Frankenstein 8

"In The Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment." (117)

Shelley incorporates The Sorrows of Werter by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe to relate the pain that the main character, Werther, goes through in his life to the pain that Frankenstein’s creation goes through. Both of their pains are due to human cruelty, and The Sorrows of Werter effectively parallels the creation’s questioning of his own purpose in life. Werther commits suicide in the end of the novel, which sparks a defiant unwillingness to live in the monster.

Works Cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther