Frankenstein and Gulliver’s Travels Essay :: Character Analysis, Gulliver, Monster

Mary Shelley and Jonathan Swift were completely us†(Swift, 73). Swift doesn’t think highly of chambermaids. Swift in general portrays females, even his wife, in a rather unjust way. The girls of Brobdingnag â€Å"would strip themselves to the skin, and put on their smocks in my presence, while I was placed on their toilet directly before their naked bodies, which, I am sure, to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotions than those of horror and disgust.†(Swift 133) Gulliver’s thoughts clearly address the youth of Swift’s time. Contrary to Swift’s writing, Shelly’s Frankenstein portrays females in an esteemed fashion. Females play active roles in Frankenstein, whether to Victor or to Felix. In fact, women help Victor develop in the reader’s eyes which is impossible to notice unless they are mentioned. Elizabeth is the guiding light of Victor, before and after his maddening state of c reation. When Victor is re-united with Elizabeth he describes her in romantic fashion, â€Å"time had since I last beheld her; it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of her childish years.† (Shelly 67) This is completely opposite to Gulliver. Whether it be his mom, Justine, or Elizabeth; Victor has positive encounters with females. It can also be noted that the Frankenstein monster â€Å"demand[s] a creature of another sex†¦ and it shall content me† (Shelly 135). This request that the monster asks for is crucial as it shows the necessary interactions between males and females that Shelly, not Swift, shows. Although both stories are completely different, they have one underlying theme that they both follow. All of the main characters of both stories point out major human flaws. Gulliver and the Frankenstein monster are depictions of human nature. Gulliver shows this through the people and societies he meets in his travels. Swift, through Gulliver, depicts the flaws of modern religion with the disputes of the Lilliputians and their beliefs of breaking â€Å"eggs at the most convenient ends† (Swift 59). The reader quickly dismisses this conflict as laughable because of the absurdity of the dispute, and this is a perfect example of Swift’s uncanny satirical powers. Swift leaves no group unscathed in his book. Gulliver ,while traveling through the Islands of Laputa, talks about scientist and their projects in that â€Å"The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste† (Swift 196).