Cathy Chen Mrs. Weber AP Lit 11 February 2023 Revision In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, allusions, a symbol of illness, and his story told to Waltom are used to demonstrate how Victor's gift was both a curse and an advantage to him. Victor is an extremely intelligent man; he was able to create and have studies that others cannot accomplish, but in the end, it caused him pain and regret, which developed his knowledge of danger. The author uses allusions in the story to show how Voctor's knowledge has become both an advantage and a problem. In the novel, Victor was compared to Prometheus, who was a semi-god who obtained fire and gave it to humans but ended with only the punishment of getting eaten by a bird every day. The author used this …show more content…
Victor gets ill every time a family member dies or something tragic happens. The illness sums up his guilt, as the tragedy that has happened was his cause. The illness shows his knowledge as a burden because the creature he has created has damaged his family to the point where it can never be fixed because they have all died. As a result of his obsession with discovering how to create life and his selfish desire to create with his knowledge, he is never satisfied and leads his studies down a dangerous path. This shows how knowledge can be a very dangerous gift to have when you cannot handle it …show more content…
She then uses illness symbolism to show his guilt for what he has caused. He has fallen ill every time a family member died because of his creation. Finally, she uses the dialogue between Victor and Walton, showing the different choices of using knowledge where Victor's selfish pursuit has caused him pain and sorrow in the end, but Walton ending his journey of wanting to know more of the world could have been what changed his future to be different from Victor, ultimately these literary devices had helped develop the theme, danger of knowledge, the knowledge that may have led to pain death, and dangerous situations when not pursuit
Victor's journey isn't just a physical one, but a spiritual one as well. His journey of self-exploration and cultural reconnection acts as the key central idea, allowing him to better understand his place in the world, recognizing his dire need to move forward and find a sense of belonging in the
Victor is tormented by the creatures ambition and this leaves Victor a void of his former self, subject to anything he puts his mind to and it is this form of himself that leads him ever so closer to the end of his days. Left a hollowed out version of himself, Victor is unable to cope with the loss of all of his friends and family through the hands of his own creation and seeks to right all of his
This foreshadows the detrimental consequences that are to come because of his deformity. Similarly, Victor progressively loses his innocence throughout the novel. Victor deep dives into danger when he explores knowledge as shown in this passage, “Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember” (Shelley 22). The bubbling treachery that is to come buds in this excerpt where Victor recalls the moment he felt the desire to acquire knowledge. As events unfold and damage has been done, in this passage he states, “The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness…
Frankenstein and its Biblical References Charles Darwin. Most people have heard of him either in their required biology classes in high school. However, a hundred years ago, most people only knew one theory about how humanity has transpired to where it is today: God. The Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 was a war between knowledge, or the theories of evolution, and God. This defiance of the so-called “natural order” by scientists has lead to serious consequences, particularly the Butler Act of 1925, in which the teaching of evolution was banned throughout the entire state of Tennessee, or even the outcast of scientists who discovered these theories.
He is consumed by his desire to unlock the secrets of life, even if it means pushing ethical boundaries. His obsession is evident in his words: "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world" (Shelley 34). Victor's unyielding pursuit of knowledge, albeit misguided, resonates with readers who can relate to the allure of pushing boundaries and the quest for discovery. Shelley invites us to reflect on the fine line between ambition and obsession, deepening our understanding of Victor's character and eliciting sympathy for his flawed
In the novel, Shelley uses Victor and the monster to exemplify the effects that knowledge has on an individual's mental health. This ruthless desire for knowledge portrays how perilous it can be, while “exploring themes of risk, responsibility and accountability,” as Victor’s act of creation ultimately leads to the demise of everyone close to him while the monster’s act of learning results in him despising himself and all of humanity (Hammond). Throughout the novel, Victor Frankenstein encounters a great amount of psychological suffering in the early years of his adult life due to his ambition to seek forbidden knowledge and create a living being. Even more, his mental health begins to decline as a result of the artificial being he created and his heedless pursuit for knowledge, which ultimately leads to the demise of everyone close to him. Ironically, Victor loses the people he truly cared for in the process of his research into "the hidden laws of nature" (Shelley 18).
