How are both Stoker and Shelley able to horrify their reader

In both novels we get a sense of a loss of humanity with the characters, but of which characters? The monsters, in this case Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s creation, or the people around these ‘monsters’. But what I want to find is what makes us, as readers, horrified. Because both novels do not depict very violent or gory scenes but yet we still find them quite horrifying and I believe the explanation for this is because there is a lack of humanity within the two novels. It is the lack of humanity, which we find most terrifying.

In the novel ‘Frankenstein’ you most certainly feel a certain amount of sympathy for the ‘monster’, which Victor Frankenstein has created. Frankenstein created this ‘monster’ because one main reason being the loss of his mother when he was young, he also has a thirst for knowledge. Is this a fair reason to create life, to play god? I believe it could be, but the way in which Victor created life was not in the way which God gave us the ability to create life he has done it through

In ‘Frankenstein’, there is a lot more acts of inhumanity towards the ‘monster’ than that of the people around the ‘monster’. Saying this Victor’s creation does also show acts of which it shows little humanity towards a human being. But it’s his creation, which is a victim of inhumanity at first. This occurs when Victor creates him and then runs from him, because he just realises what a dangerous thing he has done, he abandons him. In birth the creature is described near the beginning of chapter four of the first volume as one whose “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” of one whose “ hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing” of one who had “teeth of pearly whiteness and watery eyes that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set.” These descriptions of the creature are ones that show that he very much so like a human but yet Frankenstein runs from him. This stands in stark contrast to his parents' devotion: Victor renounces his child at the moment of its birth. It is from this in which us as readers begin to recognize the profoundly unethical character of Frankenstein's experiment and of Frankenstein himself.

In ‘Frankenstein’ Frankenstein’s creation is eventually driven away from society. He ultimately finds his way to the polar wasteland, the cold desolation that is a sign of the lack of communion with humanity. Frankenstein confronts his creature in these harsh conditions. Accusing Frankenstein of bringing him into a world where he could never be accepted, the creation realizes his creator's faulty idealism. Through all of his troubles Frankenstein learns that the monster was unable to fit in due to his ravenous looks and hideous ways. If the monster would have been shown any moral values I believe that the monster would have been accepted into society and would have been able to fit in. But since the monster was evil in his ways he was unable to experience any of these virtues, which cause him to become evil, and which starts his killing spree. The creature became him evil where as Dracula was born evil and he too could never be accepted into society but then this leads you to think does he want to be accepted. The creature in ‘Frankenstein’ wanted to be accepted. In ‘Dracula’ the Count moves from his home in Transylvania to England but he moves only so to feed more not to socialise. He could easily fit in because his appearance is not like the Frankenstein’s creature people would accept Dracula’s appearance.

In Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ the creature's narrative voice is surprisingly gentle and utterly guileless: one of the most poignant moments in the novel is when the creature, despised by Victor and feared by the rest of mankind, collapses and weeps out of fear and pain. I

Some topics in this essay:
Quincy Morris, Count Dracula, Transylvania England, Protestant Dubliner, Saying Victor’s, Accusing Frankenstein, Initially Count, Anti-Christ Dracula, Victor Frankenstein, Dracula Frankenstein’s, count dracula, humanity novels, loss humanity, lack humanity, shelley’s ‘frankenstein’, novel protagonists, play god, frankenstein’s creation, throughout novel, frankenstein created,