Mary Shelley’s novel portrays human nature in many ways by using the monster’s feelings and writing about his thoughts when he came to life. Human nature by definition is the way humans act and feel and is shared by all humans. The monster is not human but he starts to possess the characteristics of humans by observing others and learning from books. Throughout the story, the monster starts to develop natural characteristics that attribute to human nature such as curiosity, love, and jealousy.
At the start of the story, curiosity is what drives Victor to learn about life and the creation of the monster. The monster develops this basic instinct of human nature as well by wanting to know more about his surroundings. He sees the world but wants to understand it because he is driven by his unknowing of what lies ahead. The monster’s curiosity led him to learn how to speak and realize what he truly was. He describes it as “I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me: I tried to dispel them, but only sorrow increased with knowledge” (Shelley 85). By wanting gain knowledge he realizes that once he’s attained it, it’s not what it seems and sometimes it’s better to be left clueless. He still stays and watches the Delacey’s because he is interested in the way they live and sees their love for eachother. Which he starts to wonder about as well.
The monster sees how the family shows their love for eachother and realizes he is alone and unwanted because of who he is. Since the moment he was created, he faces isolation, rejection from the Delacey’s and others, as well as condemnation from society and Victor. Despite his situation, the monster yearns for the feeling universally known to humans: love. Ultimately the monster’s goal is to attain some kind of understanding and feeling of love. He even goes on to say, “Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me” (Shelley 69). It’s clear that the monster wants human interaction, which is essential to love and his lack of it drives him to be the monster that he is. Since Victor did not fulfill the monster’s request for love, the monster starts to feel rage and jealousy.Which brings the monster to having more human nature emotions.
Jealousy and rage cause the monster to lose all sense of perspective when he realizes he cannot have the love everyone else has. He is jealous of the love that the Delacey’s have for eachother, Elizabeth’s love for Victor, and Justine constantly being wherever William was. The monster first displays his jealousy and anger towards Victor by seeing that Victor had a family to go back to. That was when he saw William and when William insulted the monster, he killed William because he was overcome by anger and jealousy. He proves this by telling Victor, “Can you wonder that such thought transported me with rage? I only wonder that at that exact moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind, and perish in the attempt to destroy them” (Shelley 104). The monster also exhibits his jealousy and rage when he kills Elizabeth and he does this to make Victor suffer. Due to the fact that Victor destroyed the monsters mate, therefore, the monster must destroy his.
The monster portrays human nature with good intentions but in the end his good intentions lead to his dismay. This is seen when he was curious to learn about the world around him. He learned how to understand others by knowing the language but he also learns that he is a monster and an outcast. By gaining too much information he regrets wanting to know what the world was. He sees love and yearns for the universal feeling all humans give and receive to each other, but ultimately he is left alone and his request for love is denied. Through all his grief and hardships, he eventually develops stronger emotions of jealousy and rage. Although those characteristics made him become the monster that Victor envisions, they are natural to humans. They are also a part of human nature even though many try to sway from them because they are seen as the undesirable characteristics. The monster eventually gets them because he is undesirable to his creator and society. Since he was created curiosity, love, jealousy, and rage has made him show that human nature may start with good intentions but will cause him to end up in turmoil.