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Companionship

Companionship

“Satan had his companions, fellows devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.”

Quite possibly the most important theme pertaining to Frankenstein’s creature, companionship and understanding are displayed full force when the Creature discusses his need to be accepted by another being. Frankenstein’s abandonment and disgust at his own creation deeply affected how the Creature emotionally developed. His only desire in life was to understand why his master hated him so much and to find someone to accept him. In his desire for a companion, he feels anger when others refuse to accept him and when his creator refuses to build him a companion. Had Frankenstein acknowledged the Creatures basic “human” need for companionship, he may have avoided much of the misery that occurred later in his life, like the murder of his wife and best friend or the death of his father.

EDIT: Shelley references Satan in this passage to show that even the most hated and feared creature in the world has companions, but he (the Creature) still has no friendship.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

“…consisted of Paradise Lost…” (pg. 116)

Paradise Lost was written by John Milton in the seventeenth-century when the Anglican Church was beginning to receive backlash from the people of England. Milton was deeply angered by the vanity of the church and chose to express his contempt through an epic poem. Milton’s epic work centers around Genesis and the fall of Adam and Eve. In the end, Milton described something known as the “felix culpa”, better known as the “fortunate fall”, a idea that explains how mankind is better having been expelled from the Garden of Eden because it lead to the arrival of the Messiah and gave mankind more opportunity to prove itself as good.

EDIT: Shelley uses Paradise Lost as a reference in Frankenstein so the reader can draw the similarities between Adam and Eve's fall from grace and Victor's own fall in going against nature. When Victor decides to rebel against the natural flow of things and create his own monster, the unfortunate events in the rest of his life is his fall from grace.

Credit/Links: http://www.paradiselost.org/5-overview.html

Pandemonium

Pandemonium

“…divine a retreat as Pandemonium appeared to the demons of hell after their sufferings in the lake of fire.” (pg. 93)

Here, Frankenstein’s monster references John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton created the word pandemonium from two words-- ‘pan’ meaning all or every and ‘daimon’ which meant demon. In the sense of Paradise Lost, Pandemonium was the capital of Hell. After that, Pandemonium also grew to represent Hell in general.

Credit/Link: http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970307

The Moon

The Moon

“I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees.” (pg. 91)

This sentence is taken from the chapters narrated from the creature’s point of view while telling Frankenstein the story of his travels after running away from his creator. At the point that he is describing, the creature would have had no idea what the great white ball climbing into the sky but the reader knows that he is speaking of the moon.

Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“We rest: a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day…” (pg 85)

The excerpt used in this chapter of Frankenstein is from the poem Mutability by Mary Shelley’s lover and future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley first came up with the idea for Frankenstein during a stay with Percy in the Swiss Alps while he was still married and she was only nineteen. Months later, once Percy’s wife had drowned, the young couple was able to marry. It makes perfect sense that Mary would use a poem her lover had written to help him get exposure and/or express her devotion to Percy.

EDIT: Shelley decided to use this poem because it expressed the idea that the only time either Victor or his Creation has any real peace is when they are sleeping or at rest. Even more than that, the idea that one "wand'ring thought pollutes the day" or "a dream has power to poison sleep". If you look at the idea of sleep being peace, a dream corrupts that much like Victor's dream of creating life corrupted his life.

Credit/Links: http://www.geocities.com/plt_2000plt_us/englam/shl-8.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mshelley.htm

The Vicar of Wakefield

The Vicar of Wakefield

“…the Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield…” (pg. 46)

The Vicar of Wakefield was written by Oliver Goldsmith and tells the story of Dr. Primrose, a slightly wealthy and very generous young vicar with six children. Though the story begins with the vicar living peacefully with his family, Dr. Primrose’s life soon spirals out of control as he endures bankruptcy and several other domestic catastrophes including the disappearance of his daughter, a fire in his home and being sent to jail for being unable to pay his rent. In true Shakespearean-form, all ends well when the vicar’s friend resolves all the problems for him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Wakefield