3. “It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentile ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration.” (81)
The Ass and the Lap dog is an old fable. The donkey sees the lap dog being treated much better than he is, although he lives a comfortable life, so he reasons that if he acts like the dog he might be treated in the same manner. So one day he runs into the kitchen, wagging his tail and jumping around, and he sits on the farmer’s lap. His punishment is a beating. The moral of this story is meant to say that we should all content with what we are given, or at least we should recognize our own constraints. But Frankenstein’s creature clearly disagrees with this moral because he can relate to the donkey in many ways, and like the donkey, he doesn’t recognize the constraints of his figure. In fact he has almost exactly the same situation with the family he tries to connect with, when he goes into their house and is chased out by the frightened family.
"The Ass and the Lapdog - a Fable by Aesop." Long Long Time Ago: Stories for Children. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. <http://www.longlongtimeago.com/ llta_fables_asslapdog.html>.
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