In this essay I am going to be exploring the way in which monstrosity Is presented within the two books ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley. Monstrosity is a thing that is outrageously evil or wrong. In The Tempest monstrosity is mainly explored through a character called Prospero (Ex Duke of Milan). Instead Prospero went to focus on magic and studied his books. Antonio (Prospero’s younger brother) steals the title of Duke of Milan from him and now Prospero is seeking revenge on him using his two slaves, Ariel and Caliban. Frankenstein is about a doctor called Victor Frankenstein and his search for power. After witnessing the power of lightning obliterate a tree, Victor had a spark of inspiration. This leads to Victor searching for power and trying to create life. He does this by obtaining body parts from dead people and attaching the body parts together. Eventually due to his knowledge of science he was able to reach his goal and bring the body to life. But he soon regrets this as he soon realises that he created a monster. Victor Frankenstein abandons the monster fearing what he created. The monster felt abandoned and decided to take his revenge by killing all of Victor’s loved ones.

Monstrosity is a thing which is outrageously evil or wrong. Revenge is the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. Both of these texts are very different but they are also similar as they explore the same theme of revenge even though they was influenced by different things. Frankenstein was influenced by multiple things, these include the time Mary Shelley went to spend at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the reading of a collection of ghost stories. But I believe the most inspirational thing for Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein was the Romantic Period. The Romantic Period was an artistic movement that began in Europe at the end of the 18th century, it emphasised intense emotion such as apprehension, horror, terror and awe. It was shown in visual arts, music and literature. The tempest was written by William Shakespeare and influenced by an English fleet which crashed into an island due to a tempest. At the time everyone knew about this and it was the basis of conversation. Shakespeare was influenced by this and wrote the play.

In Volume 1, Chapter 2 of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a spectator to the monstrosity of nature itself. He witnesses the wrath of the lightning take down a tree during a dreadful storm. Victor Frankenstein was astonished by the power of lightening and wanted to harness it. “The thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight”, this experience inspired Victor in his thirst for knowledge. He was then inspired to use the monstrous power of electricity to create life instead of destroying life. “To an eager to learn…possessed attraction for me”. Victor Frankenstein now set his goal on creating life and to disobey the laws of nature. He wants to be able to defy the laws of physics and play God by creating life. He wants to be able to control the link between life and death which is naturally evil and morally wrong. At this time, Shelley may have been influenced to write about electricity creating life through The Aldini Experiment. The Aldini experiment is when a doctor called Giovanni Aldini managed to get hold of a dead body and used electricity to make certain parts of the dead body move. To do this he used galvanism, this is when you make muscles move with electric currents.

In Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tempest, Prospero speaks to one of his slaves named Caliban. You can see the lack of respect Prospero has towards Caliban and can be considered as a monster towards him. This is because Caliban doesn’t fear the power Prospero has over him. “Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself. Upon thy wicked dam, come forth”. This highlights the anger and hatred Prospero has towards Caliban. This is shown in the use of the violent and negative words, such as ‘poisonous slave’. Shakespeare could have used the word ‘poisonous’ to suggest that Caliban plagues everyone around him. This could be seen as describing Caliban as a monster because of his physical features. “Come forth” is a very aggressive command which could be seen as Prospero behaving as a monster towards Caliban.

In Volume 2, Chapter 8 of Frankenstein, the monster tries to befriend a young boy. But after discovering the true identity of the young boy (Victor Frankenstein’s little brother) the monster brutally murders the young boy. “Monster! Ugly wretch!”, “You are an ogre”. These descriptions are of the monster’s hideous and monstrous appearance. All these words are very negative and can bring rage to another individual. The fact that the monster was called “an ogre” emphasises the little boys terror of the unknown as ogres are mythical beasts that do not exist. The murder of the little child was done in a very monstrous way. “The child still struggled…I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.” This shows that it was a brutal death as the child was struggling for his freedom but the monster snuffed his life out.

In Act 4, Scene 1 of The Tempest, Prospero has just found out about Caliban’s plan to betray him. Prospero then gets very angry and says monstrous things about Caliban. “A devil, a born devil, on whose nature, nurture can never stick”. Prospero emphasizes the devilish nature of Caliban by repeating the word devil. Also then goes on to say that no matter how well he raised Caliban he will always be a devil and a monster. Prospero also then goes on to mention other monstrous physical features of Caliban, “with age his body, uglier grows”. This shows that Prospero believes that as Caliban gets older he is getting uglier in physical features and in his personality. Prospero then goes on to say, “I will plague them all”. This shows that Prospero is also a monster in some aspects as he wants to plague the people who oppose him.

In Volume 1, Chapter 9 of Frankenstein, Victor travels to the Swiss Alps presented as ‘Mont blanc’ in the text. He travelled to the Swiss Alps in pursuit of rehabilitation and recuperation. Whilst analysing and interacting with many different sceneries that the Swiss Alps had to offer, Victor was able to experience the Sublime. The sublime is the feeling of very great excellence or beauty which has the ability to numb any other emotion or mental state. This shows that the theme of monstrosity can be numbed by other aspects to such as beauty and love. “These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolations that I was capable of receiving”. The word ‘sublime’ allows the reader to understand the heavenly outstanding sight he was seeing. This then allowed Victor to recuperate. I believe Mary Shelley is trying to portray the sublimity of nature through the Alps and how this has the power to nullify monstrosity. Mary Shelley was inspired to write this chapter by ‘The Romantic Movement’. She portrays The Romantic Movement in this chapter by portraying it’s power through the sublimity and how it enabled Victor recover from creating a monster.

In Act 3, Scene 2 of The Tempest, Caliban starts describing the island. “Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.” This gives the reader a very positive view of the island. The fact that Caliban says it gives delight and not hurt could show that he is trying to convince the others that the island is a very beautiful place and not monstrous despite the evil works of Prospero. “A thousand twangling instruments”, the fact that Shakespeare has said there was a thousand instruments puts emphasis on the wonderful sounds that were in the island and how overwhelming the sounds were. “The clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me.” This shows that the island was so wondrous even in Caliban’s dreams the island was dropping riches and was not a monstrous place.

All in all, monstrosity is presented in a contrastive way within The Tempest and Frankenstein. In both texts monstrosity is presented very negatively as both texts have mention of a monster or someone doing things that are outrageously evil. But in the texts there is also mention of very positive aspects that overcome monstrosity. In The Tempest it was the sublime effects of the Swiss Alps whilst in Frankenstein it was the description of the island. This shows that William Shakespeare and Mary Shelley both present monstrosity in very similar ways.