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Isolation in Frankenstein

Walton has no friend. Victor works alone for two years. The creature is the loneliest being on earth. Everyone in this book is alone.

The Sea of Ice
The Sea of Ice. Caspar David Friedrich, 1823 to 1824, Hamburger Kunsthalle. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

The quotes

15 quotes, in the order they happen.

I have no friend

Walton · Letter 2 · isolation

Walton is on a ship full of men and has nobody to talk to. Loneliness starts the book.

We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up

Victor · Letter 4 · family · isolation

People are unfinished on their own. They need a friend to complete them. Victor to Walton, about Clerval.

Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity

Creature · Chapter 10 · prejudice · isolation

The creature says he was good. He wanted to love. People made him what he is.

Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel

Creature · Chapter 10 · creation · responsibility · isolation

I should have been your Adam, your first man. Instead you treat me like the devil.

All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!

Creature · Chapter 10 · prejudice · isolation

Everyone hates the unlucky. And nobody is as unlucky as him.

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.

Creature · Chapter 10 · prejudice · isolation

I was good. Being miserable turned me bad. Make me happy again.

Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

Creature · Chapter 13 · prejudice · isolation

He sees himself in water for the first time and learns what he looks like. He asks if he really is a monster.

I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me

Creature · Chapter 16 · revenge · isolation

Like the devil, he carries hell around inside him.

I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me

Creature · Chapter 16 · isolation

Nobody will be with him. That is why he wants a companion made like him.

I am malicious because I am miserable.

Creature · Chapter 17 · revenge · isolation · prejudice

I am bad because I am unhappy. Make me happy and I will be good. His whole argument in six words.

You must create a female for me

Creature · Chapter 17 · isolation · creation

He asks for one companion. Then he will go away for ever.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Victor · Chapter 23 · family · isolation

After Elizabeth is killed. Losing everything at once is the worst pain there is.

I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew

Victor · Chapter 24 · family · isolation

His family is dead. There is nothing to rebuild with.

I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.

Creature · Walton's last letters · isolation · prejudice · responsibility

His last speech, over Victor's body. Abandoned. Kicked. Something that should not have been born.

Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?

Creature · Walton's last letters · revenge · isolation

Nowhere left to go. He will burn himself on the ice.

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The words of the book come from Project Gutenberg, the 1831 text (public domain). Every quote was checked against it. Paintings and drawings are public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each one. Notes by Akash Wadhwani. Copy it. Print it. Share it. No sign-up.
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