The Chimney Sweeper Synopsis
The speaker sees a child chimney-sweep in winter, all black with soot, miserably crying ‘Weep!’ He asks where the sweep’s parents are. The child replies that they are praying in church. church . Because he was happy and playful, they made him wretched. Because he is s till able to be playful, they do not see what harm they have caused and so still praise God and the established social order of priest priest and King, whose idea of heaven of heaven is really dependent on the misery they have produced. The boy says that his parents have gone to praise ‘God and his priest and King’ suggesting they make no distinction between them. He sees the established church that officially serves God as one that also upholds the monarchy / state and, by implication, implication, the hierarchical hierarchical social order that condones the miserable state of child chimney sweeps. Commentary
This poem links exposure of the social evil of the child chimney sweep with the exploitation and vulnerability of innocence. See Social / political background > The spirit of rebellion – society > Child labour and prostitution. It is also concerned with attitudes to the body which are as entrapping of the child as the employment system is. Two interpretations
The Chimney Sweeper can Sweeper can be read literally and symbolically: •
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Most obviously, it is a protest against the condition of child sweeps and against the hypocrisy of the society that allows this exploitation. The child in this poem would have been sold into forced labour by his parents The poem may also symbolise the way in which the human mind has produced prohibitions and inhibitions regarding instinctual life and sexuality. These prohibitions are then transposed onto wider society. The mind creates an idea of God who is forever saying, ‘Thou shalt not’, tying people up in laws and prohibitions. People are led to imagine God as a great, tyrannical ruler. They then need a system of priests and kings to represent his power and his laws on earth.
The ‘clothes of death’ can then be read in two ways: •
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Literally, they are the soot which is the only covering for the working sweep. It is the clothing of death because of the sicknesses to which his work gives rise Metaphorically, Metaphorically, it is the repressive effect of prohibitions and inhibitions on the body and its instinctual life. The body is therefore imprisoned and dead rather than alive. In Blake’s day, the nature of the boy sweep’s work had definite sexual overtones. (See Imagery, symbolism and themes) themes)
The destruction of innocence
According to the sweep, the outside world is deliberately cruel and life-denying. life-denying. He believes his parents are jealous of his capacity for happiness and play and so have handed him over to the experience of misery and repression. At a literal level, they have made him a sweep. Metaphorically, Metaphorically,
they have repressed him. Although they cannot entirely destroy his innocence, yet they can praise God for ‘saving’ the child from his instincts and making him ‘virtuous’. They would see that he is doing his duty by working and obeying parent and master, and thus believe that they are making their child fit for heaven. It is, in fact, true misery for the free, playful and unself-conscious child. The poem’s speaker acts on behalf of the reader in his/her apparently naïve question regarding the child’s parents. This emphasises the literal failure of parental care. It also, however, underlines the common tendency to put responsibility onto an external source. The speaker, like the child, can blame parents, God, priest and king - and exclude himself. Imagery and symbolism
Blake uses the image of the child but combines this with the image of ‘clothes of death’, a sharp contrast to the life we associate with children. Children - On account of their playfulness and freshness, Blake saw children as symbols of the imagination and artistic creativity. He also used them as an image of innocence and gentleness. In the New Testament, Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to those who become like little children in their innocence and humility.
Much of the moralistic teaching of Blake’s day stressed the infant and boy Jesus as a figure with whom children could identify. However, the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth and childhood include experience of human violence and so emphasise the vulnerability of the child. The sweep here is clearly vulnerable and open to exploitation, whilst also representing natural physical joy and creativity. ‘Clothes of death’ - Literally, this refers to the soot which was the only covering for the working sweep. It is associated with death because of the sicknesses to which his work gives rise. Metaphorically, these clothes suggest the body and the Platonic belief that human bodies were more or less prisons for the soul (see Aspects of literature > Impact of classical literature > The cultural influence of classical ideas > Plato’s idealism). This attitude influenced some church teaching (although it was contrary to the view of the Bible) which overly focused on ‘the sins of the flesh’ from which death was a welcome release.
