I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the creator's horror and regret at the outcome of their creation, reflecting on themes of responsibility and monstrosity.
In this quote, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley illustrates the profound emotional turmoil of a creator who confronts the consequences of their own actions. The 'wretch' symbolizes the creature born out of ambition and neglect, leading to a powerful commentary on the ethical responsibilities human beings bear towards their creations, whether they be individuals or ideas. The phrase highlights the internal conflict and despair that can arise when one's ambitions turn into nightmares, urging a reflection on identity, creation, and the implications of abandonment.
In practice
In a discussion about the ethics of scientific experimentation.
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.
The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.
Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.' - Frankenstein
There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
Home is the center of life. It's the wellspring of personhood. It's where we say we're ourselves.
Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.
When we awake it is the animal, the plant, that thinks in us. Primitive thought without the least disguise. We see a terrible universe, because we see clearly. A little later, intelligence introduces its impeding contrivances. It brings the little toys which man invents in order to hide the void. It is then that we think we are seeing clearly. We attribute our uneasiness to the miasmas of the brain as it passes from dream to reality.
I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it would take in my whole body, and then the Universe, until all that would remain of me would be a ball of eaten thing which little by little would be annihilated: that is how I see the end of the world.
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