Monday, March 19, 2012

What are the similarities between Victor and the Monster in Frankenstein by Mary Shelly?

Even though he fled from his creation, I think that the
monster and Victor share some distinct and real similarities.  One one hand, both seek
to appropriate the world in accordance to their own subjectivity.  Victor appropriates
his world through science.  Scientific inquiry and rationality allow him to see the
world through his own eyes and his appropriation of it is done through this domain.  At
the same time, being a product of social conditioning, the Monster ends up appropriating
the world in accordance to his own subjectivity.  His frame of reference is anger and
vengeance for the wrong done to him.  When the monster kills, he does so because out of
his own sense of personal wrong and a lack of justice.  Remember that at the monster's
"birth," his first inclination was to approach his creator and experience rejection and
the pain of being shunned.  In this light, Shelley draws the argument that we are, to
certain extents, the products of our own social interaction.  Within this, the monster
appropriates the world in accordance to his own subjectivity, that of anger and loss. 
In both experiences, the characters connect to their objective and external reality
based on their own subjective experiences.

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