People who can’t read are irritating me. Here is every line in MWS’ ‘Frankenstein’ (1818) which explicitly states that the monster is not “beautiful, and just ugly because he’s moving/has scary eyes”.
“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful—! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.
This is the only quotation in the entire novel that people who hold this sentiment bother to read, and even then only read it at an entirely surface level, and out of context of the rest of the novel and every other description we have of him.
The tone of this paragraph is very, very clearly erratic and confused. Frankenstein begins by stating that he can not describe the creature itself, rambles that he had selected his features as beautiful, cuts himself off in shock at the idea of that and describes something horrifying about him, then cuts to two aspects of him that were ‘beautiful’; before stating that this just even made him even more horrific, and continues to describe him negatively. Frankenstein is not short of lengthy descriptions of exactly what aspects of his creature were ugly because he has none to give, he is short of words because he physically can not describe how horrifying his creation is — and even then, the amount of disturbing features he highlights regarding the creature vastly outweigh the two positive traits which “only formed a more horrid contrast” and made him more harrowing. Certain people may wish to tell you that his horror was only his immediate reaction to what he’d done, which is even more ridiculous, as not only is he monologuing this around ten years in the future, but even if we ignore this and decide he’s simply reliving the moment, this is not the only time the creature is described negatively. Rather, it is the only time, in the entire novel, that the creature is described positively. I find it quite funny that this paragraph is always held up as an example of Frankenstein being a “terrible absent father”, when in reality his description here is more a post-natal mother looking at her horrific demon baby with rose tinted glasses, and yet still being incapable of bearing his countenance. I cannot emphasise enough that this is legitimately the nicest description of the creature that we have access to, lol.
“Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.”
Here, Victor describes his creature again, which is where most people draw the “he was only scary because he moved” line from — which, again, if you actually read the paragraph, is ridiculous.
Now, first off, before I move on, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know where this idea and every other idea in the post comes from, so I might as well get it out of the way here. The core of this belief is, very simply, that people do not want to believe Victor Frankenstein’s narration, but this is not only ironic given the novel’s extremely prominent themes regarding that exact matter (“I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which could give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked upon it as the ravings of insanity”, but whatever, as we all clearly know Frankenstein is too insane to accurately describe his creature over ten years since making him but he’s totally in the wrong for being incapable of helping Justine bc who would ever believe he was crazy?? Ignore the fact he’s literally institutionalised later. Ignore that.), however also due to the fact that people refuse to interrogate his narration being dubious in any other aspect of the novel when every narrative theme and subplot parallel points to him lying or misrepresenting the full truth (cough, cough, that Elizabeth has no personality and arranged incest marriage is awesome, actually, just ignore all the VASTLY recurring radical themes regarding marriage and arranged marriages demonstrated through Safie and her mother directly paralleling Caroline and Elizabeth, and Felix denying Safie being promised to him, and her disobeying her father’s wishes for her future to search for him, and them being held up as the pinnacle of a healthy relationship for the creature to pervert and distort by nature of his being a symbol of perversion, as Frankenstein creates him to both subvert and be unwillingly drawn into the act of incest (which was definitely very normal for wealthy marriages and could NEVER actually be an exaggerated commentary on them, pfft, what, is Mary Shelley some kind of radical leftist?) and also Victor’s whole freak-out over creating the Bride and commenting that she might not have consented to marry the creature had she been free to choose, and Victor only finally marrying Elizabeth after both being given the promise that doing so will lead to his death on his wedding night and also, symbolically, after the symbol of romanticism and nature and other outside The Family is murdered in Clerval as punishment for Victor attempting to escape the cycle in destroying the bride, so he is thrust into madness in perusal of the melancholic romantic fantasy of the return to the womb as the suicide splits the duality of domestic longing and sexual horror distinctly into two but no, no no, Victor said he was happy once so clearly MWS just forgot to write her most narratively important female character!! Surely her absence couldn’t mean anything. As we all know, Mary fucking Shelley, famous for writing shallow female characters. Cough.) and rather only wish to fuel their “monster or man daddy issues” delusion instead of interrogating the novel as a nuanced text with multiple different perspectives and motivations, but I digress!!!!! I digress.
The fact of the matter is, Victor is not the only character who describes him this way, and I’ll get to those later, so it really doesn’t matter whether you like his character or not — you have to take his comments here honestly. You don’t need your hand held through this. Sit down. Look at it. Read it. Actually read it. “He was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” He went from terrifying on his own, inherently, to ungodly levels of inconceivable horror after being rendered in motion. In what fucking universe does that sound like he’s hot, actually. Next!
“A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life.”
