When I think of vampires and literary monsters, I think of traditional or stereotypical monsters. Like most of the class, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and Jekyll & Hyde embody the idea of "literary monsters". Considering the flexibility of the term monster, and literary, some less expected characters some to mind as well, such as Medusa and Grendel. The title of monster and their similar functions in a story is not reserved to the gothic literature genre. Monsters as a whole in more recent centuries have played the part of exemplifying a negative aspect of humanity and taking it to the extreme, which is what makes them sub-human in the first place. The role of Frankenstein's monster was to be a personification of Victor's impulses and ideas. He is essentially his child, and Victor probably the monster's parent in a more pure and literal sense because he personally created each part of him, going as far to refer to the act of creation as "time spent in painful labour," though readers do not know the gritty and gory details. Shelley also uses the monster to make a point on how he was not made to be evil or born evil, but rather shaped this way by his interactions with others and how he was treated. This was not a popular theme at the time, seeing that religion of the era consisted of the notion that humans were born evil, and that someone's morality could not be changed and was predetermined. The consistent message from others that he is a monster both creates and enforces the notion in Frankenstein Jr's psyche that he must be a monster.
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April 2021
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