Society in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Thomas Mores Utopia :: comparison compare contrast essays

Society in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Thomas More's Utopia A primary problem with the society we live in today, is the need to be better. The desire to have more, to be worth more, and through these inanimate objects to be happy is what drive us all. As children we struggled to fit in by having nicer clothes and more expensive shoes than the next kid. Although, in a different from this is a sentiment echoed in Sir Thomas More's "Utopia." By analyzing his work, I will shed some light on how this is very similar to a theme proposed in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." In Utopian society, we are shown that the way to fit in, to be cool is to be exactly the same as those around you. Those citizens who had aspirations of wealth and a better life, were treated the same as those who simply can not afford to 'fit in' in our society. They were the shunned, the public outcasts. These people had necessarily done anything wrong, they just were unhappy with their way of life and had glimpsed something better. This mirrors the daemon in Shelley's "Frankenstein." Although he was an extremely well educated person, who aspired for nothing more than love and happiness, they would never be his to have. The sole reason the monster was abhorred by all that knew of him was his appearance. This singular feature was the reason he was beaten by Felix, and nearly killed by the man whose daughter he had saved from river. His only curse was ugliness, but was this his fault? It was easy for the daemon to curse his creator, the man who had formed him the way he was; in many ways I feel sympathy towards him. The sentences for being different in Utopia might not be considered by some to be as severe, but in many ways they were. For many crimes in their society you could be punished to a life of slavery, but this is not unlike Shelley. The daemon, while not punished by a court system, was punished by something much worse: himself.