Frankenstein Creative Project - The Importance of Love and Friendship
By Ajora

Giggling, shouting, and a general air of happiness surrounds the local playground on any typical summer afternoon. The playground is immersed in a sea of light; it is a bastion for the little ones who spend their time enjoying their early years of life. Parents are engaged in gossip and chitchat, and the children are content playing with their friends in the park. However, sometimes there is a child sitting all alone, without friends, not really playing or even talking with the other children at the playground. That child is usually the kid who has no friends, the kid who's the loner of a pack. His eyes glow with a sense of sadness and remorse. He certainly does not seem happy or content in any way, but at the same time he does not look enraged or agitated. He seems to be sad. Sad, because he has no people whom he may call his companion, his friend. People need people; more specifically, people need friends, and people who they can love and receive love back from.

As stated before, people need friends. As humans, we are a species of mammals that requires interaction with each other to function properly. Other examples of mammals that live in groups and interact with each other are primates, whales, dolphins, and wolves. All of these animals are considered to be reasonably high in intelligence by nature journalists. Like those animals, we too are intelligent and arguably require an even higher level of interaction due to our intellect. For humans, those who we interact with willingly on a regular basis are called our "friends." We share many different things with our friends, such as recent news in our personal lives, our recreational time, and our thoughts and morals. Without a friend, a person has nobody to share these things with. Humans need to be able to share these things with our friends to be happy, as the interacting type of species that we are. A lone wolf seldom survives on its own, because it relies on its pack and its community to support it. The same applies with humans. In Japan a few years ago, they dropped a man on an island and left him there for 2 years. The people who dropped him off came back in the said 2 years, to find him well and alive, at least physically. He was in perfect shape. However, he had gone mad during those 2 years on the island by himself. Later, Japan sent a duo of 2 men to another island to live on for 2 years. They survived, and were very much sane by the time the rescue crew got to them. Friendship is so important to the well being of a human. In Frankenstein, Victor had one friend, Henry Clerval. They had much in common, as many good friends do. Henry wanted to go to school with Victor but his father wouldn't allow it. Whenever he was down, Henry was the one who cheered him up. Even when Victor was sick, Henry took care of him. Had it not been for Henry to cheer his best friend up at bad times, Victor would have been completely on his own. Henry was one of the main sources of happiness for Victor, a source that was vital to him especially during hard times such as right after the creature was "born." People still say, "People need people," today.

Love is as important, if not more, than friendship to humans. Love could be called "friendship on a higher level." Even though everybody has their own idea of love, nobody can come up with a universal definition of love, since it means different things for different people. However, some of the important traits that the word "love" carries with it when it is mentioned is that it implies trust, devotion, and care for the person that the word is being said to. Love can bring such great happiness to people. Thus, deprivation of love may bring great sorrow to people. A passage from Frankenstein illustrates the creature of Dr. Frankenstein's plight. He tells Frankenstein that since he is his creator, Victor is obligated to show love for him. However, the creature does not have Victor's love or affection, and out of no wrongdoing of his own. The creature simply asks for the love that Victor owes him, and because he hasn't given love to his creature, he has been miserable since he was created. The creature says, "I am they creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform they part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom they justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." (Pg. 95-96) Another good example for this would be a parent and a child. When nourished with love and care, the baby often grows up to be happy. Children deprived of this love can grow up devastated, and may even be diagnosed with a mental illness when they are in their teens / adulthood. Without love, humans may act as if they were not human, but as monsters, hateful and full of vengeance. A quote from Frankenstein when Victor is dead and the creature comes on the ship to see him is one quote that displays the hate and vengeance that grew within the creature due to his deprivation of love. Clerval says, "If you had listened to the voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived." The creature replies, "And do you dream? Do you think that I was then dead to agony and remorse? He, he suffered not in the consummation of the deed. Oh! Not the ten-thousandth portion of the anguish that was mine during the lingering detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine." (Pg. 208) Love is very important to humans. Deprivation of it can be devastating, or having it may be the most heavenly feeling a human can obtain.

People need friends, and need love. We are not unlike the dolphins, wolves or whales in the respect that we require interaction. If that child in the playground that was mentioned earlier had some friends to play with, the sadness and remorse that you saw glowing in his eyes would fade to a shade of content and joy. Why stick around a playground when you're not happy? The whole point of going to a playground is to have fun, anyways.