Frankenstein is used to denote a self created trouble which troubles the trouble maker. I brought this book to read it as a horror novel. But now after reading this book, I realise that it has a deeper meaning which is relevant even in today’s context.
Victor is a young and brilliant scientist who has a happy family in Switzerland.The quest for knowledge and the ambition to reach where no man has reached before results in him creating a monster like creature.The crucial part of the story is that when the monster is born and he goes to his creator Victor, the creator himself abandons his creation because of his ugliness.
The ’Monster’ is not born as a monster .He wishes to be friendly and warm with the people around him and longs for friends. But the way people despise him and hurt him because of his ugliness creates feelings of hate in his mind for his creator. It is because of his creator’s abandonment that the monster has to face hurt, anger and rejection in the world. Here I wish to raise a question : Are criminals also created in the society by the same social process by which the monster is created in the novel ? Can a little bit of sympathy and friendliness stop an individual from becoming a criminal ?
Monster destroys the happiness of his creator who created him and then abandoned him to give him a life of misery. Finally, the Monster destroys himself. According to me this is more of a philosophical novel rather than a horror novel. You are inclined to think what if the creature had been treated with kindness and friendship ? Mary Shelley has tried to send across the message that no one is evil since birth. It is his experiences with the outside world which make a person gd or bad.
Hence the responsibility for a person becoming evil rests with the society , sometimes more , than it rests on the evil individual himself. A very good book worth reading .