However, Blake believed that it was mistaken to look for ‘release’ in the future. It was not that people needed freeing from their bodies, but freeing from the idea that the senses were the only way of experiencing reality. That perspective resulted in putting all kinds of prohibitions on the way people should behave. It was this that made the body imprisoned and dead, rather than alive. (Compare The Garden of Love and To Tirzah.) Sexual symbolism - Surprisingly, perhaps, in Blake’s day the s weep was also symbolic of sexual activity. Because they crept up and ‘unblocked’ narrow passages they were seen as fertility symbols. By using the figure of the sweep Blake combines an attack on the exploitation of child workers with an attack on an attitude to bodily life which s tunts the lives of children emotionally and spiritually. Themes The distortion of Christian belief that makes it a means of controlling people’s behaviour
Blake opposed the way in which he felt the Church condoned the established social order without questioning it. Christian teaching about respecting authority led to the sense that being ‘good’ meant
accepting the status quo as though it had been designed by God to be that way. It is represented by a verse from a 19th century hymn: The rich man in his castle The poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly And ordered their estate. Mrs C.F.Alexander Blake felt such a view was contradicted by the care for the poor and stance against injustice demonstrated by Jesus and the early church. Parental care and authority
In Blake’s work, parents are often perceived as inhibiting and repressing their children. According to Blake, parents misuse ‘care’ to repress children and bind them to themselves, rather than setting the children free by rejoicing in, and safeguarding, their capacity for play and imagination. They betray their children to an exploitative social system but also to a way of thinking and behaving that destroys spontaneity and freedom. The effects of ‘fallenness’ on repression of sexuality and other emotions
Blake believed that inhibitions lie primarily within the mind, rather than in external factors. Society makes its fears, guilt and shame into rules and laws which are then enshrined in social institutions such as the authority of parents, the Church and the State or Monarchy. Attitudes to the body and the life of the senses
This connects with Blake’s opposition to John Locke. (See Religious / philosophical background > Blake’s religious world > Dissenting attitudes to Locke.) Blake believed that humans are essentially spiritual beings and that the body should be an expression of a person’s spiritual nature. Yet, he believed people did not believe this. They believe that their bodies are purely physical and that reality consists solely in what can be understood via the senses. In this way, their senses trap them in a materialist approach to life and they are unable to experience themselves, including their bodies, as spiritual beings. The Tyger Synopsis
The poem begins with the speaker’s awe before the majestic ferocity of the tiger. He is then moved to what kind of divine being could have created it: ‘What immortal hand or eye Could frame they fearful symmetry?’ Each subsequent stanza contains further questions, developing from this first one: • •
In what kind of world could such a creature exist? What kind of creator could produce such a creature?
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What kind of power and skill would have been required to ‘twist the sinews’ of the tiger's heart? What kind of creator would have had the courage and the daring to continue the work of creating such ferocity? Comparing the creator to a blacksmith, he wonders what kind of hammer, anvil and furnace would be necessary and what kind of b lacksmith could have used such tools? Did creating this ferocious beast give pleasure to its creator? Could this possibly be the same divine being who made the lamb?
This is a companion poem to The Lamb in Songs of Innocence. The poem invites us to consider the mind which produces questions about the nature of the world and its creator. It also challenges the reader to accept that the dangerous and potentially destructive forces in the world are also attractive and beautiful. Commentary
This is a poem which can be read in two ways. If we read it apart from knowledge of Blake’s beliefs, it yields one meaning. If we read it using that knowledge, we find another. First possible reading
