Frankenstein: Is Identity Born or Created in Shelley's Novel?
This essay examines how identity is constructed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, arguing that the creature is not born monstrous but becomes so through repeated rejection and mistreatment. Drawing on key passages from the novel, the essay traces the creature's development from a blank slate capable of empathy and love into a being driven by misery and malice. It also analyzes Shelley's layered narrative structure — framed letters, embedded first-person accounts, and the creature's own testimony — as a device that cultivates reader empathy for both Victor Frankenstein and his creation. The essay concludes that environment, perception, and human cruelty, not nature, forge the creature's ultimate identity.
- Introduction: Victor Frankenstein and His Experiment: Victor's background and the creation of his creature
- The Creature as a Blank Slate: The creature's appearance and initial neutral nature
- Shelley's Narrative Structure and Point of View: Layered narration and its role in building empathy
- The Creature's Emotional Development and Rejection: How rejection by the cottagers transforms the creature
- Identity Shaped by Misery: The Monster's Own Account: The creature's self-explanation and the nurture thesis
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its central argument — that identity is constructed rather than innate — directly in textual evidence, using quoted passages to support each analytical claim.
- Connects Shelley's narrative technique (the layered, framed narration) to its thematic purpose, showing how form reinforces meaning.
- Traces a clear arc of the creature's development, moving from physical description through emotional growth to moral collapse, giving the argument a satisfying logical progression.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The essay demonstrates effective close reading by selecting brief but precise quotations and explaining their significance rather than letting them speak for themselves. For example, the creature's own declaration — "I am malicious because I am miserable" — is used as a capstone to reinforce the nurture-over-nature thesis, showing how a single line can crystallize an entire argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with biographical and plot context before stating its thesis, then moves through three interlocking analytical threads: the creature's blank-slate origins, Shelley's narrative architecture, and the creature's emotional trajectory. Each paragraph builds on the last, culminating in the creature's self-explanation as a conclusion. The Works Cited entry follows MLA format.
Introduction: Victor Frankenstein and His Experiment
The title character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein grew up in eighteenth-century Switzerland. In the character's own words, "No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself" (33). Young Victor Frankenstein had loving parents and siblings he adored. These early years proved to be a stark contrast to university life, where Victor was an eager student but very lonely. He threw himself into his work, becoming obsessed with natural philosophy and science. In a bold experiment, he gathered an assortment of human parts and stitched them together, curious as to whether he could create life. Victor was astounded to see that he did, indeed, create a living creature. The initial thrill he experienced at the success of his experiment quickly turned to horror as his creature escaped and began terrorizing the countryside. The creature was not born a monster, however. His identity was shaped not only by Victor, but by the people the creature encountered as he traveled in search of love and acceptance.
The Creature as a Blank Slate
The creature fashioned by Victor was a horrible sight: "yellow skin… watery eyes… shriveled complexion and straight black lips" (55). Victor made assumptions about his creature's nature based on its appearance, assigning characteristics to the creature that were not present — at least in the beginning. The creature was essentially a blank slate. Over time he learned to meet his basic needs for food, shelter, and warmth. He acquired language. He became fully human when he developed empathy and learned to love.
Shelley's Narrative Structure and Point of View
Mary Shelley crafted her story to offer three points of view. In the first, a sea captain, R. Walton, writes his sister a series of letters in which he describes the rescue of a mysterious man who ultimately has a strange tale to tell. The man is Victor Frankenstein, who relates the story of his monster's creation and the horrible events that followed — including the murder of Victor's younger brother, a crime for which a beloved family friend was falsely accused, and the murder of his beloved bride. As Victor tells his story, he incorporates the account told to him by his monster.
This is a clever narrative device that Shelley employs, as it essentially creates an omniscient narrator while maintaining the intimacy of the first person. The device fosters empathy in the reader for Victor Frankenstein, helping us understand events and his role in them. It also creates a great deal of empathy for the monster, allowing us to see how his identity was forged by people's reactions to his appearance and their misinterpretation of his intentions. Scholars of Gothic fiction frequently note how this layered narrative technique distinguishes Frankenstein from other works of its era.
Work Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. Salem, Oregon: Bookbyte Digital, n.d. Electronic Book.
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