Explore how far Shelley presents the monster as an evil character. “The monster saw my determination in my face, and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger.”

We might like to consider what it means to be an evil character. One way Victor presents the monster as evil is to paint him as savage, incapable of compassion and ruled by his emotions, not his reason.1. Monster- We see this simply in the choice of the word monster. The word is full of evil connotations of aggression and of violence. It also dehumanizes Victor’s creation, making it decidedly other to man. 2. gnashed his teeth + anger – these are emotive word choices, painting the monster’s expressions in language we might associate with a dog or other animals and with biting or chewing. The monster isn’t using speech, but instinctive emotional response. Can we think about the word sounds too, the guttural ns and gs in gnashed and anger adding to the unpleasant imagery. 3. Impotence – Again Victor shows a monster ruled by his emotions, by his anger. This is fundamentally animalistic, the monster cannot make decisions for rational or moral reasons. But an important balancing consideration, one which applies throughout this novel, is the embedded (unreliable) narration of Victor which raises issues of bias. Victor’s entire family have been murdered, largely by the monster, by the time of his account and so we have to consider how his personal perspective shapes the account, for example is ‘gnashed his teeth’ deliberately and persuasively chosen to fit Victor’s agenda. The potential for unreliability extends to Victor’s interpretations as well as his use of language. He see the monster has ‘gnashed his teeth’ and interprets this as an act done in the ‘impotence of anger.’ The negative implications are discussed above, but the phrase is actually quite problematic (something of an oxymoron). The monster’s response to being overwhelmed by anger is a paradoxical sense of restraint. We might normally think of anger as an emotion leading to sudden and violent action, which would fit Victor’s picture of the monster, but instead the creature holds himself back, and Victor has to find an awkward compromise to explain it- that anger has left him weak: impotent. Is the monster in fact capable of more-self control, and less savagery, than Victor would have us believe?