The monster within: Reconsidering Frankenstein on Halloween

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein endures not as a tale of terror, but as a mirror of our own loneliness and longing.

Frankenstein: Mary Shelley’s monster is a reflection of human isolation and longing.

Mary Shelley’s monster is a reflection of human isolation and longing. (Generated using AI)

A thought flows through the free state of mind. It captures, settles in a corner of the skull, that familiar space where pumpkins grin and ghosts dance. But tonight, an unfriendly giant stirs there, lumbering through the shadows of consciousness. What does it mean to feel unloved, even while being a marvel of creative genius? I look at Frankenstein and — poof! — the spooky night vanishes. He is here, instead, to talk about his feelings.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus remains one of literature’s most remarkable explorations of scientific imagination and emotional depth. Beneath its electric flashes of genius lies something more genuine, a heaving mix of love, pain, and deception, reflecting the turmoil caused by “the monster.” It was during the wet summer of 1816 that four literary figures — Lord Byron, John Polidori, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley — decided to write ghost stories. From that evening’s creative storm came Polidori’s The Vampyre, which later inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a work that endures as a singular creation.

The nightmare that haunted Shelley’s sleep, followed by the conversations that questioned the very act of creation, birthed a gothic masterpiece. Frankenstein reveals not only the horror of reanimating the dead but also the decaying truths rooted in our own selves — our own monsters.

Story continues below this ad

Also Read | The undead canon: A short history of the Vampire’s long life

A monster by any name…

The cover of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Penguin edition. An English editorial cartoonist conceives the Irish Fenian movement as akin to Frankenstein’s creature, in the wake of the Phoenix Park murders in an 1882 issue of Punch. (Wikimedia Commons)

Many questions ripple through the mind when we read Frankenstein. Why do we so easily confuse the nameless creature with its creator? And why, by the novel’s end, do we feel empathy for the monster?

The first question touches on symbolism and identity. Human beings are drawn to naming — to giving form and identity to what lives. As Valentina Copello writes in “Nameless Characters: A Literary Technique,” the absence of a name allows readers to perceive a character solely through actions and emotions, stripped of preconceived notions. Yet, this becomes ironic in Frankenstein. The creature’s intermittent appearances — vanishing and reappearing in sudden bursts — create a tension that keeps readers fixated. Shelley’s deliberate scarcity turns the monster into a haunting presence we chase through the text.

In her 1831 preface, Shelley wrote of wanting a story that would “speak to the mysterious fears of our nature” and “awaken thrilling horror.” As readers, we pursue what is scarce — and in doing so, our empathy begins to align with the creature. Despite his moral transgressions, we recognize in him a soul that aches for belonging. We transfer the scientist’s name to the monster, not just out of confusion, but out of desire — to humanise him, to grant him what he longs for: companionship, acceptance, and peace.

Story continues below this ad

This empathy reflects something deeply human. The “monster” is not only Shelley’s creation but a mirror of our own inner turmoil, the part of us that yearns for love amid loneliness, the part that fears rejection even as it seeks connection.

Also Read | Guillermo del Toro on his Netflix-adaptation of Frankenstein, craftsmanship and the humanity of monsters

Richard Rothwell’s portrait of Shelley was shown at the Royal Academy in 1840. (Wikimedia Commons)

Mary Shelley, the author

Perhaps what makes Frankenstein even more extraordinary is its author, an eighteen-year-old woman, who infused her creation with tenderness amid terror. Shelley’s prose carries a softness that unveils her heart, intertwining the monstrous with the deeply human. Her personal grief, her miscarriages, and the deaths of her mother and husband, echoes through the creature’s longing for love and recognition.

As Shelley herself wrote, “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” Her words remind us that both creator and creation seek the same thing: to be seen, understood, and loved. In that sense, her monster is not only the monster — he is our monster.