Parenting in Frankenstein

In the novel of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, parenting is definitely one of the themes and it is shown a lot through out the book. Mary Shelly uses the characters in the novel to bring up the idea of what it means to parent and how parenting effects people’s lives. The protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, grows at a place where he is able to be educated and well-brought up. His family is very wealthy and even adopts children to their family which is Elizabeth. Clearly Elizabeth is in a different class then Victor but she learns to adopt the ways of Victor’s family and become part of the family. Mary Shelly tries to tell the readers that a family should be accepting and create a safe environment for a child to grow and most importantly educate. Mary Shelly shows that because Victor Frankenstein’s family was able to educate Victor, he is able to do what he wishes to do which is to become involved with sciences. Mary Shelly proves that in order to educate others one has to have a great knowledge and influence skills in order to inspire their children. Another example of a different kind of parenting is the family of a cottage. The monster is almost like a baby, doesn’t know how to speak and he is beginning to learn about life. When he finds a cottage, he decides to secretly live on their property and the monster gradually learns literacy. The monster learns only by looking and listening to the cottagers and it is truly an astonishing moment. I think that Mary Shelly is trying to evoke the idea that human can learn faster and easily by listening and watching others. And also by not getting any help and processing it through oneself can make one learn more effectively then someone simply telling what to do and that self teaching is important when parenting (figuring out things by oneself without help). Mary Shelly also brings up the subject of other literatures in the book which explains that literature is an important factor of education and a simple novel can educate more then a person teaching a matter. Thus, Mary Shelly demonstrates the idea of a good parenting or strategies to parenting and she expands on the idea of education and how one should be educated or parented.