Environment can play a crucial role to the development of the behavior of each human being. The social milieu has the capacity to influence a person in many different ways. These influences happen due to the power of the elements that are intrinsic to this aspect of the society, which include people and their habits. On the novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelly, one of the main characters, the monster, is negatively influenced by the environment wherein he tries to participate and as a consequence, he changes his good attitudes to evil ones for having no other way out.

These changes turn his existence miserable, which begins right when Victor Frankenstein completes his task of creating a living creature. At that moment, misery appears as the rejection that this being would suffer throughout his life. The appearance of the monster is extremely scary and because of that he is seen as a disaster by his creator. At the time Victor sees that fiend, he feels frightened and hides from him. The monster is not given the opportunity to interact with his creator in any way. Moreover, he did not have the chance to be known, due to his appearance that was so terrifying to Victor, who could not see that the fiend might have something else besides it.

Abandoned by Victor, his creation had to learn to survive by himself lonely in the world. He gives his impressions about the beginning of that period:

According to this excerpt, he lives a total lack of familiarity with the world that surrounded him. Although there was a slight sign that he could feel pleasure with the elements of that environment, the strongest things that he felt were related to biological needs. The monster was able to supply these needs because he collected food in the woods and kept warm by the use of a fire left by some wandering beggars. However, after some time, food became scarce at the region where he had inhabited; consequently he had to look for a place where his needs would be satisfied. At this period, his mind was not yet influenced by the environment because he was still living away from the inhabitants the world that he was put in.

As the creation of Frankenstein left the woods, his contact with the environment and its people started to occur and for the first time he saw human nature. At that moment, the monster had contact with the second human being in his existence. By this contact he witnessed an attitude that he was already familiar with: when the inhabitant of the hut where he entered saw him, he immediately quit his residence and rushed across the fields. As Frankenstein’s creature continued his walk he found a village, wherein he describes his reception:

After these events the creature realized that it would not be easy to live in that society. He was aware that he had not done anything wrong to be treated in that cruel manner for the people that he crossed by. The occurrence of these facts made him become afraid of other reactions people might have as they see him. As we can note, this contact with the environment adds to his being the feeling of apprehension that was before unknown by him.

Hiding in an asylum he knew he could not be accepted by the family he observed. However his observations made him believe that his acceptance could be possible, though. The family was composed by three members, a blind father, his daughter and his son. They lived in a cottage very close from where Frankenstein’s creature had taken refuge. Due to this closeness the monster could listen to everything they say, which allowed him to learn their language, background and understand all the problems that the family faced. They did not always have enough to eat and the monster was touched by their situation. Moved by this feeling, he stopped stealing their food and started collecting wood for them. Through the monster’s actions, we can note that he was a good creature and had noble feelings; this reinforces the idea that what prevented him to join that family was the fear of not being accepted. By the time the monster got rid of this fear, he decided to talk to the blind men, while his children were out. As the man could not see the monster, he let him in, but his family arrived some time later and his contact with that cottagers occurred:

At this moment the monster had the biggest deception of all his existence, the only hope he had of being accepted by people from the world that he was put in had totally disappeared. He could have killed Felix if he wanted, but his heart sank with “bitter sickness” (115) and he escaped unperceived to his hovel.

Filled with this disappointment, the feeling of revenge first appeared in the monster’s mind. However this desire was still not strong enough in his soul:

When I thought about my friends […], these thoughts vanished and a gushed of tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflect that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human I turned by fury towards inanimate objects. (118)

As we can see, although the dark side of the monster was starting to appear, his noble feelings were still alive. The presence of these feelings is reaffirmed when Frankenstein’s creature saved a little girl that had fallen into a stream. However this good action had its consequences, because when he was seen by this girl’s relative, he was shot. The monster performed a very good action, he saved a human being. Nevertheless, his benevolence was rewarded with the pain caused by that shot. That was the last time the monster tried to be good, from that day on he vowed his eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.

At that point, the evil side of the monster was totally uncovered and his disappointment with the human race stimulated him to make his first victim, William Frankenstein, his creator’s younger brother. This was the beginning of the monster’s actions to destroy Victor’s life, the responsible for all his miseries.

I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands I exclaimed, I can too create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair on him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him. (122)

By this excerpt we can see that this murderer had not caused any kind of regret to the monster. He was extremely taken by a revenge feeling that was provoked by all negative reactions of the human beings towards him.

Conscious of the fact that he would never be accepted by human race; he turned to his maker and demanded the creation of a company. He believed that “the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant” (126). However, Victor did not fulfill his promise. As an answer to his creator’s attitude, the monster snatched from him every hope of future happiness, by killing his best friend and his loved wife. That was the way the monster found to diminish his pain of knowing that he would never fit that society. By destroying the people that Victor loved, he could cause the same misery that he felt in another human being.

Thus, we can see that the changes in the behavior of the monster happen due to the way people reacted with his presence. The more he missed the hopes to become accept in a certain way in society, the more he turned against humanity. The monster’s, was by nature good, as Rousseau defines men, however the society that he was put in caused all his vice and corruption.


REFERENCES:

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophers/jean-jacques-rousseau.php
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Signet Classics, 2000.