13. What is a monster?

In my opinion a monster is a being that does very immoral things, such as raping or killing a person. We see monsters everyday in our streets and in our homes. A monster could be a person who physically abuses another or a date raper. Even though monsters are seen in TV or in movies as having huge statures or very ugly, there are monsters that are human. In the book Frankenstein, the "monster" was automatically branded a monster because of his appearance. I looked up in the dictionary the definition of a monster and it stated that a monster was any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people. Because of this definition, Frankenstein's monster was automatically declared a monster because he did indeed instill fear because he was so ugly. I do not believe that monstrosity is on the surface. It is in the personality and in the way a person treats others. Frankenstein's monster only treated others with kindness but he got hatred back. For example on page 101 when he demonstrated an act of kindness toward the girl who was drowning, he received pain in return. He shouted, "I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone (101)." When a being only receives hatred, it is not surprising that that being would actually turn into a monster, as the monster did. The only name that we are given to Frankenstein's creation is monster because that is what he is branded even at his birth.