Q: “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to by thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous” (pg. 93)
C: I really enjoy this part in the book where Frankenstein is finally reunited with his creation. Prior to this encounter we see Frankenstein scared of what he had created and accusing it of killing William and ultimately Justine. Frankensetin had abandoned his creation as soon as it did what he had intended. Which I found odd. He wanted to make a dead thing living, or rather, a living thing out of nothing and he did just that. But as soon as he realized what he had created he was scared. It wasn’t until I heard what the creature had to say about his life after he left Frankenstein’s apartment that I started to feel sympathy for him. In this quote, the creature is explaining that although he “looked like a monster” he was only so because he saw “normal people” getting to live lives that he would never be able to. He also says that he wasn’t built/made with the intent of being a monster or doing any harm. In fact when he was made he was good. It was misery that would make him the way he was. I really dislike how Frankenstein had made this creature and left him to be on his own. He ran away from essentially his child. Frankenstein had lost so much sleep and had gotten ill over making this creature and had spent many many hours on him no doubt, just to run away at the first sign of life. This makes me incredibly sad for the creature. This also ties in with a point that Cohen made in one of his Theses about monsters such as this creature in Frankenstein but also in Quasimoto, that it is the people in society that make those with slight differences into monsters because they are not considered “normal.”
Q: A question or thought that I am left with is how could Frankenstein have so easily abandoned what seemed to be his life’s work? Especially when it came in the way of seeing and contacting his family and he seemed to have given up so much for it. Also why did it take him so long to search for this creature? I don’t even really think that he searched, moreso just stumbled across him.
