Discrimination Jennifer Shi Discrimination is treating someone differently, often unfairly, because he/she is a part of a specific group, class or category of people. For instance, a girl named Wu Qing in China was discriminated against and could not find a job because how her body was a bit chubby and the scars in her face from an accident in her early childhood. Even though she was kind and used to be straight-A student, she had no friends. Now, she is looking for selling her kidney in order to pay the plastic surgery fee.
Discrimination can change a person from innocent to evil is an important theme in the novel “ Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. Even though the main character in this novel is given no other name than “ the monster” from the start, this is the opposite from the truth. In fact, the creature is extremely innocent at the beginning. It is only as a direct result of the cruel discrimination that he experiences, that in the end he actually becomes the real monster. Thus, he changes his personality from naive to evil and cruel. At the beginning the monster is unbelievably innocent.
We can see he is innocent as he has the characteristics of little life experience, kind and naive at the beginning. To start with, he has a very little life experience like a little baby. He does not know how to speak, see and hear; he does not understand that he needs food and air to survive; he does not understand the meaning of love and family means. He says to Frankenstein:” At first my eyes and ears did not work very well… ” (Shelley 21) and he also says, “ I learnt that people think it is very important and to come from a good family… love between mother and father and child…
I had no family. ”(Shelley 26-27)This quote shows how little life experience he has as growing up alone without any support that he supposes to get from Frankenstein – a little baby who needs parents’ love and care. He has to learn everything by himself from the very start since he has no family. In addition, more evidence of him innocence is seen as he is kind. He is incredibly kind as he enjoys helping people who are misfortune and he is happy when he sees others are delighted; he is sad when he sees others are sad. He says, “ Their life was already hard enough…
I cut firewood for them, and added it secretly…I was very happy to see how much this pleased the young man. ”(Shelley 24). What he has done reveals that how kind he is, he helps the poor and blind’s man’s family without telling him that he is the one helping them. He is pleased when he sees them happy; he does not ask much, all he need is- to see other people are happy. Lastly, the monster is very naive. He does not understand he is different, he does not understand a monster-look appearance means to commoners. He is confused, “ I did not understand what the man was doing…
Some of the people ran away when they saw me, but the others shouted and threw stones at me. They wanted to kill me. I was badly hurt, but I escaped and ran into the open country. ” (Shelley 22). This quote shows that how bad the cruel villagers treated the innocent, pure-hearted him and how he reacts that though he has the power to fight against them, but he does not, with the naive in his heart he runs away. These three qualities clearly show that “ the monster” is not a “ real monster” but rather an innocent creature who has little life experience, pure hearted and naive.
Later on in the novel, he has gone through plenty of discrimination against his appearance. This harsh, mean discrimination has totally changed him. The injustices he experiences includes Dr. Frankenstein’s reject and abandons, the drowning girl and her father shoots at him, and the so called “ nice” family in the woods beat him with a stick and has hugely disappoints him. First, he experiences the discrimination from his own creator, his god – Dr. Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein abandons him when he is only a little baby who needs care and love from his father. Dr.
Frankenstein has rejected him and most ruthlessly he wants to kill his own creature that he created by himself! In the novel Dr. Frankenstein shouts, “ You are an evil creature. I shall kill you if I can…” (Shelley 20) and he also says, “ we are enemies, leave me now or let us fight until one of us is dead…” (Shelley 20-21)This quote conveys how much the Dr. Frankenstein hates the monster as he wants to kill him. All of these actions the Dr. Frankenstein has done are solely because of the monster’s countenance that leads to the creator himself who made how the monster looks like wants to kill the monster!
How sad and disappointed the little baby-like monster must be. In addition, the inequality he tolerates is far more than just the hurt from his own creator. He has been discriminated against by the drowning girl and her father. He has saved the girl’s life but her father shoots him instead of rewarding him. In the novel it is written, “ I fell to the ground in great pain, and the man and the girl ran into the woods as fast as they could, and left me. The bullet was deep in my arm, and I lost a lot of blood…I had saved the girl’s life…with a bullet in the arm! (Shelley 30-31) This quote reveals the strange results of saving a girl’s life – deep in pain, lost a lot of blood and of course enormously trauma emotionally. It sounds like he has done something horrible simply because of saving someone who is in danger. He has done nothing wrong, is the cruelty, the little human cannot stand the fear inside themselves towards the fierce looking outside but pure-hearted and kind insight monster. Those are not the only injustices he has experienced. The Felix’s “ nice” family hurts him more than any other.
The family that he has contributed most of the time with, the family once he has thought who are really kind and nice -they has hit him in the stick! What the Felix’s family has done to him is written in the novel, “ He threw me to the ground and hit me again and again with his heavy stick. I did not lift a hand against him. I did not want to hurt him- or any of them. ” (Shelley 28) It can tell us that how even the family has wound him, he stays still. He does not want to hurt them though he has the power that can easily destroy them.
Although he might have not hurt much physically, this impacts him enormously emotionally. The family that he hopes so much to make friends with has indeed turned him down; the family which is known as kind has beaten him due to how he looks. These three events had really disappoints him that he still tries to remain as a nice person. These matters can tell that how much discriminations he has experienced. Finally, in the near end of the story, the monster cannot stand the discrimination anymore; he turns to be a real monster who kills, who has evil and hatred in his heart and who likes torture other people.
First, he starts to kill people, and he feels released when he kills. He now does not like helping people as he was at the beginning. He has killed five people in total. It states in the story, “ Remember the deaths of William, Justine, Henry Clerval, Elizabeth, my father… and remember me, Victor Frankenstein. ” This quote shows the list of the innocent people he has killed after he turns to evil from pure due to the pressure of the society against him. He is changed from a enjoy helping baby-like though monster-looking creature to a enjoy killing real-monster.
Second, his heart is full of hate. He envies people who are better-looking than he is. He trumped up charges. He admits by himself, “ I hated her because she was pretty… I put the gold chain into… her pockets… I knew the police would think that she had killed the little boy. ” (Shelley 33) This quote can tell us how filthy he is turning right now, that he not even kills people but also incriminate someone who is guiltless. He has boundless hatred and evil in him as he makes other people misery. Third, he enjoys torture people, and get entertained when sees them unhappy.
He tortures Frankenstein, Frankenstein says, “ He wants me to live as long as possible. He wants me to feel, day after day, the pain and misery that he has given me. ”(Shelley 50) We can see how brutal the monster is now as he wants others to live in pain and misery. He wants Frankenstein to live longer that he can torture him into hardly wished to live. Unlike at the beginning, he wishes other, such as Felix’s family to be happy but not torturing them. He has now become a real, cruel, mean monster with great power. These three signs prove that he has now become a real monster.
In conclusion, we see that the main character “ the monster” has become a real monster from a pure-hearted, innocent though monster looking creature. First he starts as innocent where he has little life experiences, kind and naive. Later on, he has gone through lots of discrimination against him where he has done nothing wrong. At the end, he cannot bear the self-opinionated human does to him; he turns to a real monster with great power that kills, hates, and tortures others. One can ask who the real monster in the story is.
Is the fierce-looking monster who is innocent and pure or the good-looking humans who hurts him cruelly? For next time, we may see people bully, smoke, addicted to drugs or maybe even shoots, we may wonder, he/she may not started off to be the “ real monster”. Everybody was once innocent when they were babies; the discrimination may have changed them from good to evil. Therefore, in life, we may have seen people who are different than us, but we must not hurt them or discriminate them otherwise the consequences will be to create another “ monster”.
