Theme of Loneliness and Rejection in Frankenstein Essay Example

Mary Shelley is best known for her novel Frankenstein, written when she was only 19 years old. Her novel explores many themes, most notably, loneliness and rejection. Loneliness is a subjective, unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship, which happens when there is a difference between the quality and quantity of the social relationships that individuals have and those they want. Mary Shelley’s portrayal of loneliness is shown through all three frames of Frankenstein, all characters living a different type of loneliness. Walton feels lonely even though he is surrounded by his crewmates and Victor chooses to ignore his family, entertaining himself with his science in hopes to get rid of his loneliness. The monster created by Victor Frankenstein's creature is rejected by society for his appearance causing him to be alone. 
To begin, Robert Walton is a polar explorer who has a thirst for exploration and to conquer, he throws himself into danger to search for a new northern passage. Even though Walton is shown as courageous, he is also lonely. He writes letters to his sister while on his expedition, expressing how he feels lonely even if he is surrounded by his crewmates; he writes, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply to mine”(10), stating that he does not in fact have the quality friendship that he is longing for. Although loneliness has one true definition and has been experienced by everyone at least once throughout their lives, everyone lives loneliness differently. That is the case for writing the letters to his sister, Margaret, is simply not sufficient to quench his thirst for companionship. Due to the fact that his crewmates fail to possess basic education and stem from different social classes, he feels lonely because he does not have anything in common with them. He feels alone, fantasizing about trying to find who he could share his interests and points of view: “I bitterly feel the want of a friend” (19).  Mary understands loneliness after having endured many hardships and losses in her life. She wants her readers to comprehend the feelings of each character and how isolation affects them. While on his quest, he met Victor Frankenstein. Walton is excited that he has found someone whose eyes reply to him that he ignores Frankenstein warning about what he had done, too happy that he is no longer lonely. 
Subsequently, Victor's thirst for knowledge brings him to a university in Ingolstadt, leaving him with his first encounter with loneliness: “I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure – I was now alone” (34). Invoking the notion that since he is alone now, he must occupy himself with his studies of natural philosophy and alchemy. As an intelligent scientist and philosopher, it is easy for Victor Frankenstein to occupy himself with his studies and experiments to rid himself of his loneliness, hidden beneath his passion for knowledge. Victor appears to lack feelings of love and compassion, he seems not to care about the alienation. However in reality, he mentions that since the creation of his creature he must hide, alone, from what he had done, fabricating a feeling of an overwhelming sense of guilt that accompanied his dreaded loneliness: “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree, the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime” (34). The author describes the quality of Victor's family relationships, they wish to stay in touch with him. Victor, however, makes no attempt to maintain any relations with his family. He dedicates all his time and energies to science, but he does not feel satisfied by it. It is his hope that when he completed the creation of his creature he would be relieved of the feeling he had been avoiding and that the neglect that Victor's family had been receiving from him would pay off if he succeeded in his experiment, instead he was forced into greater isolation from social interactions. 

Not to mention, because of Victor's lack of love and general feelings towards the creature he had created, it made him upset and blind with rage. The creature reveals that he is constantly failing to find these emotions in Victor. Comparing himself to others who deserve love from those who created them, but his creator has abandoned him: 
Sometimes I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, andin the bitterness of my heart I cursed him. (111) 
The creature's loneliness is his creator's fault, he blamed Victor, as anyone would, for leaving him after he had willingly created him. Not only did Victor abandon him, he made the creature hideous so he would not be able to find love elsewhere, the creature was reasonably mad “Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant,[...]. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man.[...] Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?”.(119)

Loneliness is one of the main themes of the novel, which is expressed in all three frames. Whether it be willingly, like Victor And Walton, who chose to be lonely by either going on an expedition or ignoring family, or being lonely unwillingly, like the creature who is alone due to his appearance, something he could not control. Everyone experiences loneliness at least once in their lives, but could social isolation help an individual to grow and learn as a person?