The creature. An abomination made by a narcissistic man, set out to play God. Made by Victor, and quickly abandoned. This creature did not ask to be born, but over time observing and reading, it did ask to be loved. Because of his grotesque appearance, he is constantly faced with fear and rejection within his society; an outcast. Through this, the creature learns to hate and want revenge. But is it really his fault? I wouldn’t say so. He is a victim of his environment. Throughout the book, he acquires characteristics that we all have, such as compassion and even love, through the help of the De Lacey family (at first). When the creature becomes angry, he kills for the sake of revenge. To me, this is like a child, even though he is in the body of an adult. He has no real rationalizations other than to act in accordance to what he wants, with no thought to consequence. This anger is shown in the destruction of the Frankenstein family.
In class, we discussed the idea of the creature representing a side of Victor. I would like to take this further and say he represents Victor’s id. In class we had said the creature represented Victor’s ego; I disagree. If this is true, then the creature would think rationally, moralize his choices, and be level headed between the id and superego, which the creature does not do. Because of the reasons I discussed in this post, the creature respresenting Victor’s id would mean he wants whatever pleases him at the time with no consideration for the reality of the situation. Another reason for this statement would be when the creature lusts after the woman in the locket (unknown to him it is his grandmother), which leads to him almost raping a woman sleeping in a barn. Almost forgot to mention that one!
