I expected this reception. Everyone hates the wretched.
How then, must I be hated, who am wretched beyond all living things.
Even you, detest and spurn me. But we are bound by ties which can be broken only by the annihilation of one of us.
Do your duty toward me, and I will do mine toward you - but if you refuse I will feed death, until it is satiated.
Remember, you made me more powerful than yourself.
My height is superior to yours, my joints more supple.
But I will be mild and docile to my maker, if you will perform your part and give me what you owe me.
I have wandered - many days. I have crossed streams and lost my way, then found it again. I have lain paralyzed with hunger and with thirst. But I have gotten up. These nights in wilderness I have embraced, for in their savagery they have been kinder to me than you ever were.
Now I am here.
And if your people knew of my existence, they would do as you do and arm themselves for my destruction.
Yet it is in your power to deliver me. To deliver me from a suffering that not only you, but thousands of others will be swallowed by.
I was benevolent and I was good. Misery made me a fiend, and I have wandered through these mountains, consumed by something which only you can gratify.
I am alone.
The world will not associate with me. I am an aberration.
But if you were to return to your knife and thread you could create – another.
one made in my shape – carved as was I – with same dimension and form.
A companion – and a mirror twin to end my solitude.
This can come only from your hand.
Now - take up your knife.
- Adapted from Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” 1833
(S. Carter)