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Example research essay topic: Mary Shelley Frankenstein Friends And Family - 1,773 words

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Everyone has felt somewhat out of place at one point or another in his or her life. How does one feel when he or she has no one to turn to? Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" are both works that give the reader a chance to observe how individuals feel and act when they are placed in an isolated position. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is a book about a creature that is alienated from society due to his repulsive outward appearance, and Hawthorne's story gives the account of a beautiful lady who cannot have social acquaintances because of her fatal physical qualities.

Frankenstein's creature's isolation is turned into rage, while Beatrice, Rappaccini's daughter, reverts her alienation into depression. Both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" show how alienation affects the mental outlook of two individuals in similar situations. Alienation is when one feels overly oppressed because he has no one to relate his feelings and thoughts. One of the major reasons the teenaged students at Columbine High School went on their murderous spree was because of their isolation from the rest of the students. The murderers felt like they held no common ground with the rest of their peers; their lifestyle of computer games and Internet usage was ridiculed. The lack of social interaction builds their feelings up inside.

What happens when these feelings overload the mind? The inner emotions build up until the person lashes out, just like the students at their high school and like the creature on his creator's friends and family. This anger and rage is a vent for all the thoughts that they have had to keep to themselves. Victor Frankenstein deserts his creature, left out in the world to fend for himself. The creature's initial alienation is felt when he first reaches the outside world. The creature's first encounter with humankind occurs at the cottage in the woods.

He knows he cannot directly ask for their help because he is so frightening; therefore, he takes residence in a deserted shack. He tries to win the families' heart by doing good deeds. The creature goes out in the middle of the night and harvests the crop, saving the family for the winter. The creature is considered the "Good Spirit of the Forest, " only because he is yet to be seen.

McCloskey writes, "after a year's secret observation of the idyllic life of the cottagers, he tries to reveal himself to them in perfect goodwill" (McCloskey 129). After being seen by the rest of the family, the family forgets about his good deeds and torments him. McCloskey further states that "through the blind father of Felix had just told the monster that 'the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self interest are full of brotherly love and charity, ' charity horror and fear have quickly dissipated these kindly virtues" (McCloskey 130). McCloskey points out "society, represented by the other cottagers who, thought not blind physically, are blind to their traditional, irrational prejudices, proceeds to destroy the monster's virtuous inclinations and intentions, by the horror, fury and hate of their present reactions toward him" (McCloskey 135).

Rage has grown inside of the "monster, " and the only person he thinks he can turn to to overcome this rage is his creator. The creature's evil actions toward his creator's friends and family stem from their countless acts of isolating the "fiend. " McCloskey states, "the successive crimes of the monster result from his repeated rejections from society" (McCloskey 133). "He turns to evil because he is not treated with reason by men, who, despite his origin, are his fellow-creatures" (McCloskey 133 - 4). "The rejection was the turning point, for 'from that moment the monster declared everlasting war against the species"' (McCloskey 135). Shelley is conveying to the reader that the madness is not the result of the being but of the creator of the being. Victor Frankenstein is the one to be blamed for the deaths, not the monster he has created.

The creature's sole search is for someone that shares his feelings and will have compassion for him. The creature wants Victor to create a companion, so that he will have a mate that loves and cares for him. McCloskey sums up the creature's current state by stating, "all evils come from faults in the social environment, and all evils can be eliminated by their correction through the use of reason" (McCloskey 135). The creature's murderous spree results from the outside world rejecting him for who he is. If only society had given the creature a chance to show his true nature, none of his evil actions would have came about.

Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" is another example of how alienation has affected the mental outlook of a person. Newman says that the main characters in the short story have two facets. "Each of the four main characters has been seen alternately as admirable or reprehensible, heroic or villainous, or as fancifully ideal or ironically grotesque" (Newman 263). Rappaccini is a scientist that "distil's these plants into medicines that are as potent as a charm" (Hawthorne 459). Beatrice is one of these plants. She is symbolized by a "marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so woefully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever" (Hawthorne 459).

