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My English 3 British Literature class has recently finished reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and one of the great things about this classic is the fact that it brings up so many themes and questions to think about. Ultimately, this book causes you to question your view on life and humanity in general, and I think this is one of the reasons why this is such an awesome book that many high school students are required to read.

One of the questions that my class brought up was what the significance of a name was, especially in the story. One common mistake that non-readers of this book often make is the fact that Frankenstein is the monster. However, this is untrue as Frankenstein is the name of the main character in the book, Victor Frankenstein. In fact, Mary Shelley never named the monster at all in the book. This fact was brought up in my class and caused us to question what Shelley's intentions were in doing this, as this was obviously deliberate.

I believe that Mary Shelley did this to point out the fact that giving a name to someone humanizes them. From the very moment we are born, our parents give us a name that we will forever go by because it certifies our existence in the world- it says that "we are". If you think about it, we even give names to our pets, animals that, according to the Bible, are lesser beings. Yet we share the idea that they, like humans, must have names in order for it to be known that they exist, and with that, we sometimes even give them human names. In fact, we often give names to our cars or boats or other precious possessions. In general, we seem to name things that we like. This act is definitely universal because whenever we meet anyone in the world, the first question we ask is, "What is your name?"

The fact that Victor Frankenstein fails to name his creation contradicts his act of creating a human in the first place because essentially, he is dehumanizing the creature in not naming it. Mary Shelley emphasizes this fact every time Frankenstein refers to the creature as "monster" or "wretch." I believe that this simple act of not naming it is one of the reasons why the creature fails to survive in society as it has no sense of the fact that it is a being in the first place. The creature has to learn this sense of existence on his own- something we are taught and have learned by the time we can say our name just by being called by our name. Had he been taught this by his creator, the story may have had a different ending.

So the answer to the question of a name's significance is simple: it humanizes us and is our way of certifying an existence. I believe that Frankenstein, as a creator, had an obligation and a duty to name his creation as it was his choice to play God in the first place. Frankenstein was his own downfall in this sense because he lost everything because of his own actions and refusal to pay the consequences.