I think the problem is the students are giving too much credence to the monster's monologues, but "He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my [Frankenstein's] heart; but trust him not."
All that aside, you can't look past strangling a 4-year-old boy. It's reasonable to call anything that strangles a 4-year-old boy a monster, even if it felt lonely/abandoned.
And even the monster has the self-insight to know that he's fundamentally evil: "I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good."
I agree, the creature (monster?) is not innocent, and eventually becomes a monster but Victor himself absolutely is a monster, from the beginning. He gets into an absolute fervor to create life from nothing but cadaver parts, finally succeeds, only to abhor what he created. But then, the creature, seeking guidance and understanding is shunned at every opportunity, treated as an aberration, and vilified by Victor... for simply existing.
The book was a very difficult read for me, as Victor makes the wrong choice at literally every turn, but somehow still places the blame externally onto his creation. How it ended was for the best, for all parties involved.
Was it cruel for Frankenstein to bring this tortured being into life? Yes.
Is the creature a victim then? Yes.
Does the creature purposefully harm and kill others (and also try to force Frankenstein into making another tortured being because he wants her to be ugly and face the same torment as him so she’ll have to be with him; showing that he is just as if not more willing to commit the same horror as the Dr. just to feel slightly less alone)? Yes.
Does that make him a monster? Yes.
I mean seriously guys he’s still a fucking monster.
The doctor crossed a line and did something monstrous, but he didn’t know how bad it would be. The creature, however, knows exactly how bad it is, and still wants to do commit the sin again because—by incel-esque logic—this new cursed being will have to love him. If you’re willing to knowingly subject another person to indefinite torture just to feel slightly better yourself, you might be a monster.
Serial killers often had bad childhoods, but that doesn’t excuse their monstrous actions. Frankenstein’s creature had a rough life, but he’s still a monster.
I think that's a bit unfair. Frankenstein had no sympathy for his creation whatsoever, he ran away after creation and when he first met him he called him monster and wouldn't listen to his story. The creature had to watch humans from afar and to learn to live, being secluded in a hut for at least a year.
He wanted to bring joy to the family which he called protectors, he helped them when they couldn't see them and was constantly afraid of being discovered. It took him so much courage to confront the family for which he gained affection only to be attacked and they fled quickly after.
In his final speech of the book, his sentiment is basically that. All his life he wanted to converse with other humans and be included in society, but he was not allowed, because everyone called him a monster and screamed at his appearance.
Of course murdering other people was the wrong approach to this situation, but he was equipped with weapons and used them when his emotions were too strong for rationale.
Fair, it’s also been a really long time since I read the book, so perhaps my opinion has become overly biased from just having this argument over and over again and is no longer a true assessment of the source material
It strikes me that Frankenstein, as a work of literature does try to teach a moral lesson.
To me, it feels wrongheaded to take the lesson "Hey, maybe if you're a being born of ultimate neglect, maybe don't do any vengeful murders" from this work.
"If you're going to make a person, which is a thing people do all the time, it is your responsibility to not neglect or abuse them" is probably closer to the truth.
Goddammit! For all those still struggling to understand: Frankenstein's monster didn't create himself. Dr. Frankenstein did. The monster didn't ask to be created and while its' sheer existence was a "crime against nature" the creature itself was innocent. So it logically was a victim of Frankenstein's Faustian ambitions. This simple fact -and its' classic predecessors- of course remain completely ignored by The Sun and its' braindead readers.
Well, it's admittedly been some time I watched any of the various adoptions but didn't the monster inherit some psycho killer's brain? So it has the killers personality but not his memories?
Frankenstein immediately labels him an abomination as soon as he comes to life, and he never gives him a chance to show that he’s anything but a monster.
He also hides out trying to help this family for a long time, and as soon as they see him, they assume he’s evil and terrible and run away as well.
The monster kills a few of Frankensteins family members, and stalks him for the rest of his days though, so he did kinda become the thing he was thought to be.
Victims turning into monsters because of abuse is kinda the whole point of the book.
In the UK, The Sun newspaper targets those blessed with the gift of not having to worry about having their own thoughts.
It is infamously a standout vile paper. They continued having a full page different topless girl on page 3 for decades. Throughout they routinely describe black, brown, Muslim, LGBTQ+ in derogatory ways. Charlie Kirk would have promoted them.
Nick Groom, external, a professor of English literature at the University of Exeter, who has written a new introduction to mark the novel's 200th anniversary since publication.
“It’s interesting when I teach the book now, students are very sentimental towards the being,” Professor Groom wrote.
“There’s been a gradual shift... for years Victor Frankenstein’s creation was known as the Monster, then critics seemed to identify him as a victim and called him the Creature. That fits more with students’ sensibilities today.”
So far, there have been no comments on the parallels between Frankenstein and his creature and the Christian god and theirs. I think many people also assume the word creature has a negative connotation, but I would not be surprised if that stemmed from the effect this book had on society, and its use was mostly literal.
The "journalists" of The Sun. They are good at inventing stories, but proper journalism and background research is not exactly their strong point, to put it mildly.