Frankenstein - Mario

"I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone." p. 135

Well I must say, I've spent quite a long time discussing our good friend Victor, but I've really neglected to say much about the characterization of everyone's favorite sterotypical Italian plumber. Or monster. Either way, really, I am of course speaking of Mario.

Mario starts off as a baby, essentially, as shown by the way in which he reaches out to Victor, his father figure, and slaps on a goofy baby grin. This, of course, is terrifying to Victor, but really he just wants some love. However, this initially rejection just starts a long cycle of repeated instances of Mario saying "lovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme" and everyone else just beating him with sticks. Yeowch. So he goes out into the wild, and at some point, he enters a town to talk with people, at which time he is first beaten with said sticks and run right out of town. So you'd think he'd be pretty bummed, at this point, but don't worry, Mario is still but an innocent child at heart, and he is confident that someday he'll find people who will accept him. So he decides to befriend the DeLaceys while under the impression that the decency he's observed before will make them treat him compassionately. However, one lady faints, one lady flees, and guess what Felix does! He beats him with a stick. So Mario runs off again, and now he's starting to get a little ticked, so he burns down the abandoned DeLacey cottage and takes off into the wilderness, at which time, he finds a lady drowning in the river. Now, Mario's been treated like crap thus far, so it certainly would have been expected of the big guy to just keep on walking and not help her out. But rather, he goes out of his way, saves her life, begins to resuscitate her, and how is he thanked? If you answered that he's beaten with a stick, you'd actually be wrong. Nahh, he gets shot. Poor fella. So that is essentially the last straw. Mario flips out and begins his killing spree, ultimately leading up to his murder of Elizabeth and the death of Victor, and eventually Mario himself.

So that might have seemed like a lot of plot summary, but I feel that really it's the best way to represent Mario's progression as a character. He starts off innocent like a child, but the world just hates him. However, he does not begin to give up on humanity until his encounter with the DeLaceys. But even after that, he is still a good and decent critter, not even close to being worthy of the title "monster." However, his last decent act is repaid with hatred, and he just quits. Ultimately this is the outline of his transition from a fairly human-like character to a totally brutal and bloodthirsty monster.