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Revenge And Vengeance In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Many believe that revenge is a toxic emotion to carry around with us. However, vengeance is one of the strongest emotions we encounter as humans. At times even stronger than love itself. Victor Frankenstein’s ambition to be better than God himself led him to create the creature. In return the creature was rejected by the person who is supposed to love and protect him. Victor’s negligence leads to the creature wanting to seek revenge on Victor even if it means doing it through his loved ones. In the novel, revenge is the main theme that demonstrates how it consistently consumes and destroys those who surrender to it. Throughout the novel there seems to be an endless cycle of it. Victor and the creature are so focused on getting back at each …show more content…

Victor ambition is the cause of all this darkness coming into his life. Victor expresses feeling of hatred towards the creature as well as himself. He says, “ As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them...” Victor has come to accept the fact that vengeance has taken over him. He then continues “ By the utmost self-violence I curbed the imperious of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice” ( Shelley 193). It has come to the point in which Victor is using “self- violence” in order to keep control of his actions. Once again he says “ I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure…” he himself states that the only thing keeping him sane was revenge, “ it moulded my feelings and allowed me to be calculating and calm at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion” (Shelley 210). Victor’s aspiration made him give into vengeance resulting in

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