Examine the scene in which the De Laceys flee after the Creature’s appearance terrifies them. Analyze how Shelley uses action, juxtaposition, and the Creature’s experience to dramatize a crisis, then argue what the scene contributes to the novel’s treatment of responsibility and rejection.
Practice adapted from: MIT OpenCourseWare · Introduction to Fiction — writing assignments ↗ · Essay 2 — Analysis of a Conflict (Frankenstein, Typee)
The De Lacey encounter is not a single, uniform rejection. Shelley first gives the Creature a brief experience of welcome: the blind old man listens to him and responds sympathetically because he cannot judge him by sight. When the family returns, however, Felix attacks the Creature, Agatha faints, and Safie flees. This sequence turns the cottage into a crisis of recognition: the Creature’s speech and need can reach one person, but his appearance overwhelms the others before they know his history. The family’s terror does not make them equivalent to Victor, who created and abandoned him; yet their flight reinforces his isolation. Shelley makes rejection part of the explanation for the Creature’s despair, not an excuse for the violence he later chooses.
In the margins Why this passage works +
“This sequence turns the cottage into a crisis of recognition: the Creature’s speech and need can reach one person, but his appearance overwhelms the others before they know his history.”
This sentence interprets the contrast at the heart of the scene. It connects the different responses to the Creature’s struggle to be known.
The blind father’s response briefly makes another outcome imaginable. Before the encounter, the Creature has watched the cottagers’ affection for one another and longed to be known and loved by them; he hopes that approaching the family will bring more than food or shelter. The father’s blindness changes the terms of that approach: he can respond to the Creature’s words without first reacting to his appearance. That difference matters because it shows that the Creature’s desire is not merely to avoid attack. He wants recognition, sympathy, and a place in a human relationship. The father’s welcome therefore sharpens the pain of what follows. Acceptance seems possible, but the fragile connection cannot withstand the return of the other members of the household.
Shelley dramatizes the collapse of that hope through sharply different actions. Felix responds physically, attacking the Creature; Agatha faints, while Safie runs away. Their reactions are not interchangeable: one is an assault, one a bodily expression of terror, and one an escape. Together they overwhelm the brief conversation that preceded them. The household’s return converts a tentative connection into immediate danger, and the Creature retreats. Because the scene moves from listening to attack and flight, the reader experiences the suddenness of the reversal. Its crisis lies both in the danger to the Creature and in the destruction of his belief that kindness might secure him a place among people. The sequence makes rejection an event that happens to him, not simply a conclusion he reaches in solitude.
In the margins Why this passage works +
“Their reactions are not interchangeable: one is an assault, one a bodily expression of terror, and one an escape.”
The sentence names the family members’ distinct actions rather than reducing the scene to a general flight. That precision shows how Shelley builds the crisis through contrasting responses.
The scene’s force also comes from the contrast between the family’s private world and the Creature’s position outside it. From his hiding place, he has learned to interpret their ordinary acts of care: he sees them share affection and understands that their happiness depends on one another. He hopes that this visible tenderness might extend to him. In the cottage, however, the family encounters him suddenly and without the gradual understanding he has built by watching them. The disparity is painful: he knows their habits and has prepared himself to approach, while they do not know his story or intentions. Shelley thus makes the failed meeting a collision between the Creature’s carefully formed hope and the family’s immediate fear.
The Creature’s account gives the episode a wider meaning by showing what it does to his understanding of humanity. In his later appeal to Victor, he presents himself as once benevolent and describes himself as miserably alone; he argues that rejection has turned him toward hatred. His narrative lets readers see a progression from longing for connection to despair, rather than treating his hostility as present from the beginning. Still, this is the Creature’s own plea, made while he is trying to persuade Victor. Readers can acknowledge the suffering he describes without accepting his argument as proof that every later action was unavoidable. Shelley invites sympathy, but does not remove the need to judge his choices.
This difference in knowledge clarifies how responsibility is distributed. The De Laceys do not know who the Creature is or what has happened to him; their actions arise in a frightening encounter they do not understand. Victor’s position is unlike theirs. The Creature identifies Victor as his creator and appeals directly to him for compassion, making Victor’s relationship to him a continuing obligation rather than a momentary reaction to a frightening appearance. Victor’s responsibility is not merely that he made the Creature, but that he abandoned a being whose vulnerability and need he knows directly. The family’s fear has immediate consequences, while Victor’s failure is the earlier and continuing absence of care. Shelley’s comparison prevents the reader from treating all rejection as equally culpable.
In the margins Why this passage works +
“The family’s fear has immediate consequences, while Victor’s failure is the earlier and continuing absence of care.”
This distinction supports the argument about unequal responsibility: the family reacts without knowing the Creature’s history, whereas Victor has a direct and continuing obligation to the being he created.
The encounter does not prove that rejection alone causes the Creature’s later violence, nor does it make the De Laceys responsible for every harm he commits. Instead, Shelley makes the episode a powerful explanation of his alienation while preserving his agency. The blind father’s welcome shows that understanding is possible; Felix’s attack and the others’ flight show how fear can close that possibility before trust develops. Set beside Victor’s prior abandonment, the scene distinguishes a frightened response from a creator’s neglected duty. The Creature’s suffering matters, but it cannot make violence harmless. By dramatizing both the hope of recognition and its abrupt destruction, Shelley asks readers to consider what people owe one another—and how much greater that obligation becomes when one has created a vulnerable life.
How the analysis works
The essay distinguishes the blind father’s sympathetic response from the returning family’s separate actions: Felix attacks, Agatha faints, and Safie flees. It argues that this contrast dramatizes the Creature’s lost hope without portraying every family member’s reaction as identical or equating their limited knowledge with Victor’s prior responsibility. The Creature’s longing for the cottagers’ affection establishes what is at stake, while his later appeal to Victor reveals how he interprets rejection. The reasoning separates explanation from excuse: exclusion shapes his experience, but does not erase his agency.
The revision, explained
The family sees the Creature and flees, confirming that no human being can accept him.
The blind father listens sympathetically, but when the family returns Felix attacks the Creature, Agatha faints, and Safie flees; their different responses turn a brief welcome into a sudden crisis.
The revision restores the scene’s sequence and distinguishes the family members’ actions. It avoids claiming that every person rejects the Creature in the same way, while making clear why the contrast intensifies his sense of exclusion.
Try the idea.
Choose one action in the cottage scene: the blind father’s response, Felix’s attack, Agatha’s fainting, or Safie’s flight. In 4–6 sentences, explain how Shelley sets that action against another character’s response and what the contrast reveals about rejection. End by distinguishing one character’s responsibility from another’s.
See the self-check +
A strong response identifies a specific action and compares it with another person’s response, rather than describing the family as acting uniformly. It explains how the contrast shapes the Creature’s experience of hope and rejection. It distinguishes the family’s limited knowledge in the encounter from Victor’s prior responsibility as creator, while avoiding the claim that suffering excuses the Creature’s later violence.
Sources and evidence
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein · Project Gutenberg