Society's Frankenstein
Erin Sanburg
ENGL 1100.47

To simply state one novel ever changing my life, I would nominate the novel Frankenstein. One may believe the Monster is a horrendous creature who comes from the unknown. The true whereabouts behind this ‘monster’ comes from a place deep within all of us. It is simply a figment of our imaginations and a portrayal of the way we look at the outcasts of society. This novel influenced many changes in my life throughout high school, which was the first time I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Reading Frankenstein helped me consider that it truly does not matter how one looks on the outside. What really matters is what is on the inside, which I was able to clearly see throughout the novel. It helped me to be more considerate towards others’ emotions and feelings. This not only helped me to understand what was going on towards outcasts in our society, but also encouraged me to help others who were being taunted by fellow classmates and even being left out. Frankenstein is a novel that everyone should read at some point during the course of their lives. It has influenced so many changes in my life, and I wish that everyone would get a chance to read it because it has helped me to understand that image does not always get people places in life, that people are hurt emotionally and mentally when they are teased and made fun of, and that I should become a more considerate and loving person towards everyone.

In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the monster is made into a social outcast because of the way he looks. People scream and run in the other direction when they see him, so he keeps himself hidden. If the monster is to go out during the day, he has to keep himself hidden behind bushes and trees. When the sun goes down and the moon shines bright over the countryside, the monster is able to come out and does not have to hide. Considering that he lives without the love and acceptance of his creator, Victor Frankenstein, or anyone else, it is no wonder that the monster becomes so hostile throughout the novel. The stitches and scars on his deformed face make his ugliness prevail, and this is a major reason why he is made an outcast. Many people today are made into social outcasts by their peers just because of the way that they look. Nasty scars on the monster’s face remind me of a girl named Megan who went to my high school. One day, Megan had to get a mole removed and this operation left her with an ugly scar across her face. When people thought of Megan, they thought of her as being rude, because she always had a bad attitude toward everything that was thrown her way. When she came back to school, everyone made fun of her new look and teased her about the scar that almost swallowed her face.

Megan wasn’t always the nicest person to talk to, so when she got this scar, it made it even more fun to make fun of her. I will admit that I would join in with the name-calling. Megan got called names such as "scar face," "mole head," and all sorts of other hurtful names. One day she was trying to get through the hallway when she accidentally ran into me, I said, "Get away from me, scar face!" Soon after that, I realized how this had hurt her feelings because she could not help having the huge nasty scar across her face. This novel relates completely to how people actually make fun of others in school and in the world today for how they look, even when they cannot help it.

Since I was the one who was reading the book, I was able to see how the monster felt from the outside looking in. I started to really understand how I had made people feel even when they would say that it didn’t hurt their feelings. Seeing how he was treated made me feel his pain and understand how he was hurt from the taunting. I started to rethink how people who got made fun of may have felt during the times of my teasing and taunting. The Monster did not receive any acceptance from Victor Frankenstein who was the man that made him. This does not make the monster the bad guy but Victor Frankenstein instead. When Victor took on the role of playing God, he knew that he was creating a hideous human being, but did not think that he was going to need the love and acceptance of everyone else.

When I was a sophomore in high school, there was a "new girl" who came to my school and was in my English class. Her name was Cassie, and she was not liked by anyone because she was new. She had a sour attitude towards people and did not try to make any friends; it seemed as if she was trying to make enemies. And no one knew of her or about her, which automatically made her an outcast. At lunch, she would come and sit down at the table where my friends and I would sit and just listen to what we said. We didn’t like how she didn’t know any of us, but she still sat with us and listened to us talk. This started to make all of us angry. After a couple of days, we decided that we were going to play a little game of survivor with her. When the game began we said, "Who thinks that we should vote Cassie off of the table?" All of the girls raised their hands and Cassie went out crying. For the rest of the year, Cassie was forced to eat lunch by herself in the library. I am relating this story about Cassie and her feeling of being an outcast to how the monster felt when he couldn’t show his face in public because he was scared of what people would think and say about him, or even try to kill him. Cassie was also afraid about what people would say about her if she would have come to lunch again or how people would keep her as a social outcast just because she came from a different school and was the "new girl."

After reading the novel and getting a true understanding of it, it made me realize that the things that I said to people were truly hurtful. The next semester of high school, my junior year, I decided to become a peer tutor. I tutored mostly freshmen and sophomores. I thought that this would be a great way to help people and give them some sort of self confidence, but at the same time help me realize how these people that I had always been making fun of truly were on the inside. Hearing them tell me that someone made fun of them because of what they had on, or how they read, or what they did wrong on a math problem truly made me upset. This had a huge influence on how I started to interact with different people. Rather than making fun of the way people read, I would help them become better readers. After this class was over, I felt like the people that I tutored were my true friends. I still keep in touch by e-mail with some of the students that I helped tutor. We speak on a weekly basis, and I am so happy to hear them telling me about the good grades they are getting now.

This makes me feel as though I have truly influenced someone else’s life and makes me hope they will also pass on the practice of good judgment of others. I also stopped making fun of people and the disabilities they faced and tried to help them find out ways that would help them learn faster and easier. Helping people who were less fortunate than me was very rewarding. It made me feel better every day knowing that I might have helped make a difference in someone’s life. I have also tried to tell many of my friends not to be so inconsiderate towards other people. I find myself taking up for more people rather than joining in on the taunting. My friend Loren and I have also volunteered at soup kitchens to help out the poor. We feel like we must do something to give back to a community that has been so fortunate to us, but not as much to others. I wanted to get a better understanding of the pain these people feel and how it can affect their lives in the long run. I wish that everyone could read this novel and see how much pain outcasts have to live with.

Frankenstein is a beautiful example of society’s feelings towards outcasts. I believe it is time to fix a problem that is causing so many people to have low-self esteem and feel bad about themselves. As seen in the novel, the Monster becomes very violent towards those who were mean to him. Outcasts in our everyday lives can turn out like that if we keep making fun of them and judging them according to their looks or something that they are wearing. I wish I could explain to everyone how much this book has influenced my life, but they will have to read it for themselves to understand the significance in their own lives and get the full effect. I now understand that image is not everything. Some of the most stereotypically beautiful people have the worst attitudes towards life and others. For example Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey seemed like they were wonderful on the outside, and now they are getting a divorce. They have said that they are miserable with each other. They have all of the money and all of the looks that anyone could want. This goes to show that what you look like on the outside and the things you have do not make you who you are. Just because people are beautiful doesn’t make them happy. Some of the most beautiful people today are the most messed up or worse off.

The opposite can also be said; some of the most unattractive people are the nicest ones out there willing to give a helping hand to anyone who comes along and asks, no matter their race, weight, or looks, because they have been judged themselves and know how it feels. I was able to gain a real image of the way these outcasts felt. It hurt me to read about how his loneliness turned into such anger. I then thought about all the kids at school I had ever made fun of, and how they must feel towards me now. This influenced me to become a better person and help the people who were not as fortunate. I hope that everyone gets the chance to experience a revelation like I have. Reading Frankenstein has definitely had a huge impact on my perception of others and my life.