Frankenstein Creature Letter - Essay Example

Dear Victor Frakenstein, I still remember vividly how when I opened my eyes for the first time, with life infused in me by you, I saw you run away from me in disgust. That was my first impression of the world that awaited me. You left me alone; to discover life on my own. I, who was a corpse (or at least part of many), who had no idea what life was, and what to do with it. I, out of love for you, my creator, came to your room, to talk to you, to explain that I needed help, and what did you do? You ran again. Ran away from your own creation (Chapter 5, 2nd page), a creature you had created yourself in your ambition to achieve greatness far beyond what had been achieved so far. I was left alone, confused and bewildered and had no choice but to flee myself. I know you hated me the minute you saw life in me; you were disgusted by me, by what you had created. I could see it in your eyes, you thought of me as a monster, even your enemy (Chapter 5 3rd last page). Afterwards, you went away, leaving me alone, not even bothering to think what would happen to me. I was scared, I had no recollection of life before this and had no idea of who or what I was. What was I to do? Where was I to go? If my creator could abandon me with so much disgust, who would adopt me as their own? I took some of your clothes and wandered into the jungle of Ingoldstadt. I was like a baby, new to the world with no idea about anything, however, unlike a baby, I had to learn everything about everything on my own. You were not to there to guide me, you had run away from me. I found that wherever people saw me, they were frightened and repulsed by me. I did not know why. It was you who made me thus, was it not Frankenstein? I was a gentle creature, who had no idea why the world was drawing back from him, even those whom I loved. It was not my fault that I was created Frankenstein, it was yours. You hated me from the beginning. Your revulsion, though not apparent at the time to me due to my failure to comprehend, is very clear to me now. Your greeting for me when we first talked also reflects on your hatred for me, your own creature; you called me a devil, a vile insect; you wanted to kill me. You hated me with all your heart. I would not have blamed you had you hated me only for the actions that I had committed, but the truth is that you hated me from the beginning. You did not give me any name, you did not address me but with contempt. What was I to do to get attention from you? I loved you. You were my creator, my mother and my father in essence. I was bound to you by the laws of creation, as you were to me. I did not break my tie with you, I did not run away from you, I did not reject you, yet all these were inflicted upon me by you. Yes, I did murder all those people; your brother, you best friend and even your wife were murdered by my very own hands. But it surprises me that you blame me with it. I ask you, am the only one to blame? Even when I offered my hand in servitude to you, when I asked you to make me happy, to do your duty towards me, you spurned me, rejected me and called me your enemy (page 85, 4th page of chapter 10). I implored you to show some favor to me, not to shun me with so much hatred. Had you not seen what your hatred had caused me to do? I killed your brother, not to take revenge from you I assure you, but to get noticed by you. You had left me to fend for myself and wanted me to simply vanish in the air. I gave you the choice to stop me from becoming a monster, as the decision lay with you and not me. If my own creator hated the sight of me, what could I expect from anyone else? I searched for you everywhere after being shunned by all, I found some papers in the clothes that I had taken from your room from which I took guidance in my efforts to find you. I knew I had to confront you, to ask you why you made me so hideous that not even you, my creator, could love me. I tried to be a good, gentle “man”, but every time I did something good, I was rewarded with pain. Each time I tried to become a part of the society, I was made to feel that I was nothing but a monster, even when I saved someone from drowning, I was perceived to be a fiend. I decided the only option open to me was to stay away from the “humans” as much as possible and to take my revenge upon you. It was you who had brought me into this world, as ugly as I was, and then to leave me alone and without any hope of finding love. I asked in vain: Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.’ (page 110, 3rd page of Chapter 15) Even your small brother was prejudiced against me because of how I looked, but he was unaware that it was his own brother, you, who had made me so ugly. As soon as I realized that it was your brother I held before my eyes, I knew that for revenge, and to get you to suffer the way I suffered, I had to kill him. That is when I considered you my enemy, and who can blame me, since you thought me as your enemy long before I did. (pg. 52, 5th page of chapter 5) Indeed, I even implicated the girl in the murder because I knew that had she seen me, she would have shown me as much hatred and rejection as the rest of the world. So, essentially, I was saving myself by destroying someone else. Before pointing the finger at me, remember that it was exactly what you did when you stayed quiet during all of her trial for fear that someone will call you crazy if you opened your mouth. So who is the bigger fiend then? And who is more guilty of the murder of the girl? You did show mercy to me when you gave me the promise of creating a mate for me, for once I believed that I could be happy, if not in the world of “men” then in another world of my own making. I could live with my “wife” in hiding somewhere in peace with no “humans” to bother us or be scared of us. Yet you took away that hope when you did not give life to that other creature. You took away my right to have a companion, to be happy in this world. I did not want you to enjoy having a companion when you had destroyed any chances of me ever having one. You, who had denied me the pleasure of companionship, first by making me ugly, and then by not giving life to the promised creature that you were creating for me, you had the luxury of companionship. You enjoyed the company of your friend and your soon to be bride, and they loved you. You had love when you deprived me of it. The thought of you enjoying company when you had deprived me of it completely drove me mad. You, with hatred in your voice, told me how you would not have anything to do with providing me with a companion. Did I not tell you then that “I shall be with you on your wedding-night”? (page 143, 4th page of Chapter 20). Yet even that did not persuade you to go back on your resolution to make me a lonely being with no one to turn to for satisfying my hunger of love and companionship. You did not offer your companionship to me and it was averse to you to see me surrounded by those of my kind. I deprived you of companionship for you to feel what it was like to be. Can you blame me? A creature rejected by one and all, without the hope of happiness, seeing the being, YOU, who created his miserable existence and his misery, happy and loved? I had to take it all away from you, I had to make you as lonely as you, because maybe you would then come to appreciate what I went through, and maybe, just maybe, you would learn to love me, as you would not be left with any other option. I ask you Frankenstein, in this tale of woe, in our lives which are entwined together, who is the monster? Is it me, who looks like one, and certainly acted the part too, albeit because of your attitude towards me? Or is it not you, you who created the monster and you who led it to act so fiendishly? Was it not your actions that actually led to all this evil? Signed, Your Nameless Creature. References: (please change these references according to those written in bracket in the text above) Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, p. 61 Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, p. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, pp. xi-xlvii Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, pp. xi-xlvii Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, pp. xi-xlvii Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition) by Mary Shelley, ed. M. Hindle, pp. xi-xlvii Read More