<p>Struggling a bit on the essays in my AP lit class so I am wondering what I can change in order to raise my grade in there.</p>
<p>It is my response for the 2002 FRQ, question 3. </p>
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The Monster, from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, is none the less a complex character. In the novel his role as an ambiguous character is shown in his violent actions against Victor Frankenstein's family members. Initially, the unethical terrors the Monster commits are subject to blind judgement as Shelley depicts in the numerous accounts of people fleeing from his presence. However, as the narrator shifts into the Monster's perspective the reader is introduced to the contradictory nature between his intrinsic morals and murderous acts.
The central theme of the novel is one of a person searching for a place to fit in with society, but failing to do so due to recurring isolation and rejection. Victor Frankenstein aspires to create some form of life that would "owe their being" to him, yet at the moment of success he is unable to handle the inhumanness of his creation and flees in horror and disgust (33). Being the first encounter with any form of human being, the Monster has set for him a predestination for wrong doings. The Monster's attempts to become more like the "common people" are futile, so he has no other choice but to take indirect revenge onto Victor.
Shelley mentions the evil side of the Monster during Victor's narration of the story, where the Monster is passively referred to as an inhumane murderer. The dialogue between Victor and Henry Clerval suggests that all characters, excluding Walton and Victor because of their insight into the Monster's story, are completely naive to the Monster's desire for peace. Henry mistakenly, and ironically, states "how much more a murderer, that could destroy such radiant innocence" (45). Henry, a character representing the good people of society, is the moral compass of the world so there is no chance of his statements being untrue with regards to moral affairs. The Monster murdered a young boy that had no intentions of harming the Monster, and for that fact the Monster should be sentenced to some form of punishment.
Upon the encounter with the Monster at the summit of Montanvert, the disparity becomes further when the narration switches over to the Monster's perspective. At this point in the book the reasoning for the Monster's actions become justified in his melancholy experience with life. The Monster proves himself worthy of freedom from fault as he states the reason he approaches William is to "educate him as [his] companion and friend" (102). The Monster for the entirety of his existence is isolated from the rest of society, and as a result he is immensely lonely. The Monster on his own accord learns from the De Lacy family how to speak and read so that the people in the world would accept him. Overall, the desires to explain to William that he is only searching for a way to fit in with humanity, but when William reacts to his hideousness in the same way Victor did the Monster instantly triggers a way to avenge himself by. The act is justified morally in a sense that, in not having a chance to get direct revenge on Victor when he is first alive, the Monster is now able to a strike a critical blow to him.
The significance is that the moral ambiguity of the Monster seems to highlight Shelley's view of society of people being too easy to convict but not to understand. The Monster's character draws an unquestionable sympathy from the readers as his perspective in the plot brings detail to underlying justifications for his seemingly immoral actions. In the beginning, all readers believe he is truly a Monster. However, throughout the book the existing haziness in the issue of whether the Monster's label is of good or evil seems to be resolved, making him in the end a humane being.</p>