Love-Hate Relationships - Novel Blog 7 (Frankenstein)

"For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?"

~ Frankenstein, page 165

Throughout the novel, all the people give the creature crap about being a hideous, horrid beast. Which is true. However, if you think about it, the creature is the only character (or at least one of the only characters) who shows emotional depth and multiple sides of his personality. He is by far the most round character in the whole novel. When he does his narrative, we see how he feels; his emotions are very, very extreme, and we witness a gamut. We see pain when he is abused by the villagers for his appearance, sadness when he weeps with Safie for the Native Americans, anger when he sets the De Lacey's house on fire, hope and excitement when Victor first agrees to creating the female, remorse after Victor dies and he realizes how horribly he has sinned, and sadistic pleasure when he sees Victor mourning the wife he just murdered. His complex character creates confusion for the readers; we hear about how he was beaten for being ugly, but then he murders several innocent people and gets sick pleasure out of it? It's really hard to tell if you even like him or not. But honestly, he's the most realistic character in the whole novel. Victor shows little emotion but fear and anguish, and he can't even get over the fact that the creature is unattractive; he's incapable of change. Elizabeth represents beauty, compassion, and innocence the whole novel; she doesn't show any other traits. Clerval is the supportive friend. Alphonse Frankenstein is the loving father that everyone wants.

It's really funny that the creature is supposed to be this terrible, demonic monster, but he has the most human character - the one-sided people in the book are more like artificial beings programmed with limited emotion and personality. Real people have both good and bad in them, and that's what makes this book so difficult. We don't want to like Victor because he is so flat, even though he doesn't do anything wrong. We love the creature because he is so genuine, but it's that genuineness that requires him to do bad things and experience painful emotions - which makes us simultaneously hate him. That, friends, is the great paradox of this novel. And of life in general.

Ruth: More Than the Average Love-Hate Relationship/ Round Character (Chapter 5/ Pages 49-60)

"Now I saw how upset Ruth was; how for once she was at a complete loss for words, and had turned away on the verge of tears. And suddenly my behavior seemed to me utterly baffling. All this effort, all this planning, just to upset my dearest friend."

~ Never Let Me Go, page 60

Ah, Ruth. As we continue reading the story, more and more dimensions of her personality arise, never failing to entertain us further; she is definitely a round character. I could think of some words to describe her, but unfortunately, they aren't acceptable for a homework assignment. Ruth is a very complex character for a couple reasons. She exhibits not only bossy, childish actions during play with other children, but also feels as if she has to lead (or maybe dictate) the other girls in her group and control every situation. She purposefully lies to gain more respect and power, and she somehow succeeds in her endeavors while also evoking anger in her peers (or maybe subjects), which confuses me. God only knows what made her this way - it was probably something in her personal history. What particularly surprised me, though, was that when Kathy approached her and merely suggested that she could have information that may injure both her reputation and her pride, Ruth became extremely vulnerable and revealed insecurities that apparently run deep. At this point, I was rooting for Kathy to aim for the jugular, but she instead spared Ruth and considered herself the antagonist (Why are you such a good person, Kathy??). Now my only question is if Ruth was just completely scared, or if she intentionally exposed her vulnerability to manipulate compassionate Kathy into taking responsibility for the incident and liking Ruth more (well, for now). 

I think the reason why so many people can relate to this - especially women - is because everyone has had or been a Ruth in their social life. Ask any girl and she will tell you about that one friend who displayed Ruth-esque traits at least to some extent. And it's really a struggle! So as of now in the novel, we readers will be rooting for Kathy to recognize the harmful effects of the relationship and move on - we can now really relate to and encourage Kathy to overcome this.