The tiger is strikingly beautiful yet also horrific in its power, energy and - through its association with fire - capacity for destructiveness. It’s clear that the tiger is symbolic. ‘The forests of the night’ suggests places of darkness where it is easy to get lost, where wild beasts lurk. It seems, then, to be an energy inhabiting the dark and destructive aspects of human nature and experience. The associations with ‘distant deeps or skies’ suggests that this power resides not only in humans but in the whole of creation. Thus, the tiger is an embodiment of the fierce energy present in the cosmos. The associations of the tiger’s creator with the fall of the angels (‘When the stars threw down their spears’) and the establishment of Hell, would seem to suggest that the tiger is a demonic, evil force. This is developed by the emphasis upon its terrible aspects in stanzas 3 and 4 with the repetition of ‘dread’ and ‘deadly terrors’. The main focus, however, is not on the identity of the tiger but of the tiger’s creator. What kind of a God could or would design such a terrifying beast as the tiger? The verb ‘frame’ suggests that the maker can both build and encompass or restrict this mighty animal. If the tiger is so terrible, how much more terrible must its creator be? This beast is the product not only of ferocious, immense power – ‘hand’, ‘shoulder’, ‘hammer’, ‘chain’, ‘furnace’, ‘anvil’. It is also the product of a creating mind – an ‘eye’, an ‘art’. Does he ‘smile his work to see’ because he takes pleasure in violence and evil? Is it, therefore, a malicious smile? Or is the smile because the tiger’s ferocity is also attractive and beautiful? What kind of God could envisage and create both the beautiful, sensuous ferocity of the tiger and the beautiful, meek tenderness of the Lamb? This reading suggests that Blake’s concern here is with the perennial problem of evil and the existence of a good God. How can a good God allow or produce what is evil? How can evil exist in a world created by a good God? The second possible reading
This acknowledges the same reflections on the presentation of the tiger, but it starts from a question arising from knowledge of Blake’s beliefs. Blake did not believe in an external God, a ruler / creator apart from humanity. If this is so, who is the creator here? According to Blake, the creator is a creation of the mind of the speaker, which can only operate from the perspective of Experience: • •
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It is the mind which produces the God which Blake rejects in To Nobodaddy It creates the division between the lamb and the tiger, seeing them as incompatible, labelling meekness and vulnerability ‘good’ and power, will, force ‘bad’ It sees the world as a battle between a ‘good’ God, creator of the Lamb and an ‘evil’ force of angels associated with the dynamism of the tiger.
Yet the tiger is only a moral problem for those who are limited by such a perspective. The creator of the tiger is the product of the ‘mind fetters’ which enchain the human being. In this reading, therefore, the poem is primarily about the attitude of the narrator, rather than the apparent subject matter. Imagery and symbolism
Blake makes many references to Greek and Roman mythology in his poetry. Myths are more than stories; they were told to suggest some truths about human nature and experiences or to explain how the world has become the way it is. They are appropriate in presenting The Tyger because the poem deals with ideas about our understanding of life. Like many writers in the Christian tradition, Blake also combines classical with biblical symbols, images and stories. On what wings dare he aspire – This seems to allude primarily to angels, in particular to the fallen angels who aspired to overthrow God and were cast down into Hell. This would suggest that the speaker is inclined to believe that the force who made the tiger is not God but a demonic power, in opposition to God.
It is often seen, also, as a possible allusion to the classical tale of Icarus. Icarus desired to fly and his father made him wings of wax. These wings melted when he flew too near to the sun. As a symbol of humankind aspiring beyond its limits, it suggests that this creator is being extremely audacious in creating this beast, almost going beyond his own limits. What the hand dare seize the fire? – Many critics see here a possible allusion to Prometheus who stole fire from the gods to help humankind. This would make it another symbol of daring aspiration. Prometheus’ action was benevolent but the context in which this occurs suggests something dreadful about the hand seizing the fire. It is as though the speaker is possessed by the ferocity and power of the tiger; that he is blind to the possibility of something beneficent lying within it. Hammer .. furnace .. anvil – This is an allusion to Hephaestus, the Greek blacksmith god of fire. His symbols are a hammer and anvil. Some legends say that Prometheus stole fire from Hephaestus’ forge and was punished by him. It would suggest that this creator is seen as demonic rather than benevolent.
In his poem Paradise Lost, Milton, an influence on Blake, linked this story of Hephaestus with the fall of the angels after their rebellion against God. Milton presented Hephaestus as the creator of Pandemonium, the dwelling-place of all the demons. This would link this image with those of wings and of the furnace.
‘When the stars threw down their spears’ - is another allusion to the fall of the angels. It suggests that Blake’s primary thought is to link the images of wings, seizing fire and throwing down spears with Milton’s account of the fall of the angels and the figure of Hephaestus as a demonic figure rather than a benevolent god.
