The creature made by Victor Frankenstein is the "noble
creature" of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; he is untouched by society, uncontaminated by any
genetic predisposal or any environmental influence. Even when Victor rejects him, the
creature yet seeks love and performs unselfish acts such as providing the DeLacey's with
firewood throughout the cold winter. Without their having extended any reciprocal acts
of kindness, the creature vicariously shares in their lives as he watches and listens to
them with great love in his heart. It is only when the blind old man's son enters and
attacks the creature that he feels any antipathy toward the family. And, it is only
when Victor rejects him again and refuses to make a female for him that the creative
becomes retributive.
Victor, on the other hand, rejects
immediately what he has created and seeks to destroy him, even though he is at fault for
the deaths of his brother William and Justine because of his rejection of the
creature; and, he is culpable of putting his friend, Henry Clerval, and his fiancee,
Elizabeth in danger when he does not admit to his act of creation and when he refuses
the creature a companion. At the end of the novel, Victor yet retains his
self-righteousness while the creature condemns himself, feeling much guilt for his
actions, vowing to rid the world of himself: "No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no
misery, can be found comparable to mine." He also expresses far more human feeling that
Victor has ever exhibited:
" for while I destroyed his hopes, I did not
satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and
fellowship, and I was still spurned....Blasted as thou [Victor] wert, my agony was still
superior to thinke; for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my
wounds until death shall close them for ever....Soon these burning miseries will be
extinct....My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely
think thus. Farewell."
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