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What is the overall impression of Victor's monster in Frankenstein?
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The overall impression of Victor's monster is of a complex being initially inclined toward goodness and compassion, as evidenced by his early kindness to the DeLaceys and saving a drowning girl. However, his benevolence is corrupted by rejection and mistreatment, including from Victor himself. Intellectually, the creature is highly advanced, mastering language and literature quickly. Physically, he is described as hideous and of gigantic stature, which contributes to his isolation and the fear he instills in others.
The creature tells Victor that he "was benevolent." He says,
my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone?
He began life as a kind and compassionate creature. He describes his early life in observance of the DeLaceys, a family he came to know and love and which he even helped, as best he could, by providing firewood for them. Even after he was spurned by them, an event that dashed his hopes of ever being accepted, he still saved a little girl from drowning in a river . . . and he was shot in the shoulder for his pains. By nature, it seems that the creature was good, but his goodness was overshadowed and corrupted by years of miserable treatment from humans, including his own creator, who neglected him.
The creature is also quite smart, with superhuman learning capacity as well as speed...
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and strength. Remember, by the time he speaks with Victor so compellingly, he has only been alive for two years. He has learned to reason, to argue, to persuade, and to threaten: he's quite advanced in terms of mental faculties and physical abilities.
Mary Shelley left a lot of the monster out of her Romantic novel Frankenstein. Given that Shelley desired her readers to be as frightened as she herself had been frightened.
O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night! (1831 Introduction to the novel)
Therefore, Mary Shelley left out a detailed description of what the monster looked like in order to allow readers to create a picture of the monster on their own. The only image Shelley offers readers is that of the monster's yellow eyes. Outside of that, readers only know the general size ("being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height") and that Victor intended the monster to be beautiful.
His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!—Great God!
Intellectually, the monster is very advanced. The fact that he was able to learn language through listening shows him to be very intelligent. Not only that, the monster is able to read.
Overall, the monster is quite hideous (although this is inferred) and very intelligent (shown through his ability to understand complicated texts--such as Paradise Lost,Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The monster also shows the ability to love (as determined through his desire to love another) and show compassion (seen in his rescue of the drowning girl).