The ethnic minority and the outsider
Like in any other Gothic tale, in the passage describing the very moment in which the monster
comes to life, Mary Shelley uses details to create an atmosphere. The setting is probably
Frankenstein’s laboratory. It is one o’ clock in the morning of a rainy night in November.
The monster is at once introduced in all his ugliness, underlined by the use of colours: a contrast
of yellow, black and white emphasised by the use of the other adjectives: his yellow watery eyes,
his hair which was of a lustrous black, his teeth which were of a pearly whiteness.
The impression we get is of a “patchwork creature” whose limbs were agitated, his muscles and
arteries were scarcely covered by skin.
In the extract from Robison Crusoe in which the protagonist has just rescued a young savage from
a group of cannibals who were going to kill and eat him, the physical features, the narrator
mentions, aim at giving us a positive impression. There are more positive than negative details
and the negative details do not appy to the savage. Although the savage’s skin is dark, the
narrator considers him a handsome fellow because his are the features of a European.
Now we could make a comparison between the savage’s behaviour towards Crusoe and that of
the monster towards Frankenstein. In a sort of progression, Frankenstein realises that his creature
is actually a monster:
.… “he held up the curtain of the bed, he fixed his eyes on him, his jaws opened, he muttered
some inarticulate sound, a grin wrinkled his cheeks and one hand was stretched out. Frankenstein
escapes and rushed downstairs”.
On the contrary, when the savage sees Crusoe he runs to his feet and, after lying down on the
ground, he sets Crusoe’s foot on his head to show him his humble gratitude. He seems to
consider Crusoe a man who deserves respect and submission.
Crusoe calls the savage Friday and he teaches him to call him Master. He drinks the milk and
eats the bread in front of Friday, before offering them to him, because he thinks that Friday is so
uncivilized that he has to be taught how to eat and drink.
The Monster of Frankenstein, at the end of his report, complains about the fact that he has not
been given even a name. After being abandoned by his creator he tries to find his own way to
survive, but soon realises he is an object of terror to mankind: after saving a girl from drowning he
is shot by a peasant who sees him with the girl in his arms.
“ This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and,
as a recompense, I now writhed under miserable pain of a wound”.
In spite of the differences between the two novels ,the monster standing for what his nowadays
called an outsider and Friday standing for the ethnic minority representative, the two characters do
not “develop” during the story: what changes is only their external condition, they are FLAT
characters.