The use of this complex of images suggests the mind of the speaker. He sees ferocious power, daring and energy at the heart of creation, his language suggesting the fascination this vision exerts. Blake here may also be alluding to the revolutionary spirit of the age, when the ‘Terror’ was unleashed by French Revolutionaries audaciously seizing power (see Social / political background > The spirit of rebellion – politics). The Lamb - Blake here alludes to The Lamb (I) and to biblical tradition in the line, ‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’ The Lamb represents all that is gentle, tender, innocent, playful and mild in creation. It represents ideas of divinity as found in Jesus. He is referred to as ‘the Lamb of God’ who takes away the sins of the world in John 1:29. He is also called a lamb in 1Peter 1:19 and is identified as a sacrificial lamb in 1Corinthians 5:7. However, this lamb is not a soft, woolly and cuddly animal but a sacrificial victim whom Christians believe achieves victory over evil for humanity. Thus Blake is drawing together the contraries of dark and light, of might and tenderness, of dark forces and their conqueror. The Garden of Love Synopsis
The speaker goes to the Garden of Love and finds there a new addition. A chapel has been built in the middle of it, on the green where the speaker used to play. The chapel gates are locked and over it is a sign ‘Thou shalt not’. So the speaker turns to the garden which used to bear many flowers. Now the garden is full of graves and tomb-stones replace the flowers. Black-gowned priests patrol it, constraining the speaker’s pleasures and desires with briars. Commentary
In this poem, Blake is attacking the way in which human sexuality has been inhibited and distorted by the prohibitions of organised religion (‘Thou shalt not’) and the development of shame in its regard. He felt that sexuality should be unselfconscious, bringing joy and life (playing on the green, bearing flowers). However, its fallen expression now locks people into their bodies as though they were dead – their bodies are like coffins (tombs and gravestones). Sexual joy and desire is now hedged round with fears and prohibitions, policed by the power of the Church. The natural freedom of the garden and its greenness (fertility) is set against the closed, human-made chapel and its black-robed priests, denoting death. Within the literary tradition, the Garden of Love is used as an image of the relationship between lovers and also of their inner selves. The garden here also has this double aspect. It is an expression of the social restrictions on sex but also of the speaker’s inner self. It is characteristic of the poems of experience that the speaker blames the inability to express ‘joys and desires’ only on external factors like the Church and ignores any personal responsibility. Imagery and symbolism The garden of love - The dominant image evokes two gardens in the Old Testament. Firstly, it evokes the Garden of Eden before the Fall of humankind. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were
able to love without shame and self-consciousness. It was a place, therefore, of innocent, uninhibited sexual expression. The state of the garden discovered by the speaker is therefore akin to Eden after the Fall, when sexuality is surrounded by shame, repression and prohibitions (see Aspects of literature > Impact of the Bible > Big ideas from the Bible > Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve; Second Adam.) The second garden is found in the Old Testament poem, the Song of Songs (sometimes called The Song of Solomon.) This is an unashamedly erotic poem in which garden imagery is used as a metaphor for sexual enjoyment (Song of Songs 4:16, Song of Songs 5:1, Song of Songs 6:2). However, the contemporary Christian reading reinterpreted the original eroticism of the poem, to make it a symbol of a ‘purer’ spiritual love, implicitly demoting the worth of sexual expression. More on the Song of Songs: This poetic account of lovers was interpreted by the Church variously as an image of the spiritual relationship: • • •
between Christ and the soul between Christ and the Church between God and the Virgin Mary.
In medieval literature, the Song was used as an image for sexual encounter/ sexual relationship. Chaucer uses it in a parodic form in his Merchant’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales. Since it thus became a poem interpreted in ways far removed from its original purpose, the Song serves as a metaphor for Blake’s vision of the way in which the religious system has replaced a celebration of the goodness of sexuality with reasons for shame and repression. The green - This has three, inter-linked aspects • •
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The colour green is associated with growth, fertility and spring Village greens were places of play and freedom. They represented the importance of play, and therefore of imagination, in human life. Village greens were not owned by anyone, so represented freedom from the rule or demands of an authority figure.
In the Songs of Innocence, the green is a place of play and freedom for children. It evokes a time of innocence in which ‘play’ could include innocent, unselfconscious sexuality. Here it has been taken over by repressiveness. Prison – Blake’s opposition to the repression of desires as advocated by conventional Christianity meant that the Chapel seems an image of prison: • • • • •
It is bounded by ‘gates’ which are ‘shut’ It is a place where people are not free to act (‘Thou shalt not’) It is associated with the loss of life (‘graves’) Its priests wear uniforms (they are all ‘in black’) and patrol the grounds like warders They confine any initiative toward freedom (‘binding .. desires’), in a potentially painful way (using ‘briars’).
