Loss of Innocence

Bonjour, people of this Earth!

It is I, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. Today is Tuesday so let’s go on an adventure into the depths of the novel Frankenstein.

Loss of innocence is a reoccurring theme in literature (Ex Machina, Lord Of the flies, etc.). But what does it mean to lose one’s innocence? In literature, it usually means that a character has ended their childhood and becomes an adult. Their ascension into adulthood is signified by an event that forces the character to reexamine their priorities and purpose.

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist of the story, decides to play God and creates life. Victor discovers how to reanimate dead flesh, so of course, he does just that. Only when the creature wakes does Victor have regrets. He rejects his own creation and abandons it to whatever cruel fate may come upon it. His monster now must try to survive in a world that abhors him because of how he looks. I think this is where the monster starts to loss its innocence. The monster is comparable to a newborn baby with no knowledge of how the world functions. His creator, the one who was supposed to guide him, has shunned him and left him for dead.

The monster is very lonely, and (unknowingly) meets Victor's younger brother, William. He believes a child would not have had the opportunity to hate that which looks unpleasant—for this is something learned from society. However, William is frightened and threatens him. The creature kills the boy, and the child is the creature's first murder of vengeance—of an innocent child. The creature plants a miniature portrait on Justine who is out searching for William, as she is sleeping in a barn. When she is found, the miniature is used to implicate Justine in the child's murder. Upon her execution, the creature has destroyed yet another innocent victim.

Victor loved all of these people. They knew nothing of the creature—they were innocents. However, at one time Victor was an innocent young man also, but pursued forbidden and dangerous knowledge, that robbed him of his innocence. Victor leaves his innocence behind. The others are innocent victims of Victor's work.

The monster turns vengeful not because it's evil, but because its isolation fills it with overwhelming hate and anger. And what is the monster's vengeance? To make Victor as isolated as it. Add it all up, and it becomes clear that Frankenstein sees isolation from family and society as the worst imaginable fate, and the cause of hatred, violence, and revenge.

Thanks for reading please tell me what you think! Love from Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen