Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.

the fact that victor’s first word to the creature was an insult/defamation…and this line in particular hits so hard, because it acknowledges the unbreakable bond between creator and created (parent and child). the creature knows that he is cast out, knows that he is alone and hated. his entreaty to victor is thought out, but also still desperate.