The Painful Humanity of the Blind Creator and The Fall of the Benevolent Beast Frankenstein, a savage, grotesque;

he is stitched together out of carved up corpses, he is a hulking terrifying beast, a muttering and groaning simpleton controlled by hate and rage. This is pop cultures perception of the Creature in the novel Frankenstein. But the creature of the novel and the creature of pop culture are two different beasts. In the novel, The creature is intelligent, compassionate and, after his creator has turned his back on him, a murderous creature. The story Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, tells the tale of a shortsighted scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who had an obsession to create a more perfect human. The improvement Frankenstein created was simply known as, the Creature. The tale of Frankenstein is a grim creation myth, where the creator is a flawed man, full of prejudices and fears, and the creation is born a benevolent creature and through many degrading and spiteful interactions with people, learns anger and develops a malicious intent towards his creator for bringing him into this world hideous and alone. A creation myth is a story told by a culture; it explains how the world and its people came into being. There are many different forms of creation myths though most have some form of supreme being. The accidental creator, as in the Rig Veda myth of India, a being, The One, emerges from the cosmic, dark waters, to bring about the seed of creation through an orgasm. Whether The One made the conscious decision to create or not is unknown, Whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, he, who surveys it all from the highest heaven, he knows-or maybe even he does not know.(Leeming 29) Another form is the omnipotent creator, who chooses to create and is usually viewed as a father figure, as in the JudeoChristian mythology, where Yahweh, god, created man in his image. A third form is where a god or a few gods create more gods and those gods, individually, are responsible for one or more forms of creation. In the Hopi myth, Tawa, the sun god and the Spider Woman split themselves in two, to create more gods. There are numerous other forms of the creation myth.

In the Frankenstein myth, Victor Frankenstein, plays the role of the creator. His role begins with a curiosity about alchemy, and while taking classes in chemistry and philosophy, his curiosity evolves into an obsession of understanding life and death. A question that Victor asks himself is, does the principle of life proceed?(Shelley 41) meaning does life carry on after death. Victor studies the corpses of the dead, to hopefully decipher the code of death. He believes, once he comes to understand the mystery of death, then he will be able to create life. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.(Shelley 41) After weeks of studying, Victor unlocks the mystery of death, and this begins his quest to create, and improve on life. In form with other creation myths, the father of man (humans) lays claim to the love of his creations, A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. (Shelley 44) He goes on to claim the love that he will deserve from his future creations, proudly, as he views himself to be a just and loving creator. The Creature is Victors improvement on life as well as his quest to beat death which destroys the flawed bodies of humans. I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life(Shelley 42) One element of the story that is similar to other creation myths is the forming of the human body by the creators hands, as Yahweh and Spider Woman do. As opposed to forming the body out of clay, like is done by the gods, Victor builds his Creature from the scraps of the dead. He chose the best pieces of corpses and used them to build his creation. Upon witnessing the resurrection of his creation, is when the myth of Frankenstein, first takes a turn for the dark. Watching the creatures dead yellow eyes open, Victor comes to the realization that he had not grasped the ramifications of his actions and had unthinkingly created a monster. Breathless horror and disgust filled my heart (Shelly 49) and he turned his back on his creation and fled. From his birth, the creature is despised by his creator, but in his innocence, he does not grasp or understand the hatred, his maker, felt for him. In many creation myths, the creation is usually exiled from a state of paradise, after angering his creator, usually for a sin of some kind. In the story Frankenstein, the creation is born in a state confusion and unknown. From his very birth, the Creature is shunned and loathed by his creator, without ever committing a sin, so in essence the first sin of this tale is committed by the creator, unjustly shunning his

