Frankenstein: Mary Shelly????? who is the bigger monster?

Victor can be viewed as the bigger monster because he created a life but then destroyed it. He did not consider the impact of his actions. Consider the emotions of a human being. The "monster" had those as well. He just wanted to be accepted but people shunned him and he did what he had to do to survive.

Victor is also responsible for the deaths of his family and those around him. When the "monster" started killing Victor did not explain or warn those around him. Since Victor created the monster then he is the guilty party.

Victor did not take full responsibility for the life he created.

First, I agree with you that Victor was the greater of two evils, but it is a clever idea that you should have a little fun with for the sake of your teachers. Let them feel that they flexed your mind a little.

The monster could be worse than Victor because we can guess at what kind of monster the human may be. Something along the line of "better the devil you know". Humans pretty well follow a type which is why we can generally profile most people; you find out what you can about what they did or what happened to them in their past and you can somewhat predict what they might do in response to certain actions.

Because the monster has no past, or multiple confilicted pasts, he is wholly unpredictable. How do you trust or defend yourself against something you don't understand, can't understand you and can't communicate with you? Kill it? (There is the whole side of the arguement about is it right to kill off what we fear, but that doesn't make the monster bad)

What if the human idea of killing only makes things worse? If Mary Shelly had been part of the modern corps of writers she may have had the monster break into a thousand little monsters when it was killed or had it suck in the soul of the person who moved against it. But books of her era had to have particular type of resolution. Humanity had to win out.

The other thing you could bring up is the spiritual side of the argument which is what the superstitious Victorians were most wound up about. A godless creature. A Golem.

I also do not agree, but you could take the side that the monster became hostile through the rejection of society, making him much more monstrous than Victor's mere curiosity to create artificial life.