Monster as the Metaphorical Character
The monster is actually one of the most significant characters of the novel. That is why it cannot be considered just as the symbol of evil or chaos. Scholars researched this topic and decided that Shelley might illustrate a motherless kid, who is connected with her own childhood as the author lost her mother at a young age.
However, there are other thoughts which prove that the monster is also the symbol of the negative impact of technology on the human life. It shows that new things and knowledge cannot just improve the comfort and security of people, but cause a lot of damage. That can be easily proved by the example of Victor Frankenstein and his creature. A man, who wanted to reach the secret knowledge and become godlike, made the terrible invention and could not deal with consequences. As a result, people were murdered. It is a kind of warning for those, who claim that progress is the key to success.
The Issue of Responsibility
Of course, the issue of responsibility for actions takes one of the dominating positions. Viktor Frankenstein was not able to cope with this thing. He created a human-like creature, but had no idea what to do with it. Maybe, he did not mind giving the life to such a terrible monster. However, the main point is that the young scientist was not able to tackle consequences. Several people died because of his mistake. We can conclude that he is the one to blame, but not the monster itself.
The creature that is called devilish and evil during the whole novel is actually not guilty in its ugliness and impossibility to live a normal life. Nevertheless, Victor was intelligent and could have predicted awful results of his work. Thus, the desire to become godlike and reach incredible knowledge blurred his mind. That is why such things happened. The main sense of this situation is surely the necessity of taking responsibility for your actions.
All in all, this novel is not easy to comprehend during the first reading. It is necessary to reread it several times in order to create a perfect analysis and understand all allusions and symbols. Even nowadays scholars still have some things to research in this book.
Although many students think that their school reading is boring and there can be nothing interesting. “Frankenstein” is a pleasant exception. It is not only an educating book but also very enjoyable and amusing. Probably there are only a few people who dislike it. The majority agrees that it is a masterpiece of the English literature. There are no doubts that the novel is outstanding and worth reading. Hopefully, you will appreciate it and get some useful information from the text.