Lusus Naturae is a story written by Margaret Atwood. It is a story about a girl who had to deal with her appearance because she was unlike from the other family members. While Frankenstein, is story written by Mary Shirley. It is story about a hideous monster that was created by Victor Frankenstein, and left him to wander all alone in the world. Shelley in Frankenstein and Atwood in Lusus Naturae, wrap their stories around two characters whose physical appearance are similar to one another (Mays 289). Both the stories deal with characters who are struggling to live with the people around them, despite their monstrous appearance. Both the characters were lonely, and needed people who could understand them in their lives.
Both characters had a different appearance from that of the ordinary people, but were similar in their appearance. The protagonist in Lusus Naturae says “My yellow eyes, my pink teeth, my red fingernails, the long dark hair that was sprouting on my chest and arms,” (Atwood 224). She knew that she was different from the rest of the people. They were both abandoned by the people they called family. Victor created the creature and ran away from him, because of his hideous appearance while the girl in Lusus Naturae was rejected by her family, and they even faked her death. They kept her hidden from the public because of her appearance. She says “in the daytime I stayed shut up in my darkened room. At night, sleepless, I would roam the house,” (Atwood 225). She was not allowed to get out of her house for the fear that the people will see her and identify her with the family. Her family was ashamed of her sickness which had changed her appearance. The monster in Frankenstein knew that he was rejected because of his appearance. He says, He says, “I the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on” (Shelley 188). He was all alone with no family, and no one to befriend as everybody ran away from him. Both the main characters in Lusus Naturae, and Frankenstein were alienated from the society, and whey had to stay all alone in the forest. Frankenstein’s monster roamed around while trying to associate with the people around him while the girl in Lusus Naturae ran away to the woods after being rejected by her family, and for the fear of ridicule. Both characters lacked social acceptance, because of their appearance.
In addition, both characters yearned for love. The girl in Lusus Naturae witnessed two people being intimate, and she yearned for that feeling. She went a head to look for a man who she ended up biting while trying to show him affection. She could not get the love she wanted because she was not the same as the other people. Her appearance was very different because she looked like a monster. Likewise, for the monster in Frankenstein, he yearned for love both from a family, and from a companion. The monster was rejected by everyone no matter how much he tried to relate with them .In addition, he yearned for a companion until he ordered his creator to create him a companion like him, because the people around him had rejected him because of his appearance. They both could not be loved or get the love they wanted because of their monstrous appearance. The tried moving close to the people around them, but it was not possible because, they were very different from them; they had a hideous appearance, and thus could not relate normally with the other people. The people disliked them, and wanted to kill them because they were not like them. They both wished that they were normal like the rest of the people so that they could live an ordinary life like them.
The main dissimilarity between them was that, the girl in Lusus Naturae had a family background, because she had a family even though they rejected her. Whereas, the creature in Frankenstein had no family background because, he was just created from decomposing human parts. In Frankenstein, Victor’s creature tries to build a physical relationship with the people around him, yet with his hideous appearance, he did not succeed. The creature had no one to refer to as family, and so he craved for one which he could never stumble on. In addition, another disparity is that, the girl in Lusus Naturae was taken care of by her mother as other family members shunned away from her. Also, she was given food. On the other hand, the creature in Frankenstein was all alone with no one to give him food, and take care of him since everybody ran away from him, and he had no family to stay with since his creator had run away from him.
In conclusion, Shelley in Frankenstein and Atwood in Lusus Naturae present characters who are similar in appearance, and are rejected by the people around them. They both yearned to be able to relate with other people, but they were totally very different from them because of their monstrous appearance. However, the girl in Lusus Naturae was lucky that she had a family background compared to the creature in Frankenstein who had no family background; he was all alone because even his creator ran away from him.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. “Lusus Naturae.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter Eleventh Edition. New York, New York. W.W. Norton & Company (2013): 224-228. Print.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eleventh Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. The 1818 Text. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
