Frankenstein, a novel written by Mary Shelley, contains various themes throughout the story. One of themes is feminism and the power of women. In the novel, all of the female characters have passive attitudes, despite Shelby’s strong beliefs in feminism. Victor’s destruction of the female monster can be viewed as anti-feminism and another example of female passivity in the novel. Victor has fears of creating a race of monsters or risking the separation of the two monsters. Victor is illustrated differently than the Creator God of Genesis, who creates a mate for Adam. Victor’s destruction of the female monster is an act of anti-feminism, in hopes of protecting the world. Victor is portrayed differently than the Creator God of Genesis, in Frankenstein. The creation of the Victor’s monster triggers a series of events, ultimately ending …show more content…
The problem Victor tried to avoid was the reproduction of the two monsters. This would leave him responsible for an entire race of monsters, holding him accountable for all disasters and misery. Victor, also, is interested in creations by himself without the help of a woman. Victor’s destruction of the female monster can be viewed as an act of anti-feminism. Fearing the progression of a female monster, Victor destroys the almost finished female creature, leaving the first monster vowing vengeance on Victor because he has doomed his life of loneliness and despair. Victor considers the creation of a female monster to fail in the world and not comprehend to the plans for the first monster. Believing his thoughts were best for the world, Victor destroys the female monster before he can provide her with
Earlier in the book the Monster says: "I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me,". So this tells me that the monster knows nobody can love him unless they are just like he is, that he has given up on all hope for someone to love him, which is why he is determined to find Victor because he is the only one who can help the Monster. I believe that Victor made the right decision by destroying the female monster he had created for the Monster, because eventually they both would have lead a path of destruction then everyting falling back on Victor because he created them. But in another sense it's almost as Victor owes it to the Monster because the day the Monster was created Victor left him to be alone and nobody to care or teach him.
Victor denied the monster it’s power by not allowing it to have what it asked for. This refusal caused the monster declare it’s dominance through threatening Victor to do as it says or he will be punished. After Victor refuses to allow his creation to take control, it goes mayhem and reacts with hatred. The creature tried to gain it’s power by deteriorating Victor’s life killing many of the friends and loved ones close to Victor. This pulls the final straw for Victor, he attempted to hunt the monster down and destroy it before it could hurt anyone else.
He initiates the hostile relationship, threatening the creation, “We are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight in which one must fall” (103). Just as Victor abandons the creation from the day he creates him, Victor demands for the creation to leave him. Victor’s first instinct is to escape, avoiding his creature, and the responsibility he has to him as the creator. He rejects love in the relationship, while the creation seeks it from his estranged author.
Victor is the monster because of him the monster had to face many challenges one of them being loneliness. “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. ¨(Shelly Pg 103). He tells Victor that if he had a mate who was a similarly hideous creature, he would take her and leave humanity alone. Because of his traumatic experience of coming into the world abandoned, alone, and confused, the monster has no one to help him or guide him.
Victor believed that he was doing a greater good for humankind when created the monster. In the original book Victor
”(Millhauser). This violent rejection is a repetition of Victor’s lack of acceptance for the monster and attention to his family. Victor knows that the monster will never be able to live within society and that his ability to create life is the only hope the monster has of achieving companionship. Victor's own aversion to companionship surfaces as he, “ fails to give him the human companionship, the Eve, the female creature, that he needs to achieve some sort of a normal life.” (Mellor).
“You may render me [Victor] the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes,” Victor says to the monster, meaning that the monster can do whatever he wants, but he will not allow him to make Victor lower himself more than he already has, but this is exactly what the monster does when he convinces Victor to make him a female companion. This is a prime example of a minor character foil contrasting a main character; the monster takes complete control over Victor and dominates his character, ultimately turning himself into a more prominent aspect of the storyline. The author most likely does this in order to employ a drastic shift in the meaning of her novel. As the novel started, it was portrayed that Victor would be a rising character and achieve great things, but with the creation of the monster, his character ultimately became his own
Victor creates the Creature, but there are many situations throughout the novel where the Monster displays as the victim. He seeks love from different people, but everyone treats him bad. His anger towards his father drives him to kill Victor’s family. The Monster later feels devastated for the murders he commits. All the monster wants is love.
The creature wants to take revenge on Victor for abandoning him and causes Victor grief by killing the people he cares about. When the creature kills, Victor feels responsible and guilty of the murders. He continually breaks down with each death by “his” hands, which makes him go mad. The task of creating a monster turned Victor into a monster
Thinking about the deal with his family in mind, Victor begins his work on the second monster. The first monster made Victor suffer terribly and threatened his family; trying to scare Victor for not creating his mate, the monster angrily said to Frankenstein, “I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you” (162). While looking back upon his unfinished work, Victor remembers “the miserable monster whom I had created,” (152). “With the companion you bestow I will quit the neighborhood of man,” (142) promises the monster to Victor upon completion of his mate. Victor, trying to act morally, destroys the monster for the good of the world.
Victor had two loving parents that gave him everything he ever needed or wanted to fulfill his physiological and emotional needs. Since Victor did not do this for his monster, the monster would kill all of Victor’s family and friends that he loved which would bring destruction to Victor’s life. For the rest of his days, Victor would go on a search for his monster to destroy it or die trying. Unlike Victor, the monster was never loved because of the way he looked. He was left alone, even by his creator, and lived a miserable life always escaping people that would “attacked [him], until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons” (Shelley).
This unquestionably exhibits his egocentric conventions as he places himself above everyone else even in matters of life and death. Furthermore, if Victor himself is willing to take responsibility for her death then it becomes unambiguous as to whether he should be held accountable for the actions of his creation. Throughout the story, the monster struggles with the repercussions brought about by his creator which leave him in turmoil. He does eventually overcome these obstacles, although it is undoubtedly too late.
In the award winning article, “Passages in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: Towards a Feminist Figure of Humanity?” Cynthia Pon addresses masculinity and feminism in terms of conventions, ideals, and practices (Pon, 33). She focused on whether Mary Shelly's work as a writer opened the way to a feminist figure of humanity like Donna Haraway argued. The article has a pre-notion that the audience has read Frankenstein and Haraway's article. Pon has a slight bias, due to her passion as a feminist writer.
Victor Frankenstein, blinded by ambition or driven by madness? In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley embodies a cloud of characteristics that follow Victor along for the entirety of the novel. As a young scholar, Victor was driven to invest in his interests of chemistry and science. Hence, Victor soon became enamored with the ideas that lie in between life and death. Further pondering led Victor to become obsessed with the idea of bringing inanimate objects to life.
When reading through the novel some might question who's the real monster? Throughout Frankenstein Mary Shelley uses the concepts of Science and knowledge, social rejection and true evil. Victor is a lonely guy who takes on a “God like” role for his personal satisfaction. Victor creates the monster out of his greed and ambitions which led to many of the horrible events throughout the story. He was portrayed as the victim at the beginning of the story because of how secluded he was and his mother died.