Role

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The Monster as a 'Good' Character

The depiction of the Monster’s development and education presents him as an intelligent and compassionate being. But, he is mistreated by everyone that he meets which leads him to violent revenge.

The Monster's background

Victor’s creation is never given a name, but is often referred to by readers as ‘The Monster’ or ‘The Creature’.
He is made of body parts and was brought to life by Victor’s experiment.
His appearance is grotesque.
The Monster wants to become part of human society and attempts to learn through experiences, watching, and reading.
The Monster displays intelligence and empathy for other humans but his mistreatment by all those he meets eventually leads him to seek violent revenge on Victor and his family.

The De Lacey family

Shelley uses the Monster’s appreciation of the De Lacey family as a way of depicting his innate goodness.
When the Monster first comes across the family and observes them, he experiences emotions he doesn’t understand from witnessing their closeness and affection for each other.
When he realises that stealing food from them has hurt them emotionally, he reverts to foraging in the woods.
- This shows that the Monster has empathy for the family, a human trait.
- This contrasts to Victor’s lack of empathy for the Monster when he rejected him.

Altruistic actions

The Monster actively helps the De Lacey family by chopping wood for them, simply for the sake of helping them rather than for praise.
In these earlier stages, Shelley suggests that the Monster is not a villain.
- She presents the Monster as an appealing and likeable character.
This serves to make the De Laceys’ rejection of the Monster seem all the crueler and encourages the reader to see him as a victim of society’s narrow-mindedness, rather than the monstrous villain that Victor has suggested him to be.

The Monster as the Antagonist

The Monster's desire to cause destruction and kill only arises from the way in which society systematically shuns him.

Victor and the Monster

Alongside Victor as the protagonist of the novel, the Monster is the antagonist, and Shelley demonstrates how their fates are unavoidably intertwined.
By the end of the novel, each of the characters is motivated solely by the desire to catch the other and enact their final revenge.
The interconnected nature of the two characters is clearly demonstrated when Victor finally dies and the Monster then embraces his own death.
- Without Victor to pursue, the Monster’s life lacks any meaning.

Interconnectedness

One psychoanalytic reading suggests that the Monster and Victor could be read as two halves of a single entity.
This encourages the reader to consider if one of the ‘halves’ is ‘good’ and the other ‘evil'.
Whilst it is unarguable that it is the Monster that commits the murders of William, Clerval and Elizabeth, Shelley suggests that these actions only come from Victor’s own inaction.
- It is Victor's failure to take responsibility for his creation that turns the Monster out into the world with no protection or guidance.

Nature or nurture?

In Volume Two: Chapter 2, the Monster tells Victor how 'misery made [him] a fiend'.
This question of whether it is nature or nurture which has led to the Monster’s ‘monstrosity’ is a key idea of the novel.