For Mary Shelley, the monstrous would be defined as something that is out of the ordinary, or out of place. Frankenstein, was a man that was made of dead flesh and rotting bones. Compared to a normal human being, the monster in Frankenstein was a beast of nature stronger in size and bigger than the average man. Here a monster is considered that which is different from the rest. This monster did not fit into this society which had a heavy reliance on physique rather than intellect (which could indirectly represent Mary Shelley in a society where a woman with her ideas would be consider out of place).

In “The American Scholar,” the speaker would consider a monster, he who cannot  do more than one task. For the speaker,  a MAN is he who can do every occupation : “Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier.” I believe the speaker is trying to say that anyone who believes that he can only do one task, or one role in society is a monster because in his eyes we essentially become objects or as he explains it:

” The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing,…”

What these both scholars have in common is that they believe in the idea that man is the ideal form,  For example, in Frankenstein, the monster is seen as monstrous because if he were compared physically to a human he would be seen as different. Similarly, the speaker in “The American Scholar” believes a monster is when man is metamorphosed into a thing, an object. In both of these examples, the scholars are choosing to portray a human being with a different physical form.

From these different descriptions, we can conclude that in the early 19th century philosophers believed the ideal Man was he who could think for himself and see beyond and be “Man Thinking.” I take this as meaning that he cannot be limited to as what his thoughts may be.  And yet, from Mary Shelley’s writings, we can infer that the idea of someone or something being monstrous was met if you did not fit into society. For example, Mary Shelley was a well educated women who spoke freely about what she believed; because of this it is possible that she may have been seen as abnormal or maybe even monstrous just because she was in a different category from which women were intended to be in at the time.