In Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', is the creature truly a monster?

While in Victor's eyes the creature is most certainly a monster, describing him frequently as 'fiend' and immediately fleeing the scene once the creature is brought to life in disgust: 'how can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch [...] I had endeavored to form?' As the majority of narration is his, it would be easy to assume the creature's inherent evil as, from the moment of his conception, he is demonised. However, as the creature appears, his assumptions are challenged. Not only is the creature intelligent and articulate, his first words being 'I expected this reception,' but emotionally and morally charged: 'how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! [...] You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life?' In the Russian nesting doll-shaped plot, in which stories are told within stories (Victor's being conveyed through Walton's, the Creature conveying that of the DeLacey family to Victor), the Creature's narration is central. His story, although filtered through two layers of unreliable narrator, endeavours to disrupt the preconceptions of both Victor and the reader by returning voice to the unvoiced. By the creature's account, man is the real monster: 'You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!' This is the tone at which he first approaches Victor. However, as time progresses and Victor delays the creation of a second female creature as companion, he embodies the archetype of demonic creation: 'you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;--obey!' This would seem to indicate that Victor is correct in his assumptions and that monstrosity merely lay dormant or that his reasoning was merely a front for self-gain. However, in the creature's narrative, it is revealed that '[he] saw and heard of none like [him]. [...] All men fled, [...] all men disowned.' It is following the DeLacey chapters in which the creature is spurned his first real chance at human companionship that he becomes violent, destroying the cabin. Moreover, he subsides entirely on vegetation until he is chased by Victor and forced to kill to keep him alive. Without the influence of human society, the creature would remain as innocent as he was at conception. Therefore, he is not truly a monster.