Reanimating the dead has been a plot point in various horror movies and shows. Zombies and the undead are spectacles in such media, but the original horror story is Frankenstein, whose gothic nature set the standard for other horror novels to come, and called into question many moral ideas. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelly emphasizes the ironic nature of Victor’s love of his science and making the creature in contrast to his disdain for the creature in order to demonstrate that man’s pursuit of knowledge is not innately good. This is apparent through Frankenstein’s detailed description of the creature, his symbolic dream, and an allusion to another work of fiction. The imagery of the creature through Victor’s perspective serves to illustrate
Shelley utilizes the allusion from the story of Prometheus to recreate the character of Victor that comes from the Greek legend that Prometheus was created with the ability to mold humans. In the legend, Prometheus develops sympathy for the humans he molds so he would steal
This furthered Victor’s ability to connect with his family on a personal level. Once Victor realised what he had created he had an “inability to share his guilt and story with his father” (Knowledge). Without expressing his feelings, Victor fell into multiple guilt related sicknesses. Victors bottled up emotions caused his “state of mind and health” to decline (Knowledge). To conclude, Victor Frankenstein’s seperation from his family caused him to fall into nervous fever bringing out the worst in
Victor figuratively and literally destroys his loved ones through a long and strenuous self-imposed isolation, as not only do they become unimportant to him, but the separation genuinely creates the murderer of his loved ones (Schmid). This seclusion has a negative influence on him, as after being alone for so long he finds himself mentally unstable, saying he had “a nervous fever which confined me for several months” (Shelley 53). Victor is mentally and physically depleted as a result of his isolation, directly contrasting with the emotions of joy and prosperity he felt as a young boy surrounded by his loved ones. Victor’s solitariness has caused him to become disconnected from his sense of community and familiarity (Schmid), and the extremely negative effects of the isolation prove the necessity of companionship in his
One of the first references can be found in Chapter 3, Victor briefly mentions how the evil influence of “the Angel of Destruction” was upon him as he made his way to be educated about the philosophies his father wanted him to stay away from. The “Angle of Destruction” alludes to Satan, one of the characters in Paradise Lost who is out to get God’s creation, Adam and Eve. The purpose of this allusion could have been to foreshadow the destruction he could face from his discovery of knowledge. Another reference is made in Chapter 11, as the Creature is telling his story of what happened following his abandonment. The Creature compares how he felt finding the hut to how appealing “Pandaemonium” was to the “daemons of hell”
Later on in the novel, Victor comes to a realization of his curiosity becoming part of the problem. According to Victor, “It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless device would cause the death of two of my fellow beings” (85). This quote conveys my theme because it shows Victor’s curiosity of knowledge being the reason his family members died. Although curiosity is a part of human nature, it can reveal a dangerous path that can lead to
In chapter 4, Victor warns Walton about the dangers of acquiring knowledge. This serves as a sign of the events that will unfold throughout the novel. Victor remarks to Walton, “Learn from me… how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (39). Victor tries to warn Walton about the dangers of trying to know beyond one’s limits. He realizes that it brings misfortune and consequences instead of joy and happiness.
The tragic vision of the theme is explained by the suffering brought upon others by victor. Victor changes over the course of the novel from an innocent youth fascinated by the prospects of science into a disillusioned, guilt - ridden man determined to destroy the thing of his arrogant scientific endeavor. Which introduces the theme of the novel of advancing science and the consequences when used in the wrong way. Victor is doomed by his lack of humanness and naivete. He cuts himself off from the world and eventually commits himself entirely to an animalistic obsession with revenge against the monster.
Additionally, two of the most impressive aspects in Frankenstein are the foreshadowing of events and the adverse use of intertextuality. Shelley by using words such as ‘fate’ and ‘omen’ sets up the course of the book in an intriguing manner. Notably though, events such as Victor referring to his genius as “the fatal impulse that lead to my ruin” (24) establishes a firm ground for foreshadowing and prepares the reader for what evil is yet to come. As previously