London Synopsis
The speaker wanders through the streets of London. S/he sees despair in the faces of all the people s/he meets and hears fear and repression in their voices. The woeful cry of the chimney-sweeper stands as a chastisement to the Church. The sigh of the dying soldier stains, as though with blood, the walls of the king’s palace. At midnight, s/he hears the activities of the prostitute. She curses the newborn infant - her curse, as swearing, may corrupt the child’s innocence or her curse, as disease, may be the venereal infection she transmits. Certainly it is in this second sense that s he blights the marriage hearse, because her customers will infect their brides, making their marriage literally deadly – the wedding carriage is thus also the vehicle taking them to their graves. Commentary
London is concerned with actual social realities, but points beyond social evils to the workings of the human mind which give rise to them. In Tom Paine’s words, eighteenth century London was: ‘a market where every man has his price and where corruption is common traffic’. Although Blake’s London was much smaller than it is today, there were at least 50,000 working prostitutes. For an understanding of contemporary conditions, see the Social / political background > The spirit of rebellion - society > Child labour and prostitution. A confined location
The poem's title denotes a specific geographic space, not the generalised ‘greens’ of the Songs of Innocence. Everything in this urban space - even the natural River Thames - is ‘charter'd’. It exists under another’s authority, is regulated, measured and mapped and a possession of the ruling system. As a result, no-one is free. Blake's repetition of this word reinforces the sense of constriction the speaker feels upon entering the city. A de-personalised environment
The speaker remains outside, observing and commenting on what s/he sees rather than identifying with it. The verbs used are neutral in tone – ‘wander’, ‘mark’, ‘hear’. All the speaker's subjects - men, infants, chimney-sweeper, soldier, harlot - are known only through the marks they leave behind, or the cries they make. We never see the individuals themselves. Likewise, we see clergy and the ruling class only through the buildings that characterise their power – the church and the palace. It is not the particular human beings who are being judged here but the oppressive system with its victims, which results from the ‘mind-forg’d manacles’. Death in life
The poem gains in intensity as it progresses, concluding with the moment in which the cycle of misery recommences, in the birth of a new human. However, here the baby speaks of blighted life, leading to death. In literal terms. sexual and marital union, which should be signs of life and hope, are tainted by the blight of venereal disease. Thus, the closing image of the ‘Marriage hearse,’ is one in which love and desire can produce only death and destruction. Metaphorically, ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ produce an attitude to sexuality that makes sexual activity a thing of shame to be repressed and controlled by marriage. It also renders sexual relationships prone to
possessiveness and jealousy, distorting and perverting them. Blake felt that, without such attitudes, prostitution would not be necessary. As Blake says in Proverbs of Hell : ‘Prisons are built with stones of Law Brothels with bricks of Religion.’ The context of Revelation
If we read the poem in relation to the evocation of the book of Revelation in the Bible, we see that the speaker is setting a perception of the historical London within an apocalyptic setting, that is, one which speaks of the end of an age or world. Being marked for salvation or damnation isn’t something which belongs to a future state at the end of time. It is a present reality. However, for Blake, damnation was not the act of an external, all-powerful God, but the consequences of people’s own thinking and choices. Human beings damned themselves; they could also save themselves if they could remove those manacles and achieve freedom of vision and action. Imagery and symbolism
Blake paints a nightmare vision of social and urban decay, where anguished sounds reverberate, darkness prevails (‘black’ning Church’, ‘midnight streets’) and death s talks the streets (the ‘blood’ of the ‘hapless Soldier’, the ‘hearse’ that contains those stricken with ‘plagues’). Charter’d - Blake uses the image of the charter to represent the absence of freedom for the common people of London. Royal charters were issued to towns and cities, ostensibly giving them freedom. However, Tom Paine (see Social / political background > The spirit of rebellion – politics > Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man) argued that charters simply allowed those cities possessing one to create their own mini-state, governed by its own hierarchy. They did not give freedom to the people but made them subjects of the wealthy or the aristocrat:
‘Every chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself’ (Paine) Mark - Blake uses biblical imagery when he refers to ‘Marks of weakness’. In the New Testament book of Revelation (Revelation 7:3-4), those who are saved for eternal life are marked with a seal on their foreheads. The damned bear ‘the mark of the beast’. Marks may also suggest the brand of a slave. The image suggests, therefore, how everyone’s fate is sealed and how they have become slaves on account of their ‘Mind-forg’d manacles’.
