F

F.
What it means to be human… it differs from people to people but I think being a human is living in a society where everyone is connected in some way. Even animals have their own property and groups or herds but it differs so much from humans, because humans can express their feelings to one another to communicate. In my thoughts, Mary Shelley valued emotions the most when it came to best qualities of humanity. The Monster would be telling his experiences to Victor but right in the middle, he would describe his feelings the best he could. He loved his emotions then at the same time hated it for having such emotions because it was so hard for him to understand these feelings. The Monster, cannot show himself to humans because of his hideous appearance, but is the most human character in the novel. No one taught him anything about anything, but he manages to survive and teaches himself with basic knowledge of things and also educates himself. He learned how to read, write and talk from books that he had found and also listened to other people talk amongst each other. But Victor and the people all ran away from the Monster despite his high intelligence and gentleness, because only his appearance mattered to them. Humans are afraid of what they cannot comprehend or understand and refuse to get involved. This is what I believe to be the novel’s moral understanding of humanity. No matter how intelligent or gentle the Monster may have been, judgemental humans toward his appearance made this novel end with tragedy. Not every human are shallow or judgemental but it’s understandable in this novel because of the time period it was written in. The society was different from now so their thinking would be narrower and won’t be open to changes or new things; it is not that the people didn’t accept the Monster but couldn’t.