Frankenstein: Born Evil or Socially Corrupted Essay

Was the Being Frankenstein created born evil or was he shaped into being evil? Or any man for that matter? Nobody is born evil. They are taught evil ways. They are corrupted by society. In the book Frankenstein, the Being created is looked at as a symbol of evil who only seeks to destroy everything in his path. However, the Being was corrupted by the initial rejection of his creator. It is true that man could be considered evil, but I believe that man is born good and simply put, corrupted by the evil that already exists in the world. As in Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a being that he later turns away from due to its hideousness, but the Being was created with a innocence and pureness that all men are born into. The Being appears aside Frankenstein after he is awakened from a nightmare. The Being seems to want to communicate with his creator but he had not been taught. Victor takes his behavior as a form of malice. â€Å"And his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaw opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ ne hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs† (Shelley, p. 43). Victor even states that he is deliberately avoiding communication with the Being due to its hideousness. Victor Frankenstein of all people should understand the importance of love and the care of a parent in order to become moral and a good human being in general. He often talked about how attentive his parents were with him growing up. â€Å"†¦They always seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow upon me†¦ he innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me† (p. 19). According to Victor it was his parents love for him that helped shape his future. By abandoning the creature he has created, Victor Frankenstein helps raise feelings of vengeance toward himself by the Being which leads it to kill members of the Frankenstein family. The Being sets out to find someone to talk to as he can’t talk to his creator. He unknowingly looks to Victor’s younger brother William and hopes that society has not corrupted the young innocent child and that William will accept him despite his looks. The Being is disappointed when his hideous looks scare William, after discovering that he is Victor’s family, he kills the young boy. It is after having been rejected by man twice that the creature resorts to committing murder. Still the Being tries hard to do good, trying to save a woman drowning, but she also struggles against him, trying to get away. After being shot by her companion, the Being resorts to thinking that he must kill her too. â€Å"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame†¦ † (p. 130).