In the third stanza, the cry of the chimney-sweep and the sigh of the soldier make their own mark on the church and palace. This brings the rulers into the same circle of bondage as their subjects and further underlines the common involvement in perpetuating the system, whether victim or culprit. Similarly, in the last stanza, the harlot makes her mark on the bodies of baby and customer, in transmitting disease. Manacles - ‘Forg’d’ suggests the power and strength of the human mind that can produce such strong shackles. These manacles are produced by the fallen human mind. They produce an oppressive system of religious and monarchical power which keeps the poor in poverty and destroys brotherhood. They produce an attitude to sexuality that makes such activity a thing of shame, to be repressed and controlled by marriage. They also render sexual relationships prone to possessiveness and jealousy, distorting and perverting them. (See The Human Abstract > Synopsis and commentary)
Blood down Palace walls – Blake was writing in a revolutionary era, where tales by émigrés of the Terror after the French Revolution were a very real reminder of death and suffering imposed by despotic leaders. Frankenstein - The Monster
Throughout the last century, the movie and theater industries have been creating and recreating movies about Frankenstein, the monster. He has been depicted as a gigantic, ugly monster with incredible strength that walks around searching for his next victim. In the original book Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the Monster is not depicted as a complete savage, but is shown to be more of a person. The Creature is intelligent and is an outcast from society. Regardless of the Creature’s horrific appearance, he was very a very intelligent individual. When the Creature is telling Frankenstein about how he first learned about communication, he says, “This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these also; but how was that possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as signs?” (98). The Creature is able to recognize patterns in the speech of DeLacey. He is then able to infer that symbols on the paper represent the words that DeLacey has been using. Much like his creator, Frankenstein, the Creature yearns for knowledge. The Creature later recounts the story when Safie begins to learn French. He explains, “Presently I found, by the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that she was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the s ame end. The stranger learned about twenty words at the first lesson; most of them, indeed, were those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others” (102). His intelligence begins to develop very rapidly at this point, as he is able to discern between certain words and start to learn new ones along with Safie. How a monster that was just recently brought to life can learn to speak is an amazing feat. The Creature later recounts how begins to comprehend French when he says, “My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that was spoken”(103). At this point, the Creature’s intelligence is undeniable. Learning a language from nothing is extremely difficult for anyone, but the Creature was able to learn faster than Safie, who can already speak one language. The Creature’s ability to learn and comprehend a language and also learn how to read shows how intelligent he is. However, his growing intelligence allows him to also comprehend hi wretchedness. The Creature is always alone throughout the entire story. When Frankenstein first encounters his Creature after he originally escaped from it, the Creature says, “All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us” (83). The creature explains that he is very miserable. He is lonely and hated by all other living things. The worst feeling is that even his creator detests and rejects him. As the Creature is telling Frankenstein about the time when he was learning from the DeLacey family he says, “When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” (105). At this point the monster realizes that he is the only one of his kind. He is all alone in this world and is an outcast from society. His growing intelligence helps him to realize this. Even in all the stories he hears from the DeLacey’s, he never once hears of s omebody like him. Later, he learns even more about his wretchedness. While the Creature is taunting his creator for what he did he exclaims, “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” (115). The Creature knows now that he is different from all other creatures. He believes that he cannot even turn to God, because he is not one
of His creations. He knows that he is hideous, despised, and is destined to be miserable his whole life, and that it is Frankenstein’s fault that he is that way. Unlike movie interpretations of Frankenstein, the Creature from the book is not a raging monster; he is very much like a person. He is very intelligent and has feelings like normal people, but he is also an outcast. Mary Shelley did not want to create an insane beast for a monster when she wrote Frankenstein; she wanted to create a humanlike monster to propose a question about the morals of the human race. The monster in the novel is not portrayed as a mindless wandering soul – he is an intelligent creature gifted with the ability to form coherent thoughts and also deductions. Despite his unfortunate outward appearances, the mislabelled “monster” is capable of feeling very human emotions. His predicament allows him to compare his life to that of the fallen angel, Satan. Reading John Milton’s Paradise Lost “excited different and far deeper emotions” in him and he “often referred the several situations, as similar as they struck [him],” to himself. It is obvious that the creature that Viktor Frankenstein has created is incredibly intelligent and is capable of analysis at a deep level. It is astounding to note of his ability to understanding so quickly and also with such maturity, having only just learned to read. Shelley presents to her readers the idea of alienation through the character of the monster, and the adverse reactions of other characters in the novel towards him. Although he has no mal-intent, he is judged constantly by his “nightmarish” appearance. It seems that from the moment that Frankenstein “infuse a spark of being” into him, he is doomed to an existence filled with rejection and despondency, being immediately cast away by his creator. His rejection by the De Lacey’s is a large blow to him because he has invested so much emotion and also effort in their one-sided relationship. The monster’s further disaffection is shown, this time by the society in general in Frankenstein who “spurn and hate” him is also shown in chapter 11 when he innocently wanders into the village. The creature’s discrimination of his physical appearance marginalises him from society. The concept of alienation is also explored by the settings Shelley uses. Time and time again, the monster appears in atmospheres that are “desolate”, “severe” and “unforgiving.” The writer’s frequent habit of using the settings in the novel to magnify the feelings of characters helps the readers to feel the tone of the story. The weather or the general atmosphere is the projection of the monster’s feelings.
