This illustration appears as a heading for Volume II, Chapter 8, when the Creature has just been rejected by the DeLacy family and driven into the woods. In the previous chapter, the Creature reveals himself to the family and becomes enraged by their reaction to him, which includes both physical and emotional abuse. Felix DeLacy has beaten him with a stick, Agatha faints, and Safie runs away, frightened by his appearance. The Creature reacts violently to this rejection in Chapter 8, despairing of ever being accepted by anyone, and once alone in the forest, he becomes like a wild beast” and begins “destroying the objects that obstructed” him (Shelley 100).
Ward shows the Creature from a safe distance and from the back, so that the viewer can observe but cannot be observed by the violent Creature, who with one hand has bent a strong tree nearly to the ground. Ward emphasizes the Creature’s physical power as a threat here by showing what he can do if anger motivates him to exert himself—his legs are stretched wide to give him the means of forcing the tree to bend unnaturally—his right leg is extended, but the left leg appears almost disjointed as it bears the Creature’s weight while he forces the tree down. His other hand, which ends in long claw-like fingers, is extended for balance, but does not seem to be contributing much to the effort. This shows that the Creature can cause great damage without exerting himself fully. His face is turned away from the viewer because seeing his features distorted by rage would make it harder to sympathize with him, and this is the moment when the viewer is most likely to feel with the Creature and identify with his suffering and isolation.
The Creature notices that “the bare trees waved their branches at me” and “finding myself unsympathized with, wishes to tear up the trees, spread havoc and ruin, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin” (Shelley 100). Ward chooses the moment when the destruction begins. He draws the many trees in the forest with jagged, zig-zagging lines, so that they look menacing and unyielding, as “unsympathetic” as the DeLacy family has been. The lines of the Creature’s body are similarly jagged, adding more tension to the scene. He is bending the tree from its natural growth, intent on breaking the heavy branch he grasps, destroying nature because he cannot be accepted as a natural human being. Because, as W. Scott Poole notes, “The Creature is born in a lab, and his creation is an industrial process,” he can never be natural, never be accepted by others or integrated into any society (59). Completely alienated from humankind, the Creature declares “everlasting war on the species” and gives up all hope of belonging (Shelley 100). This prepares him to insist that Victor Frankenstein use that “industrial process” to fabricate another unnatural being, a mate to provide the society and acceptance and love he will never find in the natural world.
Works Cited
Poole, W. Scott. Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the
Haunting. Baylor UP, 2011.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Oxford, 2018.