Beatrice is a great work of art, but her life has been shattered by the fact that she is too poisonous to come in contact with any outside beings. Rappaccini is given the reputation "that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment" (Hawthorne 461). This is Hawthorne's way of showing that Rappaccini is initially at blame for the situation he has placed his daughter. Giovanni is confused about what is going on in the garden; Newman says this is "attributed to a variety of factors-to his immature and destructive Puritanical fears, to his perverted notions of sex, to an infantile narcissism, and to the corrupted nature of post-laplacian man whose response to feminine beauty is tainted with lust" (Newman 267 - 8). Hawthorne conveys through Giovanni's thoughts that Beatrice is "a wild offspring of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered like the other Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest" (Hawthorne 464).

Just like the creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Beatrice has had no one to share love and compassion. Giovanni serves as Beatrice's first physical contact outside of the garden. "She became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world" (Hawthorne 468). Giovanni was the first that was able to get past the obvious characteristics that entailed from Beatrice poisonous qualities. Beatrice found compassion in Giovanni that she had been yearning for all of her life. "Those tokens which he had hitherto considered proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more unique" (Hawthorne 469). Giovanni served as Beatrice's source of friendship; he temporarily relieved the burdens of her isolation. Beatrice found comfort in Giovanni: "She watched for the youth's appearance and flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancy-as if they were such playmates still" (Hawthorne 469).

Giovanni is her source for comfort and loving that she has been long deprived of by her father's scientific experiment. "'The effect of my father's fatal love of science, which estranged me from all society of my kind'" (Hawthorne 473). Beatrice "craves love as her daily food" (Hawthorne 474). Giovanni does not share the same passion for Beatrice because he now contains the same poisonous characteristics as she. "Finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast served me likewise from all warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror" (Hawthorne 473). Both realize that "if they should be cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them?" (Hawthorne 474) However, Giovanni still gives her the vile of poison, ending her life of isolation. Rappaccini is initially at blame for Beatrice's state of mind. It was his medicinal experiments that isolated her from the rest of the world.

Rappaccini tries to cover his mistakes by mutating Giovanni into a poison, allowing Giovanni to possibly serve as Beatrice's companion. This reduces some of the blame on Rappaccini and places it on Giovanni. Giovanni is unable to accept the fact that he will be unable to have any outside contact other than Beatrice. In the end Giovanni is at blame for Beatrice's death and her mental state because he could have served as her source of love and comfort.

Both works successfully fulfill their goal of showing how alienation affects one's mental state. Frankenstein's creature is alienated by his horrible outward appearance, while Beatrice is isolated due to her deadly physical features. Both characters yearn for someone that will care and love for them. Frankenstein thinks that another creature of his nature will suffice his needs for compassion. This is his remedy for the awful situation he has been placed in by his creator.

Beatrice "would fain have been loved, not feared!" (Hawthorne 475). She can no longer handle the fact that outsiders will fear her. Giovanni is Beatrice's source for love and comfort. Both Frankenstein and Beatrice's hopes for happiness are shattered. These dreams and ideas are not attainable because of the situation both have been placed in. Frankenstein and Beatrice come to the realization that death is the only outlet for the pain of their alienation.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Rappaccini's Daughter. " Literary Culture: Reading and Writing Literary Arguments. Ed. Linda Bensel-Meyers, et al. Needham Heights, MA: McCloskey, Frank H. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. " The Humanities in the Age of Science. Ed. Charles Angola.

Cranbury: Associated UP, Inc. , 1968. 116 - 38. Newman, Lea Bertani Var. A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: G.

K. Hall and Co. , 1979. Bibliography:


Free research essays on topics related to: nathaniel hawthorne, mary shelley frankenstein, friends and family, rappaccini daughter, victor frankenstein

Research essay sample on Mary Shelley Frankenstein Friends And Family

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