Prejudice in Frankenstein

Book Reports
Pages 3 (753 words)
Download 0
When someone is said to have created a Frankenstein's monster, it is shorthand for the creation of a force that has taken on a destructive life of its own. In many ways, prejudice is a Frankenstein's monster that is created out of fear. Prejudice is usually defined as an opinion formed without knowledge, but in fact prejudice is usually forged from fear of misconceived knowledge…


In psychological terms, the Creature can be considered as a manifestation of the Other, and the rejection of the Creature by Frankenstein and the other characters is an example of how the fear of difference works to instill prejudice against those who don't reflect the accepted norm. Otherness as a psychological term is a representation of the abnormal; more specifically it the representation of an abnormality that threatens the social fabric. Whenever this threat arises, the prevailing ideological power structure responds in one of two ways. Either the threat is rejected outright and destroyed, or it is rendered safe and absorbed into the mainstream until its threatening components are diluted and it becomes a replica of society itself. Regardless of which method is utilized, the first step is to distance the threat through language. Disparaging terms, epithets, pejorative descriptions of that which threatens normality is the historic stepping stone toward destruction or assimilation. When Frankenstein describes his creation as "'Abhorred monster! fiend that thou art! the tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes. ...
Download paper
Not exactly what you need?

Related papers

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Book Report/Review
With this as the main theme of the essay, let us move on to the next part.…
Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Ph.D. Book Report/Review
Victor is blinded by the idealism that hopes to conquer the method of birth through un-naturalistic process, and so the creation accuses him for delivering him into a world where he could not ever be wholly received by the individuals who inhabit it. Not only failing to foresee his faulty idealism, nearing the end of the tale, he embarks upon a final journey, consciously choosing to pursue his…
6 pages (1506 words)
Love in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
Love cannot eclipse sorrow as Victor 'is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him.' (Shelley 9). Ralph begins to love Victor like a brother and is in turn saddened to see him broken by misery. Ralph asks him to relate his story so that he can see if he can be of help to him. Victor thanks him for his sympathy…
4 pages (1004 words)
His obsession with the life principle through generation of life out of assembled body parts of the dead has led him to his ultimate demise.…
2 pages (502 words)
Pride & Prejudice
Bennett is primarily uninfluenced by what had happened last year and is as resolved as ever to get her daughter married to Mr. Bingley.…
4 pages (1004 words)
The theme of nature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Thus, it is the beauty of the natural world that restores Victor to health when he is too despondent of finding solace anywhere else. Mary Shelley is especially categorical about the curative power of nature and she introduces the theme of nature at the very opening of the novel where Marlowe, in his letter to his sister Saville, pointing to the impact of the natural world on him. "I am already…
7 pages (1757 words)