creation. After his abandonment by his creator the Creature proceeds to wander the countryside, ignorant of his appearance as well as the world around him. While wandering he comes upon a cottage in a village, hungry and ignorant of mankind he enters looking for food. A woman inside sees him and screams alerting the village, they come running attacking him with rocks and stick until he manages to escape, and this is one of his first encounters with people, and it teaches him, fear of man. His next encounter with people, he hides for fear of them attacking him. Over a series of months, from a distance he watches a loving family take care of one another. During this time he views his reflection in a puddle and is terrified by his deformities. This estranges him even more from mankind, and yet creates a more powerful longing for companionship, yet he recognised his differences from mankind, his hideousness and his gigantic stature. With recognition of these differences he learns loneliness, for he has no like companion to share his life with. Shortly after his discovery of his hideousness, he discovers his creators notes in his coat pocket, they told of Frankenstein's horror at the fiend that he created. To this the Creature exclaims, Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust! (Shelley 131) In a mad need for love he reveals himself to the family he fervently hopes will accept him, yet they only see his horror and they attack and condemn him. Prior to his attack by the family, he gets ahold of a few books, Paradise Lost, Lives, and Sorrows of Werter. From reading these books he learns about mankind and its flaws. From Paradise Lost, the creature compares himself with both Adam and Satan, two characters in the judeo-christian creation myth. He compared himself to Adam by the uniqueness of his creation, as in he is the only one of his kind, but that instead of being born into a loving creation and being cared for by his creator, like Adam, he was born wretched, helpless, and alone. (Shelley 103) In this way he feels he is closer to Satan, due to his damnation by his creator, as well as his envy of the companionship that he witnesses in mankind. As he comes to see, he is and always will be alone, and hated by mankind, he loses his sympathy and empathy for the race of man. "Should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No; from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to

this insupportable misery." (Shelley 138) With this vow the Creature decides to attack those who Frankenstein loves and finds companionship, with great malice. After the death of two people that he loved, Frankenstein felt a great and righteous hatred, for the Creature. The two came to meet on a mountain top while Frankenstein was hiking seeking solace. Frankenstein, being the creator, of this creature, is unwilling or unable to see his fault in the matter. He condemns his creation, begone, vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! (Shelley 95) to which the creature responds, with a proposition to his creator. If Frankenstein would create a partener for him, to share his life with, he would retreat to some far corner of the world and never be seen by man again, but if he refused, "But if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends." (Shelley 96) On that mountain top the creature talked and told of his benevolence, and then of his pain, loneliness and the emptiness that had become his life. And the creator finally listened, and recognised his duty as a creator to the being he had created, shunned and abandoned. Did I not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow? (Shelley 98) And Frankenstein agreed to create a mate for his creation.. Frankenstein retreated to an island to create another life, and the creature watched from far with hope that his loneliness would come to an end. While building the new creature Frankenstein is overcome with fear and destroys his new creation. Upon seeing this the Creature confronts him and asks what he has done. This is where the Myth of Frankenstein becomes a dark and grim tale of a creation, and its anger with its flawed and fearful creator. The creature says, You are my creator, but I am your master; obey! and Frankenstein refuses the demands of his creation. The creature overcome with rage vows revenge. He frames Frankenstein for the murder of his closest friend, and on Frankenstein's wedding night he murders his bride, to take away all those that he loved, so he would be crushed and alone like his Creation. After chasing his creation across the arctic, Frankenstein sucums to the cold and dies. The creature comes to his creators coffin, and forgives him as well as asks for forgiveness. And witnessing this Frankenstein's last friend, condemns him for his treatment of his creator. In reply the creature says, Do you think that I was dead to agony and remorse?...My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when

wretched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torcher such as you could not imagine. With that the creature leaves to die in the emptiness of the arctic. The brutality and beauty of this myth is powerful. So few myths of creation, contain such destruction, and leveling of the soul, and tell the tale from the createds point of view. The story showed the flaws and weaknesses of the two characters, as they each battled in their own way for peace and companionship, and finally battled each other. Both refusing to give ground, and eventually there battle killed them both. One of the messages in this story is of empathy and compassion, which are both an important part of companionship. Companionship is usually involved in every creation myth, where people are created to be together. The way that the message of companionship was delivered in this myth was through showing loss and loneliness and the lengths people will go for love, that they want, or that they have lost. Frankenstein was a sad but epic story of creation.

Bibliography

Leeming, David Adams. The World of Myth. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1st Tor edition. New York: Tor, 1989. Print.