Write about how Shelley presents the importance of love and acceptance to society.

Shelley presents the importance of love and acceptance in the beginning. Victor’s father is not only loving but known for his ‘integrity and indefatigable attention to public business.’ ‘Public business’, in this case, refers both to Victor’s father’s work, and his social position within the community, and showers love on Victor. Such ‘indefatigable attention’ recalls how Victor isolates himself while he makes the creature, receiving letters from his father to reengage with society. Victor also subverts the natural order, but only to himself; Victor’s neglect of his ‘more than sister’ recalls how Elizabeth is linked to Victor by both family bonds and love, but Elizabeth still loves and accepts him.

            However, Victor’s isolation and secret lack of ‘integrity’ lead to him rejecting his ‘filthy creation’, alluding to a type of God already stained by original sin in the Garden of Eden. By this rejection, the creature is automatically isolated and never experiences love, which Victor does. This is the ‘blot’ that ‘no father ever loved me’ which the Creature discovers watching the family in their cottage; the ‘blot’ may also allude to the concept of tabula rasa – that babies are born as a blank slate – as the Creature seems to have been born that way. Yet it is only when the Creature realises he cannot have this and is thrown out that he attacks and kills William, Victor’s brother, and so pushes him into self-imposed exile which destroys those who love and accept him.