Frankenstein's Monster

Frankenstein's Monster is the main antagonist of the novel Frankenstein by the late Mary Shelley and its many adaptations. He made his debut on January 1, 1818. Although he had surprisingly immense powers of speech in the original novel and was known for his eloquence, most adaptations limit, otherwise completely omit, his speaking capabilities. Although at first glance he seems to be generally intimidating and scary, for the most part he was initially a very gentle and sweet soul before turning to villainy out of anger for how the world treats him.

Personality
Since Frankenstein is such a famous tale, it has been adapted many times, and, subsequently, the creature has had many different takes on him over the years, both visually, and in terms of his personality, but many of his traits are fairly consistent: He is deeply dissatisfied and depressed about life in general, holds a grudge against his creator, and is generally afraid of humanity due to its judgmental prejudice against him based solely on his grotesque appearance.

Despite his terrifying and zombie-like appearance, the creature harbours the same emotions like any other human, and the same desires: Love, friendship, and acceptance into society. Whenever he reaches out, he is faced with fear and aggression, is rejected and driven away, and his bitter loneliness manifests into a seething hatred for his creator. Despite this, he does not hate humanity, generally avoiding humans, and will only harm others in either self-defence or, in a bid to harm Frankenstein, those whom Frankenstein holds dear.

While he generally is portrayed as a miserable and embittered pariah, his intellect varies greatly depending on the adaptation. While in the book he was strategizing, somewhat educated, and highly cunning, this was eclipsed by his perhaps more iconic depiction in the Universal movies. In these, he seldom spoke, although when he did, his words carried a great deal of gravity and cryptic meaning to them. Because he was largely mute, later adaptations mistook this for stupidity and would portray the creature as an imbecilic man-child, and the Hammer series completely removed his lonely side, making him a cold-blooded murderer with severe retardation.

Many forms of popular culture would later emulate the guttural and largely mute creature. In the novel, the Monster was a vegetarian, eating berries, nuts, roots, leaves, bread, cheese, and milk, although he detested wine (In the Universal canon, the creature enjoyed alcohol and smoking). Later, however, he killed a hare for Frankenstein to eat. Prior to his rejection, the creature was friendly, naïve, and helpful towards people, saving a little girl from drowning (only for her father to mistake this for an attack and shoot him) and fed a poor family and helped manage their farm in a bid to befriend them (though this ended in bitter failure).