Examples Of Confinement In Frankenstein

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In the book, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the gothic element of confinement, both physical and psychological, is directly tied to the monster and becomes more prominent when something significant happens related to the monster. Often times, this “confinement” is self-induced, meaning that the characters, though it is primarily demonstrated by Victor Frankenstein, bring physical confinement upon themselves as they chose to isolate themselves from society. This isolation is very destructive to the characters who experience it, which is evident when Frankenstein begins to devote himself to creating life. He spends months, furiously working on his creation, all the while withdrawing himself from society. He would work on his creation in “a solitary …show more content…
The day after Frankenstein completed his creation, he returned to his apartment, only to “[fall] down in a fit” from which he “did not recover [his] senses for a long, long time” (Shelley 40). It is apparent that the stress and isolation Frankenstein put upon himself was too much for his body to handle. He became trapped within his own mind and he “raved incessantly” about the monster, the form of which was “forever before [his] mind. It was Frankenstein’s good friend Henry Clerval who nursed him back to health and “called forth the better feelings of [his] heart” by helping to reintroduce him to society (Shelley 47). It is obvious that the effects of Victor’s isolation were very destructive, as he became gravely ill and was psychologically confined within his mind, forever tormented by the creature he had created. This occurrence also demonstrates how the monster is directly connected to confinement. Frankenstein chooses to confine himself to his workplace so he can create the monster and after he brings it to life, he becomes psychologically confined within his own mind, haunted by what he has …show more content…
As he distances himself from other people, he slowly becomes more like the monster he is determined to destroy. The monster is isolated from society from the moment of creation. He lives a sad life, “miserably alone” as humans, including his creator, “spurn and hate” him and so the “desert mountains and dreary glaciers are [his] refuge” (Shelley 73). Like the monster, Frankenstein becomes isolated from society, although his isolation is a choice whereas the monster did not chose to be isolated. A direct comparison can be made between the hovel that the monster lives in near the De Lacey’s farm and the remote hut on a island in Orkney, Scotland that Frankenstein lived in while he built a female monster. The monster, fearful of angry humans as he searched for food, takes refuge in a small hovel that was “quite bare” and that had a “wretched appearance” compared to those the monster had “beheld in the village” (Shelley 78). Frankenstein, needing a place to create a female partner for the monster, buys one of three huts on a remote island that “exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury” (Shelley 126). Both the hovel and the hut provide pitiful living conditions and are largely isolated from society apart from a couple neighbors, demonstrating a similarity between Frankenstein and the monster. Another similarity is that both are motivated by revenge
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