For over two centuries, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has haunted the popular imagination. Its central figure, an unnamed creature brought to life by the scientist Victor Frankenstein, has become a cornerstone of horror. When we hear the name “Frankenstein,” most of us picture a towering, green-skinned figure with a flat head, stitches, and bolts in his neck—an image made famous by Boris Karloff’s portrayal in the 1931 film. This version of the monster is often depicted as a mute, lumbering brute, a simple-minded beast driven by primal urges. Yet, this popular image is a stark departure from the creature Mary Shelley originally conceived. The being in her novel is intelligent, sensitive, and remarkably articulate. He learns to speak and read multiple languages, is moved by the beauty of nature, and feels a profound loneliness that drives him to seek companionship.
The novel’s creation is not a simple monster; he is a tragic figure who embodies some of humanity’s deepest questions and fears. His story forces us to look beyond his grotesque appearance and consider what it truly means to be human—and what it means to be a monster. He functions as a powerful symbol, a living mirror reflecting the flaws, prejudices, and dark potential of his creator and the society that rejects him. The creature’s true horror lies not in his stitched-together body, but in what he represents.
Interestingly, the common mistake of calling the creature “Frankenstein” is more than just a pop-culture error. For centuries, people have conflated the creator with his creation, a confusion that accidentally points to one of the novel’s most profound themes. The scientist and his “monster” are so deeply intertwined that they can be seen as two halves of the same whole, a creator and a creation locked in a fatal embrace. This unconscious insight reveals a crucial truth: the story is not about a man versus a monster, but about the monster within man. The creature symbolizes a multitude of complex ideas—from the dangers of reckless ambition to the devastating effects of social rejection—that have kept Shelley’s novel startlingly relevant and deeply unsettling more than 200 years after it was first published.
What Does the Monster Symbolize?
The creature is not a single, simple symbol but a rich tapestry of overlapping meanings. He serves as a dire warning, a tragic victim, a philosophical experiment, and a dark psychological reflection. By exploring these different symbolic roles, we can begin to understand the full depth of Shelley’s timeless masterpiece.
A Warning Against Reckless Ambition
At its most fundamental level, the monster is the living, breathing consequence of Victor Frankenstein’s irresponsible ambition. Victor is not a mad scientist in the modern sense; he is a brilliant, driven student of chemistry and natural philosophy who becomes obsessed with a single, godlike goal: creating life. He dreams that “a new species would bless me as its creator and source,” envisioning himself as the father of “many happy and excellent natures”. This ambition is not born of a desire to help humanity but from a selfish thirst for glory and power. He describes this passion as a “torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys,” an unstoppable force that blinds him to morality, ethics, and the potential consequences of his actions.
The moment the creature opens his “dull yellow eye,” Victor’s dream of glory shatters. He is repulsed by the “hideous” being he has made and, in a profound act of negligence, abandons his creation to fend for itself. From this point on, the monster becomes a walking symbol of Victor’s failure. He is the catastrophic result of pursuing knowledge without wisdom and power without responsibility. Every crime the creature commits, every life he takes, is a direct result of Victor’s initial abandonment. The monster is, as Victor himself comes to realize, the “living monument of presumption and rash ignorance”. His existence serves as a powerful warning that scientific advancement without ethical foresight can unleash horrors that the creator cannot control.
This theme is embedded in the novel’s full title: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire (a symbol of knowledge and technology) from the gods and gave it to humanity. For this act of hubris, he was severely punished by Zeus. Victor, the “modern Prometheus,” similarly seeks to steal the fire of life from nature. He succeeds, but like his mythological counterpart, he is relentlessly tormented by the consequences of his creation. The monster is the physical embodiment of this punishment, a constant, terrifying reminder of Victor’s fallibility and the profound danger of aspiring to become “greater than his nature will allow”.
However, the monster symbolizes more than just the failure of one man’s ambition; he represents the inherent flaws in a particular kind of creation. Victor’s scientific quest is described in aggressive, masculine terms. He speaks of a desire to “penetrate” the secrets of nature and “unfold” its mysteries, language that suggests a violation rather than a respectful partnership. Nature throughout the novel is often personified as female—as “Mother Nature”. In this context, Victor’s act of creating life is not a gentle collaboration but an act of dominance. He bypasses the natural, feminine process of childbirth, instead creating life alone in his laboratory through a solitary, intellectual, and masculine process.
