The Creature's Story
The Creature’s Narrative
Chapters 11–16 give the Creature its own voice — the innermost layer of the nested narrative. The Creature tells Victor how it wandered alone after being abandoned, confused by its senses: “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time.” Shelley presents the Creature as experiencing the world like a newborn — overwhelmed, vulnerable, and without any frame of reference. This is her most powerful argument for the Creature’s essential innocence.
The Creature discovers fire and is burned, learns that humans flee from its appearance, and eventually finds shelter in a hovel attached to the cottage of the De Lacey family. It watches them through a crack in the wall, learning language, emotion, and human relationships. Felix teaches Safie (a Turkish woman) to read using Volney’s Ruins of Empires, and the Creature learns alongside her — absorbing knowledge of human history, injustice, and civilisation.
From the De Laceys, the Creature learns: (1) language — giving it the ability to express its suffering and desire for connection; (2) emotion — it feels joy watching the family’s love and weeps at their hardships; (3) self-awareness — it sees its own reflection and realises it is “hideously deformed.” Education gives the Creature the tools to understand its suffering but not the power to escape it.
The Three Books
The Creature finds three books that shape its understanding: Paradise Lost by Milton, Plutarch’s Lives, and The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. Paradise Lost is the most significant. The Creature reads it as “a true history” and identifies with both Adam and Satan. Like Adam, it was created by a “creator” who should have cared for it. Like Satan, it has been cast out and now burns with rejection and rage. The novel’s title-page epigraph — “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man?” — is drawn from Milton’s Adam in “Paradise Lost”, setting up the central theme of a creator’s responsibility to his creation.
This allusion is central to the novel. Like Adam, the Creature did not ask to be made. Like Satan, it has been rejected by its creator and now seeks revenge. Shelley asks the reader: if God abandoned Adam, would Adam be justified in turning to evil? The Creature’s identification with both figures creates deep moral ambiguity — it is simultaneously sympathetic (abandoned child) and terrifying (vengeful outcast).
The Creature’s plan is careful and rational. It approaches old De Lacey when the rest of the family is away, knowing the blind man cannot judge it by appearance. The conversation is moving: De Lacey responds with kindness, calling the Creature “friend.” For a brief moment, genuine human connection seems possible. But when Felix, Agatha, and Safie return, they see the Creature and react with horror and violence. Felix beats it with a stick. The family abandons their cottage the next day. The one chance for acceptance is destroyed by visual prejudice.
The Birth of Rage
After the De Lacey rejection, the Creature describes a fundamental shift: “From that moment I declared everlasting war against the species.” The word “everlasting” and the phrase “declared war” mark a transformation from victim to aggressor. Shelley does not excuse the Creature’s subsequent violence, but she makes clear what caused it: systematic, universal rejection based on appearance alone. The Creature tried kindness, reason, and patience. Every attempt was met with horror and violence. Shelley’s argument is disturbing: society’s refusal to see beyond surface appearance creates the very monsters it fears.
Earlier, in the hovel, the Creature had already read Victor’s journal and learnt the full horror of its creation: that Victor was disgusted by it from the moment of its birth. It read that it was made from dead body parts and that its creator considered it an abomination. That knowledge — that it was never loved, never even tolerated — made the De Lacey rejection final. It heads for Geneva to confront Victor, fuelled by a mixture of grief and rage.
“From that moment I declared everlasting war against the species” marks the Creature’s turning point. It is not born violent — it is made violent by: (1) Victor’s abandonment at creation, (2) universal human rejection based on its appearance, (3) reading Victor’s journal, which reveals it was always considered an abomination, and (4) the De Lacey family’s violent response to its attempt at friendship. Shelley argues that monstrosity is created by society, not by nature.
The Creature’s story is Shelley’s strongest statement on the nature versus nurture debate. The Creature begins with the capacity for love, compassion, and learning. It weeps at the De Laceys’ suffering, saves a drowning girl, and gathers firewood for the cottage family. Every instinct is generous. It is only after repeated, universal rejection that it turns to violence. Shelley, influenced by Rousseau, argues that humans (and human-like beings) are made good or evil by their treatment, not by their inherent nature. Victor’s failure to nurture his creation is the root cause of all the novel’s tragedies.