Othering in Frankenstein Essay Sample

In the book Frankenstein, Mary Shelley talks about this creature that is being othered by many. Victor Frankenstein is a talented yet arrogant scientist that brought life to his very own creation. After Caroline, his mother, died he became obsessed with death and everything surrounding the subject. The creation of Frankenstein's monster quickly became a clear example of othering. The term othering can be described as a group of individuals that is described as not fitting in within social groups. Often focusing on appearance. Mary Shelley eing the readers to have a visual appearance of this character, for example, the monster's appearance, his behavior towards others and his speech and intelligence. 

The monster victor created is large in size and much different than his surroundings. He has a yellowish tone that is frightening to the human eye. Covered in filth and scars and created from both human and animal parts, this monster is different from others. His visual nature describes his other roles by not being included and everyone running away from him. The moment the monster sees his reflection in the water he is immediately startled by his hideousness. The way the monster is viewed by many he seems as if he cannot make any friends. The monster tries to make new friends by going up to them to talk but they all run away from him because he is so hideous. He asks himself “what am i”? He did not know what he was but all he knows is that he is ugly. 

Before Frankenstein's monster committed any heinous acts he was not considered a human. Instead he is described as “it” or species. The monster realsies right away that no other human will interact with him. When the monster was first created he did not know how ugly he actually was or why everyone was running away from him. Mary Shelley wrote this book to show othering between humans that do not look alike. This shows othering because the monster does not look like the rest of the people so they are singling him out by running away from him. The monster is vocally unclear and has the mind of a child. He is never taught anything because his father had left him because he was too scared to be around him. The monster turns into an orphan and has to learn everything on his own. 

The monster was not taught by his father how to speak, instead, he had to hear everything on his own. He peeps through windows to listen to people talk to learn the language. He had the ability to make different noises but he lacked the ability to put sentences together. Eventually, he is able to speak and this ultimately became his most human characteristic. When he found the cottage in the woods where the DeLaceys lived, he listened to Felix and Safie talk to each other to pick up their language. When people heard the monster speak or make any noises they ran away screaming because they thought he was going to kill them. In this book the characteristic Mary Shelley is trying to share with us is that people are more frightened by things that do not look like them. The Othering in this book has caused society to realize what it is like to be othered. Many people in the book seem to believe that he is aggressive because he does not act or look like the other humans. 

In this book, Mary Shelley puts others in it to show how society is now. Everyone has their own groups and if they don’t fit in they’re not welcome. The othering in the book shows that the monster is too ugly to be included or have any friends. She adds other things into the book to show that if you don't look like someone or act like that person you can't be included. People single others out to make them feel bad about themselves, but most of the time people do not even realize that they are othering people out. The monster tries to become friends with humans and tries to come back to Victor but Victor is too humiliated by what he created. Victor wanted nothing to do with his monster so he left again. The monster was still alone and demanded Victor to make him a girl, Victor tried but he couldn't. He was still so ashamed about what he did to his family that he left again and ended up getting pneumonia and dying. The monster was then left all by himself and had been othered his whole life.