The resulting creature, therefore, is monstrous because his origin is unnatural. He is the symbolic offspring of a “rape” of nature, a child born not of love and communion but of arrogant entitlement and violation. The novel describes him as an “abortion,” a being spurned by his creator and by the world. His hideousness symbolizes the grotesque outcome of a creative process that disrespects and circumvents the feminine principle of nature. In this light, the monster is nature’s terrible revenge, a “son” raised to bring ruin upon his “deadbeat dad” who dared to usurp the power of creation without understanding its sanctity.
The Ultimate Outsider: A Symbol of Social Rejection
Beyond being a warning against scientific hubris, the monster is one of literature’s most powerful symbols of the outcast, the ultimate “Other” who is feared and hated for being different. From the moment of his animation, he is judged not by his character but by his appearance. His creator, Victor, is the first to reject him, fleeing in horror from the being he so painstakingly assembled. This initial abandonment sets the pattern for every social interaction the creature attempts. Villagers scream and attack him; the family he secretly helps and comes to love, the De Laceys, violently drive him away the moment they see him.
The creature is a victim of what is now called “lookism”—prejudice based on physical appearance. He is born with a gentle and benevolent disposition, longing for “love and fellowship”. Yet, because he does not conform to human standards of beauty, he is universally condemned as a monster. His physical form is a paradox. Victor selected his features to be “beautiful,” with “lustrous black” hair and teeth of “pearly whiteness.” However, when assembled into a whole and animated with life, these parts form a “horrid contrast” with his “yellow skin,” “watery eyes,” and “straight black lips”. This appearance marks him as a grotesque outsider, a being who does not fit. Some analyses even suggest that his features are described in a way that evokes racial prejudice, with his “otherness” separating him from the European ideal of beauty represented by characters like Elizabeth, with her hair of “the brightest living gold”.
The monster’s tragic journey symbolizes how a society can create its own monsters through prejudice and cruelty. He begins life as a tabula rasa, a “blank slate,” with no innate evil. It is the constant rejection and violence he endures that “nurtures” him into the vengeful being he becomes. When he saves a young girl from drowning, his reward is to be shot by her father, an act of “unwarranted human hostility” that solidifies his alienation. This relentless cruelty teaches him that he is “forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow”. His transformation is captured in his own heartbreaking vow: “I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear”. He is not born a monster; he is forced to become one to survive in a world that refuses to see past his face. In this way, the novel suggests that the true monstrosity lies not in the creature, but in the prejudiced society that judges, condemns, and ultimately creates him.
This social critique goes even deeper, suggesting that the monster’s tragedy is a direct result of a world that values superficial appearances over inner virtue. The novel repeatedly draws a sharp contrast between the creature’s hideous exterior and his intelligent, sensitive, and initially kind interior. He is a vegetarian, reads classic works like Paradise Lost, and yearns for emotional connection. Conversely, the “good” human characters are often praised primarily for their physical beauty. Elizabeth’s “celestial” eyes and “saintly soul” are presented as one and the same, implying that her goodness is a function of her beauty. In this world, beauty is the price of admission for love, acceptance, and community.
The monster’s interactions starkly illustrate this flawed value system. The only human who ever shows him kindness is the old man, De Lacey, who is blind and therefore cannot be prejudiced by the creature’s appearance. De Lacey listens to the creature’s eloquent story and is moved by his plight. This moment of genuine connection is shattered the instant his sighted children return and react with violence born of visual prejudice. This powerful scene implies a profound moral argument: the sighted world is, in fact, morally blind. It is incapable of seeing the humanity within the creature because it cannot look past the superficial shell. The monster thus becomes a symbol for anyone who has ever been judged as “other” due to their physical appearance—whether because of disability, race, or simple unconventionality. His story is a timeless critique of a society so obsessed with aesthetic conformity that it manufactures the very monsters it claims to fear.
