“What makes a monster, and what makes a man?” (Alexander) ponders the deformed character Quasimoto in the movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A kind and gentle creature, he constantly faces hatred from society due to his twisted appearance, forcing him into a life of solitude. The resulting emotional turmoil or consistent abandonment and social solitude ultimately provoke his untimely death. This broken and helpless creatures parallels the abandoned monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. From birth he is perceived as a monster and is shunned for his misshapen appearance. As the confused, infantile creature is ostracized and abandoned, he shaped into a killer as he gains knowledge and experience of the outside world.
Through social prejudice and emotional abandonment Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, like Quasimoto, was lead to an unseemly end. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the detrimental effects of isolation and abandonment transform the creature into the monster he is perceived to be. Victor Frankenstein’s creature, throughout the course of the novel, is consistently forced out of society due to his foreboding figure. This forced social isolation drives the deterioration of his mental state. He cries, “everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded” (Shelley 96). His very existence seems to him deplorable, only redeemed by his death.
Anne Mellor, in her criticism on Frankenstein, describes his mentality: “Deprived of all human companionship, the creature can never recover from the disease of self-consciousness; for him, no escape, save death, is possible” (77). He views his life as wretched, cursed, and insignificant due to his lack of relation. The isolation turns him inwards, driving him to hate himself just like everyone else. The creature’s seclusion is forced upon him by the innate prejudice within the minds and hearts of the people who meet him. Their sole judgment of his character is based upon his appearance. The only human who treats him with any sense of benevolence is a poor blind man Mr. De Lacey.
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Elderly Mr. De Lacy lived in a small cottage, cared for by several younger members of the family. The creature grows extremely fond of the De Lacey family and aids them in any way he could without being noticed. He finally works up the courage to approach the elderly man, who receives the visit with slight wariness but overall acceptance. He has a short conversation with him until the other family members appear and immediately throw him out of the house in terror. In response to his unwelcome reception, the creature declares, “The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me.
The mild exhortations of the loved Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!” (Shelley 120). The people he so adored rejected him the moment they discovered his existence, fueling his downward spiral into the path of self-loathing. Coupled with forced social isolation, the creature also grapples with the reality of his parental abandonment. Abandonment by paternal figures engenders feelings of solitude and furthers mental instability.
The young creature comes to recognize that Frankenstein himself abhors his creation, and this rejection fuels the hate and disgust the creature has for both himself and Victor. When he meets Victor again after his creation, the creature admonishes him, “Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance” (Shelley 131).
The creature realizes that it was Victor’s decision to make his form terrifying and repulsive, and he hates Victor for every bit of rejection he has received from others. The creature’s other justification for his hate derives from the gross neglect from Victor in any shape of creator or father. The creature tells him, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed” (Shelley 96). Even though the creature did nothing wrong around the time of his birth, he was still abandoned.
Rejection from the only man who should have loved him fuels the creature’s terrible fire. Don Nardo, an American author, and historian discusses the harsh effects of Victor’s actions in his book, Understanding Frankenstein. He comments, “Abandoned at the moment of birth by its creator-father, the creature learns to fend for, itself in a hostile world, where it learns to hate and kill” (Nardo 92). Without any form of quality parental guidance, the creature is driven to the edge of sanity, brimming with hate.
Victor did not give the creature the primitive, parent-like human connection that every child needs and no possible way to initiate one. It has been proven that the effects on a child who has no parental connection are detrimental. Robert Kai, in his book Children and Their Development, states that “secure attachment evidently promotes trust and confidence in other humans, which leads to more skilled interactions later in childhood” (Kail 265). Victor gives his creation a deformed body and no parental connections to aid him.
The creature has absolutely nothing on which to base positive social interactions. Interactions with humans were impossible to begin with due to his repulsive form, and Victor’s total rejection of his child limits his ability to communicate and isolates him completely. The creature tells Victor, “[…] am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me, what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?” (Shelley 97). Victor has given the creature absolutely no chance at a normal existence. Based on these arguments, the person solely responsible for the terrible actions of the creator is Victor himself.
