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  • Essay / The Orphan - 1564

    Hearing the miserable cry of an unjustly punished child crying "I never asked to be born!" is a terrible sound. And in 1823, the first literary work to moan these words was published; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was published in London, England. Although many people think they know the real story, that is not the case. A young man named Victor Frankenstein, unable to understand the intricacies of the gift of life, is driven by his lack of knowledge to feel an intense need to produce it. But when his creation actually appears before him, he is overwhelmed and unable to submit to his child's responsibilities. So instead he steps back and lets the child stand on his own two feet. Therefore, he submits to the cruel blows and blows of the world, and in turn, he conceives a broken and damaged child due to lack of care and no one to care for him. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victor to act as a symbolic mother who thoughtlessly gave her life, but after seeing the serious repercussions this can have on her future, he aborts the baby. In turn leaving the creature to be beaten and beaten alone in the world: “a man left to his own devices from birth would be more of a monster than others” (Shelley 46). Thus showing how the condition of a child rests on the responsibility of the parent, because if he does not benefit from the appropriate means of growth in a stable environment, he can transform into a monster. Concretely, if Victor had acted like an ideal adult bound by the moral obligation of a creator, the creature would not have become a monster. This is important to Shelley because her mother died giving birth to her. After his death, his father never forgave him; he alienated her as if she were an orphan. This is why Shelley makes an urgent request to his readers...... middle of paper...... like the monster, the author faced the world almost alone. Although placed side by side, Shelley literally proves that even the slightest advice from her father made the difference between ending up ordinary or weird. In other words, the creature would not have behaved as it did if it had the support of a parent. In conclusion, Shelley's unprecedented perspective practically uses the real-life experience of an isolated child in Frankenstein, through allusions and symbolism, to show the catastrophic consequences of the destruction of the social contract that chains parents and children. Works Cited Shelley, Mary W. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2007. Print. Shelley, Mary W. Frankenstein. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York, NY: Meuthuen, 1988. Print.