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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Frankenstein, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family, Society, Isolation
Ambition and Fallibility
Romanticism and Nature
Revenge
Prejudice
Lost Innocence
Summary
Analysis
The monster next tells how it found three books in the woods, including John Milton's Paradise Lost (an epic poem about humankind's loss of innocence in the Garden of Eden). The monster at times sees itself as similar to Adam. Yet at others he sees himself as more like Satan, because he does not have the love of his creator.
Adam lost his innocence by disobeying God, his creator. The monster loses his innocence after being abandoned by his "god," Victor. Victor hasn't acted like a god, but like a flawed man, and thereby made the monster a devil.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
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The monster adds that when it fled from Victor's apartment it accidentally took some of his journal entries, which turned out to describe its creation. It curses Victor for having created something so ugly.
Victor created a monster unlike any other being on earth, dooming it to isolation.
Themes
Quiz
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The monster decides to reveal himself in the hope that men will be able to see past his ugliness. One day when Felix, Agatha, and Safie are out for a walk, he enters the cottage and introduces himself to De Lacey, sensing that the blind man will not be prejudiced against him. The conversation starts well, but just then the family returns. Felix attacks the monster, Safie runs in terror, and Agatha faints. The monster flees.
The first and only kindness the monster receives comes from a blind man incapable of prejudice. The rest of the family, like the rest of humanity, responds to the monster cruelly, based on looks alone.
Themes
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