The Orlean High School shooting was an incident that took place on December 30, 1974 where the perpetrator Anthony F. Barbaro entered the school and started to shoot anyone in his path. The incident began when Barbaro left his house by taking his mothers car and told his brother he was going target shooting since he was on the school’s rifle team. He entered through the schools open entrance and let off a smoke bomb which successfully got the attention of a custodian who was employed by the school and Barbaro shot him thus killing him immediately. He then proceeded to go to the student council room and began his rampage and at the end of it all three individuals died and eleven were injured. In a note explaining his motives he states “I guess I just wanted to kill the person I hate most -myself, I just didn’t have the courage. I wanted to die, but I couldn’t do it, so I had to get someone to do it for me. It didn’t work out” (Anthony 2). The sad aspect about incidents like this is that they keep reoccurring in American history and its all due to a person being an outcast and feeling unaccepted by society. Barbano was often described as a loner in highschool and always kept to himself which made him similar to “the monster” because both lacked friends.
In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, a character named Dr. Victor Frankenstein produces a creature whose appearance is beyond human comprehension since its so grotesque in nature. The creature has a great heart and has a burning desire to be accepted in the same society it was born into and wants to coexist with human beings. However, no matter what the creature does to fulfill his desire, it fails to do so due to his physical appearance. Instead of being accepted by human society, he is constantly rejected and hated by everyone it meets including his creator Victor Frankenstein thus making him a total outcast. This sparks anger within the creature and it wants to take it all on his creator because it is his fault he is stuck in this situation. The creature knows at this point it is alone and states “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind” (Shelley 167). The creature then ends up killing any person close to his creator thinking that would help form a relationship with Victor but it doesn’t and inevitably leads to the death of the monster and his creator.
Both the monster and Barbaro were each shunned by their societies and it explains why they acted out in a violent nature. They were tired of being alone and utilized violence to shows us how each was hurt internally. The only difference between these two beings is that the monster wasn’t created through natural means unlike Barbaro.
“Anthony Barbaro | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers.” Anthony Barbaro | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers. Web. 8 Feb. 2015. <http://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/barbaro-anthony.htm>.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. Charlottesville, Va.: U of Virginia Library, 1996. Print.
