gratifying consummation of my toils† (Shelley, 47). However, when he realizes it is not the great masterpiece he expected that would make him God-like for creating life and thus, give him great fame and fortunes, he abandons his creation without even giving him a name.While men bring things to the table (nature) mothers bring the emotions and self-confidence to a person’s worth (nurture)—both are essential for success as a person but none as powerful as a mother. Of course, you cannot have one without the other and be a successful being. In regards to this story, nature is the physical surroundings and beings. It is the science that is involved in creating a being and the appearance of said being. Nature is what is needed to make the creature function as a being.On the other hand, nurture is the essence of life—the way the appearance of the environment makes a person feel, the relationships between humans and within themselves, the inner conscious of a being that gives the morals and values that are preferred by society. Without one or the other, a being will be behaviorally corrupt and not be able to react in appropriate ways within society’s norms. While Victor brings a great deal of nature to the completion of the creature, he does not supply him the nurturing support that is needed for him to be a complete human being. As the novel progresses the creature becomes more of a monster in his actions—just as an abandoned child acts out. Shelley views nurture as more important to nature in regards to children—and the creature. The creature was able to become a scavenger and live in the woods and even educated himself; but after watching the DeLacy family, he realized he could not integrate with society because although he had wings, he did not have family roots. â€Å"No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses†¦I have never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me.What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans† (Shelley, 117). This lack of nurturing and having a loving parent along with the lack of societal acceptance from the DeLacys causes the creature to become a monster who sought vengeance and destruction. The creature sets out to kill those loved by Victor in order to ruin his life as he feels Victor ruined his. He claims that he is only malicious because he is depressed and feels alone, unloved and unaccepted by society. The creature blames Victor for this depression and his actions as he did not love him either and in fact would prefer him dead.He wonders why he should care more for others than they care for him. Had Victor shown this creature the love he deserved and guided him through life’s morals as a parent should, he would have had a different outcome. â€Å"What Mary may have been questioning trough her novel is whether a child whose fundamental experiences are of pain rather then pleasure will ever develop a healthy moral sense and a normal personality† (Sokolow-Walsh, 2). Throughout Frankenstein Shelley shows the importance of having a nurturing mother figure in the development of children to adults.Women play an integral roles in society and bring to the table something men cannot. The era this story was written brought the oppression of women and Shelley used this story to emphasize the absurdity that women were not important in society. She even makes the creature hideous to prove the unnaturalness of man creating life without woman. If man acts as the nature part of a human and woman acts as the nurture side than you cannot make a complete life with only one. As discussed before, while the man brings the ego and constructive side to a being, a woman brings the emotions and morals.Lacking the female touch, the creature was left with only his ego to satisfy. Shelley wrote him as hideous to show that without morals and emotions (the nurturing side) we are only left with an ugly, selfish version of a human. The men in this novel tend to act on their egos and self interests and thus, escape morality and the creature is no exception. His desire is to be a part of a family and be loved and nurtured but the means under which he tries to accomplish this are unacceptable—forcing his self where others do not want him.When the creature discovers the beauty of his surroundings in the woods we get a glimpse that he is capable of having a nurturing side—he feels love and peace in this experience. However, when things go bad moments later and he is rejected after saving the life of a girl, he vows to never help humans again. With a mother to console him and explain not all people are nice, he might have been able to shrug it off and be happy in nature once again. Again the creature’s nurturing side gets exposed when he finds the texts and reads them and feels emotional over what he has learned about history and humans.Of course, a mother would have been able to explain to him that these are the author’s views and not necessarily completely true for all humans. We also see his heart on his sleev e when he spies on the DeLacy family and sees and feels what a typical family is like—caring for one another, supporting one another, and loving one another. He questions his life and why this is missing for him and decides to approach the family, which of course sends him away in fright. If he had a mother figure he would not have felt compelled to need to be a part of the DeLacy family—he would not have felt that missing piece to his nurturing side.Alas, he did not have a female to help him and therefore he eventually gives up and loses his moral compass completely which evokes an evil side to the creature. The continuing theme throughout the book is of the â€Å"necessity for female figures in parenting and in society† (â€Å"Frankenstein: Shelley Use of Masculine and Feminine Roles,† 1). Had the creature had a mother figure, things could have been so different—even with Victor’s absence. Shelley’s use of angelic but submissive women in the novel shows her desire for a nurturing mother figure for herself, and the creature.The character of Caroline was Shelley’s idealistic view of what a mother might have been like for her. Caroline’s perfect parenting style gives more reason for the reader to be shocked and angered at Victor for abandoning his creature. After all, having a mother like Caroline, Victor should have known the importance of nurturing the new life he created. Victor knew that even when his father was difficult he could always count on his mother for support and love. If he was incapable of bringing this to his creation he should have found a female that could have supplied it instead.Maybe someone like Justine who needed to have someone to nurture and share her love with. Justine is another innocent and idealized figure in the story. Her innocence when faced with death made us see the evil in the creature and the lack of courage in Victor for not standing up and telling the truth. Justine took her punishments, even though not rightfully hers (symbolic of Jesus Christ), as she had always done from her mother’s mistreatments. This is Shelley showing yet another example of how neglect and abuse can effect a child—they do not tell but rather hide their pain and fear.Another female character, Safie, was used by Shelley to show that strong, nurturing women were held down by society so that men could reign superior—however, the creature’s ugliness was considered less value than Safie. Her character was repressed and wanted more and yet never was able to attain more from life. The creature was male and by that reason alone should have been revered but due to his unsightly appearance and lack of morals and values from a missing father and nonexistent mother, he was thought lower than Safie.The final character that was instrumental in the novel’s telling of a female’s importance to the development of the creature is Elizabeth. Shelley created Elizabeth to serve as the creature’s opposite—he is nature and she is nurture. Clearly both characters had some of both characteristics present in themselves but Shelley focused on their strongest attributes. While both sides are importance to have within a person, the contrast was present in the novel to show the need of a female role model for the creature.While the creature learns there is a nurturing side of humans from watching the DeLacys, he is not equipped to fully tap into or understand his won. A mother would have told him how to nurture and why to nurture and given him her nurturing in return—something the DeLacys did not offer the creature. In the end, the creature realizes his lack of a mother was to blame for his life going awry and he states, â€Å"I, the miserable and abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned, and kicked at, and trampled on. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless†¦I have devoted me creator to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin† (Shelley, 219).