An Experiment in Humanity: Nature vs. Nurture
The creature’s entire existence can be seen as a literary thought experiment exploring one of the oldest questions in philosophy: the debate of nature versus nurture. Is a person’s character determined by their inherent qualities (nature) or shaped by their experiences and environment (nurture)? The monster is the perfect test case: a being created as an adult but with the mind of a newborn, a “blank slate” upon which a life story will be written.
The evidence presented in the novel overwhelmingly supports the power of nurture in shaping his destiny. His “nature” appears to be inherently good, or at the very least, neutral. When he first wanders the world, he is like a child: curious, gentle, and observant. He is moved by the beauty of nature and the kindness he observes in the De Lacey family. He learns to speak and read on his own, and his first impulse is to be helpful, secretly gathering firewood for the impoverished family. There is no indication of innate malice. His descent into violence is a direct and logical consequence of his “nurture”—or rather, his complete lack of it. His creator abandons him, strangers attack him, and the family he loves rejects him. Every attempt he makes to connect with humanity is met with fear and cruelty. His evil is not born; it is learned. He becomes a monster because he is consistently treated like one.
The argument for “nature” as the cause of his evil is far weaker and relies on interpretations outside the novel’s main thrust. The 1931 film introduced the idea that the creature was implanted with a “criminal brain,” a simple explanation the novel does not offer. Another interpretation suggests that because the creature was not created by God, he lacks a soul and is therefore incapable of grace or true goodness. However, the text itself provides little support for these ideas. The creature’s own eloquent narration of his story makes it clear that his rage is a product of profound injustice and loneliness. He is a symbol of how a complete absence of love, compassion, and companionship can corrupt even a being who yearns for goodness.
Shelley sharpens this point by creating a stark contrast between the upbringing of the creature and that of his creator, Victor. This contrast effectively isolates “nurture” as the key variable in their moral development. Victor Frankenstein grows up in a perfect environment. He has loving and “tender parents” who are “devoted” to his education and well-being. He is privileged, cherished, and given every opportunity. Despite this ideal nurture, he is ultimately undone by his “nature”—his reckless, selfish ambition.
The creature’s story is the exact inverse. His “nature” is promising; he has a deep capacity for learning and a desire for social connection. However, he receives the worst possible “nurture.” His “father,” Victor, abandons him at birth, and his environment provides nothing but hostility, fear, and violence. His fall is caused entirely by this horrific lack of nurture. By placing these two narratives side-by-side, Shelley creates a powerful controlled experiment. Victor, with perfect nurture, is corrupted by his flawed nature. The creature, with a good nature, is corrupted by his lack of nurture. The monster, therefore, symbolizes the devastating consequences of a childhood devoid of love and guidance. He is not just a case study in the nature vs. nurture debate; he is the tragic proof of nurture’s overwhelming power. His story demonstrates that without a foundation of acceptance and care, any being can be twisted into something monstrous.
The Creator’s Dark Reflection: The Doppelgänger
Perhaps the most complex and unsettling symbolic role of the monster is that of Victor Frankenstein’s doppelgänger, or psychological double. In literature, a doppelgänger is a ghostly counterpart or alter ego that often represents the darker, hidden, and repressed aspects of a protagonist’s personality. The creature is not just Victor’s creation; he is a physical manifestation of Victor’s own inner darkness, guilt, and forbidden desires.
Throughout the novel, the creature acts out the violent and antisocial impulses that the “civilized” Victor cannot acknowledge in himself. Victor, in his obsession with his work, isolates himself from his family and fiancée, Elizabeth. The monster then makes this isolation permanent and absolute by murdering Victor’s brother, his best friend, and finally his bride. The creature achieves the total separation from society that Victor subconsciously craved. When Victor is filled with rage and a desire for revenge, the monster becomes the literal agent of that vengeance. Their connection is so profound that Victor himself admits his complicity, stating after his brother’s murder that he was “not indeed, but in effect… the true murderer”. He refers to the creature as “my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave,” explicitly identifying the monster as an extension of himself.
This doppelgänger relationship completely blurs the line between hero and villain, man and monster. They are not a simple binary of good and evil; they are two tormented halves of a single, fractured being. They mirror each other’s language, both referring to themselves as a “miserable wretch”. They are locked in an inescapable cycle, each becoming the pursuer and the pursued, chasing one another across the desolate landscapes of Europe to the frozen Arctic. The monster symbolizes the monstrous potential hidden within the human heart, forcing the reader to constantly question who the true monster of the story really is.
