“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?”(97)

Chapters 11-16 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein highlight the importance of family and close relationships, as well as showcasing the despair that loneliness can have on an individual. For the majority of these chapters, the monster details his travels and ultimately his social ostracization to Victor, showcasing how his grotesque appearance led any person he came across to immediately be frightened and hostile towards the monster; ultimately forcing the monster to live in isolation in a shack next to cottage. There, the monster details his journey to teaching himself English and learning about the people that he was living next door to. The monster grows attached to these people despite them never knowing of the monster’s existence: when the monster eventually confronts the people living in the cottage, they are frightened by its appearance and reject it, leading to the monster’s hatred of humanity. However, Shelley’s purpose of the monster’s rejection dives deeper than a critical plot point: it also serves as a device to build the monster’s lack of social identity. The monster views the close relationships that are present in a family through the individuals in the cottage, and the devotion that accompanies these relationships. It is the cottager’s devotion and familial love for each other that cause the monster to realize how truly alone he is, and how he has and never will experience such emotions and tight bonds in his life. This realization is the driver of the monster’s hatred for Victor and humanity, but also adds to the monster’s ruthless calculating demeanor showcased in later chapters: after this realization, the monster is shown to brutally murder and destroy everyone and thing that Victor ever cared about. In essence, the monster’s loneliness and rejection by society add to the cold brooding demeanor it showcases to Victor in the later stages of the book: this is ultimately Shelley’s way of capturing the importance of community and family for one’s personal identity and view on life. Since the monster never had a family or close relationship of any kind, it cannot establish its own identity as a living being, leaving a monster with no sense of identity and origin, forever to be doomed to live in desolate isolation. Human beings learn to relate to those around them from the minute they are born, yet the monster has no one else like him.