Frankenstein
The Creature
Victor's creation
A towering, thoughtful being brought to life by Victor, who learns about the world in secret and is rejected by every human he meets.
The Creature wakes in Victor's laboratory with no name, no guide and no one to explain the world to him. He learns slowly: light, sound, hunger, the warmth of fire and the pain of its burn. He is huge and frightening to look at, but he is eloquent, curious and tender, and he longs for company.
He teaches himself to speak by listening to the De Lacey family through a crack in the wall. He reads Milton, Plutarch and Goethe, and he finds Victor's journal. With each new thing he learns, he understands more clearly that he was made and then abandoned. He is not born cruel, and in this story each violent act comes after a cruelty done to him.
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Villagers drive him off with stones. At the cottage he secretly cuts firewood for the De Laceys, and wins the kindness of the blind father, until Felix beats him away. He burns the cottage in despair, saves a drowning girl and is shot for it, and finally declares war on mankind. He kills William and frames Justine.
He confronts Victor on the glacier and demands a female companion. When Victor tears her apart, the Creature promises to be with him on his wedding night, and keeps that promise. At the end he weeps over Victor's body on Walton's ship, says his own crimes are consummated, and vanishes into the dark to end his own life.
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