This psychological connection is not static; it evolves throughout the novel, serving as a chilling chronicle of Victor’s moral and mental disintegration. At the start, the division seems clear: Victor is the rational, educated man of science, while the creature is the embodiment of the primitive, destructive impulse—the repressed part of Victor’s psyche that he immediately rejects. However, as the narrative unfolds, these roles begin to reverse. The monster, through his reading and suffering, becomes increasingly articulate, philosophical, and even sympathetic. He develops a clear moral logic for his actions, arguing that he is a “fallen angel” who turned to evil only after being unjustly spurned by all of mankind, including his creator.
At the same time, Victor devolves. He casts aside his scientific reason and becomes consumed by a single, obsessive passion: revenge. His quest to destroy the monster mirrors the monster’s own earlier vow of vengeance against him. He abandons all social responsibility, family ties, and moral restraint, becoming as wild and isolated as the creature he hunts. By the end of the novel, their identities have almost completely merged. Victor has become an irrational, hate-filled creature driven by pure emotion, while the monster stands over his creator’s corpse, capable of expressing complex remorse and grief. The doppelgänger relationship thus symbolizes not just a hidden part of Victor, but the very process of his psychological collapse. The monster is the mirror in which we watch Victor’s humanity decay until the man and his reflection are tragically indistinguishable. He does not just represent Victor’s inner evil; he represents the terrible path by which Victor becomes a monster himself.
| Symbolism | Core Idea | Key Evidence from the Novel |
| Unchecked Ambition | The monster is the catastrophic result of pursuing scientific knowledge without moral responsibility. | Victor’s desire to be a “creator” of a new species; his immediate horror and abandonment of his creation; the destruction the monster brings to Victor’s life. |
| Social Rejection | The monster represents the “Other” and shows how prejudice and cruelty can create the very monsters society fears. | He is judged solely on his appearance; he is attacked by villagers and rejected by the De Laceys; his quote, “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.” |
| Nature vs. Nurture | The monster is a “blank slate” whose violent behavior is a product of his environment (nurture), not his innate being (nature). | His initial benevolence and intelligence; his learning to speak and read; his turn to violence only after repeated abandonment and rejection. |
| The Doppelgänger | The monster is a physical manifestation of Victor Frankenstein’s own repressed desires, guilt, and darker psychological impulses. | Victor calls the monster his “own spirit”; the monster murders those Victor feels burdened by, achieving total isolation; their shared obsession with revenge. |
Conclusion: Who is the True Monster?
Mary Shelley’s creation is far more than the bolt-necked beast of popular culture. He is a deeply complex symbol who cannot be reduced to a single meaning. He is simultaneously the dire consequence of reckless ambition, the tragic victim of social prejudice, a living experiment in the power of nurture, and the dark, psychological shadow of his creator. These symbolic layers are not mutually exclusive; they overlap and enrich one another, creating a character of profound literary significance.
Throughout the novel, the narrative forces us to ask a persistent and uncomfortable question: Who is the true monster?. Is it the creature, born innocent but driven to violence by a cruel world? Or is it Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant man who shirks the most fundamental responsibility a creator has to his creation? Or, perhaps, is the true monster society itself, with its superficial judgments and its inability to show empathy for those who look different?.
Shelley provides no easy answer. Instead, she suggests that monstrosity is not defined by a grotesque appearance but by a lack of humanity, compassion, and responsibility. In this sense, monstrosity is found in Victor’s selfish ambition and negligent parenting. It is found in the villagers’ prejudiced cruelty. And it is found in the creature’s eventual acts of vengeance. The novel’s enduring power comes from its refusal to draw a simple line between man and monster. Instead, it holds up the creature as a “mirror,” forcing us to confront the monstrous potential that lies not in some creature from a laboratory, but within the human heart itself. The story of Frankenstein’s monster is not just a cautionary tale about science; it is a timeless and deeply human allegory about our need for empathy, our duty to one another, and the devastating consequences that arise when we fail to see the humanity in those we deem “other.”