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, a vision, etc. But I believe that that the thing that inspired Mary Shelley the most to write Frankenstein was the romantic period.The Romantic period was an artistic movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, it emphasized intense emotion such as apprehension, horror, terror and awe. It was displayed in visual arts, music and literature. The tempest was written by William Shakespeare and influenced an English fleet crashing into an island due to a tempest. At the time everybody knew about this and it was the root of conversation. Shakespeare was majorly influenced by this and wrote the play.

In chapter 2 of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a spectator to the injurious power of nature itself. He witnesses the wrath of the monstrosity 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. “The mysterious soul of man that occupied me”. Victor believes that a “mysterious soul” had power over him because he did not know why Mary Shelley suggests that Victor wants power over nature. 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. The Aldini experiment is when a doctor called Giovanni Aldini managed to get hold of a dead body and uses electricity to make certain parts of the dead body move. To do this he used galvanism, he made muscles move with electric currents. Shelley heard about this and decided to use that idea to bring Frankenstein to life (using electric currents).