By failing in his role as guardian and creator, Victor released a being so capable of destruction into a world that would mold him into a monster who would desire it. Mellor notes, “[…] a human deprived of companionship, or nurturing, of mothering, is driven beyond the pale of humanity” (72). Without parental guidance and care, people are led to become outsiders in their own world. Psychology has recognized the detrimental effects of remote parenting. The book, A Social Psychology of Loneliness, describes that “[…] lonely respondents remembered their parents as being remote, less trustworthy, and disagreeable, whilst other respondents remembered their parents as warm, close, and helpful” (Perlman and Peplau 44).
The mere feeling of distance between parental figures fosters a sense of solitude. By extension, the downright abandonment of the creature would lead to even more adverse effects. The broken creature, now consumed in his own remorse, anger, hate, and struggles, begins down the path of destruction. The combination of parental abandonment and social isolation inevitably leads to devastating ramifications. Victor’s careless handling of the creation and treatment of the creature leads the creature into the monster that everyone already perceived him to be.
The article “Frankenstein: Is It Really about the Dangers of Science?” explains that “…because [the creature] cannot integrate into society, he becomes alienated from common kindness and interaction, and rewards ostracism with violent crime” (Bond). The forced separation that the creature experiences from the rest of society is a main driving factor into his transformation from a gentle being to a killer, full of hate and prone to violence. Realizing that he will never be accepted in any form, he turns and changes. Yet he isn’t solely motivated by wrath and passion, he is also driven by sorrow. In the same monologue, the creature explains to Victor, “I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?” (Shelley 147). The devious pairing of misery and fury feeds the creature’s transformation into a monster. This wave of fury is focused on the creature’s maker, Victor.
The creature blames Victor for his existence, his plight, and his transformation. Mellor explains, “What the creature does know is that a child deprived of a loving family becomes a monster” (Mellor 69). Victor’s “Fallen Adam” recognizes that his abandonment was a driving factor towards his downfall, and resents Victor deeply for it. His life is set on destroying Victor’s. He insists, “I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred” (Shelley 148). He deserts the ideals of love and kindness for the darker calling of terrorism.
All emotion inside of him has been refocused on to one goal: to destroy everything that Victor hold dear until he, too, begs for death. The radical transformation of the creature now complete, he begins to kill and terrorize, becoming the monster that everyone had believed him to be. The downward spiral of emotions caused by isolation and abandonment finally lead the creature to become a desolate monster, void of love. Throughout the novel, as the creature becomes more self-aware and recognized the full extent of his station he changes to become more of the monster that he was perceived to be.
The world rejected him, so he rejected the world. He suffered due to the hand of Victor, so he made Victor suffer. This leads to his untimely death at the end of the novel. This Quasimoto-type figure – reviled by the world, and abandoned by all who should have loved him – does what Quasimoto never did: he turns. He rejects previous ideas of morality and is shaped into the villain and the monster that society wanted him to be.
Works Cited
- Alexander, Jason, performer. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, Walt Disney Studios, 1996. Bond, Chris. ‘Frankenstein: Is It Really about the Dangers of Science?’
- The English Review, vol. 20, no. 1, Sep. 2009, pp. 28+. Literary Resource Center, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A208587507/GLS?u=mill17935&sid=GLS&xid=eb6d7eb3. Accessed 16 Oct. 2018. Kail, Robert V. Children and Their Development. Prentice Hall, 1998.
- Mellor, Anne K. Readings on Mary Shelley Frankenstein. Edited by Don Nardo, Greenhaven Press, 2000. Literary Companion Series. Nardo, Don. Understanding Frankenstein. Lucent Books, 2003. Understanding Great Literature.
- Perlman, Daniel, and Letitia Anne Peplau. ‘Toward a Social Psychology of Loneliness.’ Personal Relationships in Disorder, pdf ed., Academic Press, 1981, pp. 31-56. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Tom Doherty Associates, 1988.
