“Master of their language”: Education and Exile in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1. Shelley's concern with education. In the passage where Henry and Victor approach Oxford, later removed in the final copy of the narrative, she links education and the state and seeks to "reveal an oppressive traditionalism at Oxford that severely constrains the minds and actions of its students, said to be “slavish.”

2. Peter Brooks argues that the Creature must learn language in order to enter into human society. Brooks then says that language has "failed to gain [the Creature] entry into the ‘chain of existence and events,’ but has rather made him fully aware of his unique and accursed origin” Language is at the root of the monsters pain and awareness of self.

3. The Acquisition of language and understanding also allowed the creature to understand "the very system that names him monstrous. " So with the knowledge of language the creature was automatically granted the ability to understand the conventions of beauty in human society.

4. The creature's request to be allowed to leave and emigrate to South America with a companion created to be as "hideous" as himself, in order to have some connection and a sense of normality and belonging, parallels the treatment of British and American slaves in the 1780's and forward.

5. The creature and Frankenstein's relationsship is often likened to that of a slave and a slave master. Malchow reads into Frankenstein's pursuit of the creature northward to chasing a runaway slave.