“I perceived, as the shape came nearer, (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach, and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with distain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this”
More Victor quotes. Don’t really need to comment on them, they speak for themselves. Only counter I can think of is “he’s just angry over his baby brother’s death,” but he repeats that the monster was hideous before he even thinks of this idea in the initial quote, and he specifically states in the second that his anger blinded him to the creature’s horror, so that he could address him without fear, rather than amplifying it.
“I had hardly placed my foot within the door, before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me(…)”
“I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers — their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror, and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not know yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.”
“I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome”
Again. Exact same sentiments repeated from the creature himself. I hear often the idea that the creature is not inherently ugly but rather made to FEEL that he is, but its explicitly stated that he had no idea how horrifying he was until he saw himself and did not know why the townsfolk abused him until that point, where he hadn’t come into contact with them for months. He didn’t even know this was the reason for his abuse or how badly this would affect him, “I did not know yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.” This recollection is entirely his own.
“The minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors, and rendered mine ineffaceable. I sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Cursed creator! 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 your’s, more horrid from its very resemblance.’”
Taking a moment to say “my form is a filthy type of your’s” is one of my favourite quotes from the entire novel and I’m giggling every time I read it but regardless!! Again, he is not made to feel ugly by Frankenstein alone. He knows he is horrifying, and upon finding out that Victor feels the same, is significantly worsened by how this affects him, and begins to despise and blame him. His horror is a physical manifestation of the horror buried in Frankenstein’s soul.
I had sagacity enough to discover, that the unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me.
At this instant the cottage door opened, and Felix, Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted; and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix rushed forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father (…)”
The De Laceys are repeatedly established as virtuous people, “the poor that stopped at their door were never driven away,” Felix gave up all his wealth and even his country to rescue a foreigner facing unjust persecution due to his religion, and because a lot of people really like their creature race metaphors (which I really don’t agree with at all, at least not beyond the most basic parallel maybe, but certainly not a consistent metaphor or symbol) he is also in a very happy interracial marriage at a time where that would have been quite frowned upon. They are not suddenly turning evil and abusing the creature because he’s a little weird looking. The only reason this makes sense is if we agree that Victor is right. You may say that it is technically Victor relaying his words — however he has never stopped to paint himself in a more favourable light with regard to his guilt upon the existence of the creature before, and it makes very little sense why he would do so now, on his deathbed, when all we know about Victor is that he would not be the type to exaggerate his tale and rather, wishes for Walton to see him as he is, rather than idolising him. The creature’s tale is sympathetic — why would Victor stop at “no but he was ugly tho trust”. It’s stupid. If he was going to misrepresent the creature, he’d do it. He wouldn’t half-ass it. In part, also, as much as I usually would hesitate to say this, given the epistolary format, we somewhat need to take some of these things a little at face value when there’s no evidence against it, and accept that we are getting the creature’s perspective here, as we have no direct writing from him which contradicts Victor’s characterisation of him, and he acts essentially exactly the same before Walton.
“His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassioned him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that walked and talked, my heart sickened, and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought, that as I could not sympathise with him, I had no right to with-hold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow.”
Again, the creature’s hideousness is explained, however this paragraph is also significant as it highlights Victor’s own attempts to overcome his bias, and the physicality of the creature dragging those elements of sympathy down into disgust. Of course, this has symbolic elements, depending on your reading, but even on the most basic level it shows Frankenstein as someone at least attempting to overcome his own personal gut feelings and not as someone entirely prejudiced, lending further credibility to his narration.
“I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend, and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols; putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage, through fear of his terrific appearance.”
More peasant opinions. Repeated ideas once more.
“I entered the cabin, where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe; gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror, and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily.”
“I approached this tremendous being; I dared not again raise my looks upon his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness. I attempted to speak, but the words died away on my lips.”
Of course, Walton is not the most reliable narrator, and this must be acknowledged — however this is the most detailed description we have of the creature, and it confirms and aligns with every single other source that we have, from Victor, from the reactions of the townsfolk, and from as close to the creature himself as we can get. Narratively, it would make sense for Walton to be genuine here, as well — the entire novel is building in tension of this strange and indescribable creature, so when we finally have a first hand source from an outside narrator who finally sees him, and this is his gut reaction, it also serves as a culmination of this nervousness and curiosity for the readers as well.
In closing, every single conceivable perspective we have access to, given the nature of the novel, confirms the exact same notion. That the creature was not beautiful. Had Shelley wanted us to draw this conclusion, she would have alluded to it, in the themes or through another character, through some meaningful and substantial parallel, but she does not. Any idea you could draw surrounding the creature being conventionally attractive makes very little sense when placed next to every other reference to his appearance.
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