Rousseau, Hobbes, and Shelley

1. Rousseau believes that property is the most important thing that man can obtain throughout his life, and that property and monetary wealth defines man's nature and society. Shelley on the other hand is a romantic who believes that love and relatioships between people are above all the most important thing man can dedicate himself to, not money or property. The monster, throughout the book, is not concerned with owning his own house and buying the latest fashions. His whole existence is to find himself a mate and have a human connection or interaction; that is the passion that drives him.

2. Hobbes beleives that man is unsociable, cannot get along with each other, and that man should live a solitary life with no company. Shelley disagrees with Hobbes because she believes man needs his relationships to define him as being man and separating us from animals. However, her characters end up following a hobbesian lifestyle, Frankenstein and the monster end up alone, because she is trying to prove that it is the wrong way of living.