Shelley makes full use of themes that were popular during the time she wrote Frankenstein. She is concerned with the use of knowledge for good or evil purposes, the invasion of technology into modern life, the treatment of the poor or uneducated, and the restorative powers of nature in the face of unnatural events. She addresses each concern in the novel, but some concerns are not fully addressed or answered. For instance, how much learning can man obtain without jeopardizing himself or others? This is a question that has no clear answer in the novel. Victor Frankenstein learns all he can about the field of science, both before, during, and after his work at the university. Prior to his enrollment at the university, Victor focuses on the ancient art of alchemy, which had been discredited by the time of Shelley's writing. Alchemy was an early form of chemistry, with philosophic and magical associations, studied in the Middle Ages. Its chief aims were to change base metals into gold and to discover the elixir of perpetual youth. At the university, Victor gains new knowledge with the most modern science as a background. However, it is Victor's combination of old and new science that leads him down a path to self-destruction. This is one of Shelley's themes:"How can we harness the knowledge that we have so that it is not self destructive and for the benefit of all mankind?" The answer is not an easy one, and Shelley is not clear on her feelings about the use or abuse of technology. The reanimation of man from the dead is a useful thing to revive people who
have died too soon, but what responsibility must we exercise once we bring people back from the dead? This is a morally perplexing question. Thus, we are stuck in a dilemma:"How far can we go in raising the dead without destroying the living?" Shelley seems to conclude that man cannot handle becoming both like God and a creator without much difficulty. Since the Industrial Revolution had pervaded all part of European and British society by the time of her writing, Shelley questions how far the current wave of advances should push the individual in terms of personal and spiritual growth. She conveys the impression that perhaps the technological advances made to date rob the soul of growth when man becomes too dependant on technology. Personal freedom is lost when man is made a slave to machines, instead of machines being dominated by man. Thus, Victor becomes a lost soul when he tries his ghastly experiments on the dead and loses his moral compass when he becomes obsessed with animating the dead. Victor's overindulgence in science takes away his humanity, and he is left with the consequences of these actions without having reasoned out the reality that his experiments may not have the desired effects. Shelley presents nature as very powerful. It has the power to put the humanity back into man when the unnatural world has stripped him of his moral fiber. Victor often seeks to refresh his mind and soul when he seeks solitude in the mountains of Switzerland, down the Rhine River in Germany, and on tour in England. Shelley devotes long passages to the effect that nature has on Victor's mind. He seems to be regenerated when he visits nature; his mind is better after a particularly harrowing episode. Nature also has the power to change man when Victor uses the power of lightning's electricity to give life to dead human flesh. The awesome power of nature is also apparent when storms roll into the areas where clear skies had previously prevailed. Victor ignores all of the warnings against natural law and must pay the ultimate price for the violation of those laws. The monster is a Romantic hero because of the rejection he must bear from normal society. Wherever he goes, the monster is chased away because of his hideous appearance and his huge size. Shelley is attempting to show the readers how many people in conventional society reject the less than average or disfigured souls who live on the borders of our society. We cannot blame the monster for what happens to him, and Shelley elicits from the reader a s ympathetic response for a creature so misunderstood. The monster tries to fit into a regular community, but because he is hideous to look at and does not know the social graces, he can never become part of mainstream society. The monster's response is to overcompensate for his lack of learning and then shun all human contact except when necessary.
