Mental Illness In Frankenstein

Notorious for its landmarking in uncovering the recently discovered genre, Frankenstein, an acclaimed gothic fiction novel by English writer Mary Shelley, utilizes Victor’s mental illness to transform him into the monster rather than just the creator, as reflected through his actions and thoughts. Frankenstein 's tendency to be ignorant, isolated, unjust, and disturbed in his treatment toward the monster, friends, and family; as well as the sickening thoughts in his head made known to the reader by the first-person narrative causes him to appear less human than the product of his experiment. Subsequently, Victor 's unnatural habits, desire for knowledge beyond what is morally feasible, his wretched actions and grotesque thoughts depicts him

Michaud asserts the reasoning behind the creatures acts; “He does what he does because of his creator 's cruelty, because the whole humanity hates him and casts him out”(Michaud 159). It is easy to pin the victim card on Frankenstein and allow the creature to take the blame, but with closer analysis, it becomes evident that the creature was not always acting with bad intentions. Toward the beginning of the novel the creature took it upon himself to learn and explore the world, he showed compassion, sympathy, and efforts to be a caring person; it was not until Victor projected his disgust an unwanted for his creation that the creature begins to evolve. This can be seen when Victor demands the creature stay out of his life and makes it clear that he is disgusted by his appearance and existence (exemplified when the creature discovered the note in his clothes and verbally from Victor). It can be concluded that Victor 's mistreatment caused the creature to become defensive and act as the way he observed from his creator; Victor not only created the being but also was responsible for its shift in morality.

Michaud reflects on that concept; “We might argue that the monster should not be considered a person because he is a murderer”(Michaud 158). It is important to note that the monster was never treated nor raised like a person, he was neglected, while on the other hand Victor was surrounded by supportive healthy minded people. In terms of actions, it was established by Bishop that: “Frankenstein is thus as much as a monster as The Monster” (Bishop 66) for having infused life into the creature and allow the creation into society. Furthermore, Victor had been exposed to the society yet still chose to bring in a creation unaccepted to the public. Overall, Victor had the opportunity to infer that testing nature and bringing in something against the morals and ethics of most universally would suffer consequences, yet the monster never chose to be created and had no option but to try to live a normal life in an un-normal form. Ultimately, we can 't blame the monster for his acts because he was not able to comprehend the weight of his actions.

In essence, Victor is the true monster because he created a creature that had a hopeless future in their society and abandoned his creation to raise itself. Beyond just his unfair treatment of the people around him, we were able to conclude he was evil by his thoughts and actions.