The Educational Texts - Quotations
English Lit: Edexcel A Level Frankenstein, topic 7.1.4
The Educational Texts - Quotations
The texts that the Monster reads are hugely influential upon him. The texts are intensely symbolic as to what Shelley views as the creation of the Monster’s moral and emotional questioning. Here they are in order, and what he learns from each:
Milton’s 'Paradise Lost' (1667)
- The Monster learns "different and far deeper emotions" when he reads Milton’s epic poem.
- He comments that "Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence...Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition".
- Even within the image of Satan, the Monster concludes that "Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred."
Plutarch’s Lives
- The Monster learns of "men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species".
- This text taught him "the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice".
Goethe’s 'The Sorrows of Werther'
- The Monster learns "lofty sentiments and feelings", deep emotions and "disquisitions upon death and suicide" from this text.
- "I learnt from Werter’s imaginations despondency and doom".