Frankenstein
Ch. 18 – 23
Negative Consequences of
Human Creation
Group 3
Iris, Joyce, Kelly, Renee, Sony, Vivi, Vivien, Daisy
Outline
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Plot
Frankenstein’s changes
Frankenstein’s decisions
Monster’s change and revenge
Frankenstein in human society
Conclusion
Plot Summary
• Victor travels to England.
• The creation of the female monster.
• Frankenstein thinks about the consequences
of this new creation.
• Victor destroys the female monster.
• Victor is arrested.
• The death of Clerval.
• The union of Victor and Elizabeth.
• The misinterpretation of the wedding night.
Frankenstein’s Changes
Frankenstein’s Changes
• Before the creation of the monster
1) Enjoyed nature. (74)
Clerval
2) Passion for pursuing knowledge. (pp. 40, 51)
3) Ignored his family while creating the monster.
• After the creation
1) Felt antipathy about “natural philosophy”(158; 164).
2) Couldn’t calm himself down even he was traveling
in splendid scenery. (154-55)
(William& Justine’s death, haunting of monster)
3) Felt guilty about his family (158).
Frankenstein’s Decisions
Why did he promise the monster to make a
mate at first?
• Victor’s reservation, “Shall I create another like yourself, whose
joint wickedness might desolate the world.”(145) You will not
“persevere in the exile” (146)
 Victor’s sympathy , “I was moved...but I felt that there was
some justice in his argument.” (Page 146) (antipathy 147)
 Monster’s promise, “If you consent, neither you nor any other
human being shall ever see us again...” (Page 146)
 Victor’s thought , “I consent to your demand, on your solemn
oath to quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the
neighborhood of man...” (Page 148)
Victor’s reasons for destroying the mate
(Page 165)
 The mate’s disposition
“ ...she might become ten thousand times more malignant than
her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and
wretchedness.”
“...refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.”
“...might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of
man ...she might quit him...”
 The breeding of monsters as a race
“...a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth...”
(concern about others)
The direct cause of destroying the mate
• Victor’s misinterpretation
•
“A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on
me...he had followed me in my travels... his countenance
expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. ”
(Page 166)
• Victor’s madness
“I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise
of creating another like to him, and trembling with
passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was
engaged.” (Page 166)
Questions
• If Frankenstein did not promise the monster to
make a mate, would the ending change?
• If he did not break his promise to destroy the
mate, would the monster keep its promise and
stay away from human being?
Monster’s change and revenge
Before
• Kindness
“When I found that in doing this [stealing from their
store]I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and
satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots, which I
gathered from a neighboring wood. (Page 111)
• Intelligence
"My days were spent in close attention that I might
more speedily master the language; and I may boast that I
improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood
very little, and conversed in broken accents, whilst I
comprehended and could imitate almost every word that
was spoken.”
• Fond of Helping People
"I remember the first time that I did this the young
woman, when she opened the door in the morning,
appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood
on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and
the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I
observed, with pleasure.”
• Interested in Reading and Music
“I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere,
and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original
inhabitants.”
Afterwards it takes
revenge through Killing......
Why?
•Repeatedly Rejected by People
First Contact with People (106)
De Laceys (138)
Girl fell into river (141)
•Pay without reciprocation and Keep Trying
Finding Solutions
“I ought to have familiarized the old De Lacey to me, and by
degrees to have discovered myself to the rest of his family,
when they should have been prepared for my approach. But
I did not believe my errors to be irretrievable; and, after
much consideration, I resolved to return to the cottage, seek
the old man, and by my representations win him to my party.”
(Page 137)
Three Rejections & the Monster’s Responses: 1
De Lacey’s Felix, ‘we can never again inhabit your cottage.
The life of my father is in the greatest danger, owing to
the dreadful circumstance that I have related. My wife
and my sister will never recover their horror. I entreat you
not to reason with me any more. Take possession of your
tenement, and let me fly from this place.’ ” (Page 138)
 For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled
my bosom, … I bent my mind towards injury and death.
When I thought of my friends,…, these thoughts
vanished and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me.
But again when I reflected that they had spurned and
deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and
unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury
towards inanimate objects.” (138)
•Three Rejections & the Monster’s Responses: 2
• [being shot at with a gun] when he tries to approach the girl
he saves.
• “This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a
human being from destruction, and, as a recompense, I
now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound, which
shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and
gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments
before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth.
Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to
all mankind.” (Page 141)
Three Rejections & the Monster’s Responses: 3
• Seeing William, the monster thinks of “educating”
him and turning him into his companion.
• William calls him “Hideous monster!” and says
his father will “punish” him.  the first victim
• The portrait (143) –the monster gazes with
delight, but then his rage returns.
