A Monstrous Adolescence, My Look at chapters 13 & 14

Haphazardly thrown into the world as a full grown being, Frankenstein's monster spends much of the first moments of life discovering the wonders of the world seen through virgin eyes. However, due to his inherent intelligence and superhuman flexibility, the monster soon masters the elements of basic survival that any wild beast is forced to learn. His first contact with human society and the species in person comes from incidental encounters early on in his life where he wanders through a hamlet and several cottages. He instantly learns of their fear of his monstrous appearance and the human tendency towards violence. These experiences are soon pushed to the back of his mind as the will to survive fuels his earliest mental development. With the satiation of his basest needs, the monster's bemused pondering returns to the strange creatures he had encountered. Driven by the deep seated need to learn more on the subject, the monster creates a hidey-hole through which to observe the De Lacey family, and dissect their behavior. By becoming obsessed with the knowledge he can glean of their familial relationship, the monster illuminates the very human desire he possesses within his superior brain to feel accepted by society and a close knit family group. By exposing this urge, the monster displays his own similarity to a human adolescent. Like an adolescent, his genuinely positive desire to be an accepted member of the De Lacey family, the monster illuminates his own potential to be an empathetic, productive member of society. And like and adolescent, he demonstrates his own innate mortal naivete about the world through his method and attempt at communication with the De Lacey father. In these ways the monster shows that he is pre-occupied with many of the same topics that dominate the lives of adolescents, proving that he follows a parallel, if not altered and accelerated, path to a genuine and accepted human intelligence.