Frankenstein, Every one needs a family
In Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, families are a very important part of the structure of the novel. Frankenstein's family is critical because the reason why the monster was created lies within the family. Almost every family mentioned in the novel was either incomplete or was dysfunctional. Frankenstein's family in particular was missing a female role. The Frankenstein family had no mother, but they did have Elizabeth who was the only other female in the house and she was adopted when she was just a child. The monster was created because of this absence, not necessarily to fill the role of the mother, but to fill in the role of the missing family member. However, the monster is shunned away when he is animated and the fall of the Frankenstein family awaits them. Victor Frankenstein's family was normal to begin with. He had a mother and a father, but later on when Elizabeth becomes sick with a fever, his mother nurses her back to health at the cost of her own life. On her deathbed, Victor's mom says, "Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard . . . a hope of meeting you in another world" (42). Elizabeth is expe
Near the end of the novel, the Monster requests from Victor to create for him, a female counterpart. When the Monster says, "You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and I do demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede"(140). The Monsters longing for a person he can communicate with is very important. It signifies that he wants to be included in some kind of family situation as he has observed from before. He wants a person who can understand the way he feels and why he feels this way. When a person usually has problems, he/she turns to family for help, but in the case of the Monster; he has no family and must ask his creator to make him one. Not a whole family, but a single person, who could be his companion for life. The way the Monster needs a member is the same as Victor wanting to create a new member himself. By creating the female one, Victor is attempting to make a new family for the monster, but near the completion of the female monster, Victor decides to destroy it. He contemplates that making this female version of the Monster will allow the male one to be able to produce offspring's and this he thought would be a horrendous idea. A lot of little monsters with superhuman powers running around. Not one family in this novel was complete. Even in the beginning when the Frankenstein family took in Elizabeth from the poor family, they were breaking up another family. Although Elizabeth was not a part of that family to begin with, she was still taken from her original foster parents. "She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German, and had died on giving birth"(34). The additional family member from early on might have given Victor the idea of bringing in his "own "family member when his mother passed away. Elizabeth was very precious to him and he cared for her tremendously. "No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me - my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only" (35). This phrase right here shows his feelings for her
Some common words found in the essay are:
Monster Victor, Elizabeth Victor, Victor Frankenstein's, De Lacey, Mary Shelly, Shelly's Frankenstein, De Lacey's, missing family, frankenstein family, De Lace's, de lacey family, create female, fill role, role mother, monster created, family monster, life monster, frankenstein's family, de lacey, fill role mother,
Approximate Word count = 1457
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