• Seeing Justine’s smile, the monster is afraid that
she will wake up and denounce him.  “The
thought was madness; it stirred the fiend within
me.”(144)
Hope in having his same Species
• Hope in having his same Species
“I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me;
but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny
herself to me. My companion must be of the same species,
and have the same defects. This being you must create.
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 demand it of you as a
right which you must not refuse to concede.” (Page 144)
Rejected by Frankenstein
The Fatal Destruction by Human Beings
An Entirely Devastation of Being Accepted
• “I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of
creating another like to him, and trembling with passion,
tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. (Page 166)
 the monster: a howl of devilish despair and revenge
• "You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it
that you intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have
endured toil and misery: I left Switzerland with you; I crept
along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow islands,
and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many months
in the heaths of England, and among the deserts of
Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold,
and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?” (Page 167)
Mirror Image:
The monster itself
vs.
how Frankenstein looks at it
• The monster hoped that
people would accept it
once they know it does no
harm to them
• Frankenstein believed it
was a devil just as how it
looks like.
•
“I persuaded myself that when
they should become
acquainted with my
admiration of their virtues,
they would compassionate me,
and overlook my personal
deformity.” (p.130)
I produced “a depraved wretch,
whose delight was in carnage
and misery” (77)
“Shall I create another like
yourself, whose joint
wickedness might desolate
the world! Begone! I have
answered you; you may torture
me, but I will never
consent.“ (p.193)
• Through reading literature,
the monster felt itself like
Adam in the “Paradise Lost”
• Frankenstein took it as
devil and never named it.
• Desire of its own Eve
• Reason: “Make me happy,
and I shall again be
virtuous ”
• Frankenstein took this
request as the possibility
from the monster couple
to take over human’s
world "Begone! I will not
hear you. There can be
no community between
you and me; we are
enemies. Begone, or let
us try our strength in a
fight, in which one must
fall."
The monster as a murderer
Two kinds of victims:
• A) kill to revenge the whole human race (nothing
to do with Frankenstein)
“…Not I, but she shall suffer: the murder I have committed
because I am for ever robbed of all that she could give me,
she shall atone. The crime had its source in her: be hers
the punishment! Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the
sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work
mischief. I bent over her, and placed the portrait securely in
one of the folds of her dress. She moved again, and I fled.”
(p.144)
B) kill to revenge Frankenstein
1) William
“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation
and hellish triumph: clapping my hands, I exclaimed, `I, too,
can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this
death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other
miseries shall torment and destroy him.” (p.143)
2) Clerval-but with pain
3) Elizabeth
“But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my
existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope
for happiness... I recollected my threat and resolved that it
should be accomplished.” (p.220)
Frankenstein
and
Human Society
Frankenstein’s Family Ties
The Frankenstein
Family and
Friends
Alphonse
Frankenstein
Henry Clerval
Elizabeth
Lavenza
Caroline
Beaufort
Victor
Frankenstein
William
Frankenstein
Ernest
Frankenstein
Transition
• Monster: “Shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and
each beast have his mate, and I be alone?” (pg. 167)
• Hopes for a mate revenge
• Frankenstein: “I shuddered to think that the future ages
might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not
hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the
existence of the whole human race.” (pg. 166)
• Selfish thoughts considers about humanity
• Dissection of the female monster: “
–
I “felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. ”
(170)
– “I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like
myself ” (169)
The Course of Isolation
1. Self-Imposed Mental isolation:
 Desires to do the work in solitude and even pass his life in
solitude.(? a barrier; 158 )  responsibilities 183
 Depressed by negative emotions (181).
 The death of Clerval.
2. Physically/Socially isolated:
 The sea (pg.169): warm joy of life (172)
 Frankenstein’s encounter with the villagers, the woman
and the physician.(173, 177, 178)
 The judgment and trial. (176, 182)
 The responses of the two magistrates: Mr. Kirwin p. 177,
200
(1)+(2) Parallel to the sufferings of the monster.
Frankenstein and the monster are inseparable.
The Completion of Isolation
• The death of Elizabeth and the father:
• Frankenstein misinterprets the monster’s
intentions: “The monster had blinded me to his real
intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my
own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.” (pg. 191)
 He underestimates the monster’s intelligence.
 After destroying the female monster, Victor thinks
that the monster would directly seek him in
revenge.
The Completion of Isolation
• “Man! You may hate; but beware! Your hours will pass in
dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must
ravish from you your happiness forever.” (pg. 168)
• Frankenstein’s decision deprives the happiness
of the monster the monster’s revenge the
death of two women Frankenstein isolated.
Question
• Why does Frankenstein insist on telling Elizabeth
that he created the monster and the things that
happened after the creation of monster until the
second day after their marriage?