Mary Shelley’s science fiction novel, Frankenstein, amplifies the damaging psychological consequences of obsession through the lives of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature he constructs. Victor treats his spawn with pure negligence and hatred from the moment he entered the world, which planted the seed for their demise. The Creature retaliates against his creator by murdering those he cherished most, ultimately generating a vicious cycle of revenge that consumes and ruins their lives. By the end of the novel, Shelley uses many diverse literary conventions to close the story between the two destructive beings by displaying the concept of Tabula Rasa on the Creature’s dismal psychological state, importance of self awareness, and displaying …show more content…
Through strong diction, Shelley emphasizes the pain he endured when he allows his rage take over him especially during the murder of Henry Clerval. His existence was made to receive and radiate love, but instead his blank slate was plagued by traumatic experience which made him believe he was incapable of love. In midst of an argument with Walton, who claims the Creature only seeks sympathy and feels remorse for his misdeeds because Victor is gone, the Creature claims, “No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed...But now that virtue had become to me a shadow, and the happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair…” (). The use of a metaphor to relate the virtues of love and affection to a shadow that turned into bitter despair allows the reader to deeply understand the severe dissociation and alienation the Creature suffered. The lack of nurture throughout his life has etched pain so deeply into his blank slate that he is no longer searching for sympathy from the world around him, but instead from within, showing gradual signs of self realization and tranquility. Continuing to expand on his misleading prospects, the Creature confesses, “Once I falsely
In the film “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” directed by Kenneth Branagh was based on the book “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. Victor, the main protagonist, is against the adversary monster he has created. The movie as I consider should earn a “D-” for there was excessive flaws upon the based of the novel, however, few key points was correctly shown that would flow the movie. The book portrays Victor Frankenstein as he was the only one working to the creation of the monster with no other acknowledgement of creating the monster, however, in the movie Professor Waldman have had Victor motivated upon the discovery of his(Waldman) works in which the works have helped him create the monster.
Nate Schramm Kusak AP English Lang Due 4/3/23 Pursuing a personal belief or ideology is a fundamental part of the human experience. This desire to accomplish one aspiration is somehow part of everyone's lives. This yearning feeling can be seen in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. However, this pursuit has negative consequences on individuals and society altogether.
The creature sees humans as fortunate and from his point of view he doesn’t see why they’d have any reason to be unhappy. He pays very close attention to their everyday lives and the way they express themselves and feelings. In paragraph 4 he states “I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it.” This shows what kind of caring creature he is and how he takes others into considertion. He is very observant of the humans, he pays attention to their choice of words and the clothes they wear.
Frankenstein’s Monster VRS. The Incredible Hulk: Who will win . . . the fight to be human? When considering Frankenstein’s monster, the word “superhero” is generally not the first to come to mind.
In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, there are two monsters within the book. The creature kills off many people and causes ruin to both Victor and innocent bystanders, but Victor holds the responsibility for causing this rampage, as he created the creature. Both Victor and the creature are monsters in their own respects and share similarities while holding key differences, but Victor is clearly the bigger monster. Victor and the creature are alike in many ways, and go through similar experiences that help to shape their future personas.
Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit…” Shelley’s use of imagery in this situation gives over the feelings of Victor’s intense guilt at having been the cause of the death of an innocent girl. This also implies that in a sense Victor questions his own existence because of the weight of his actions “Press[ing] on [his]
Mary Shelley shows the endless amount of revenge and that it is driven by pure hatred and rage. The monster was not created to be vengeful, he was kind hearted but when he was poorly treated by Victor and then by the Delacey family, he turned cold. In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley displays the immorality and destructive effects that revenge can have through Frankenstein and his pursuit of the creature. Immediately after the monster had awoken, hatred thickened and would drive the plot to be all about revenge. The creature illustrates this hatred as he says to Victor, “Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view;
Throughout Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victor to warn the reader of the dangers of aspiring to godliness, and the consequences one faces in the aftermath doing so, even going as far as to compare Victor to Satan, tempting the crew of Walton’s ship, in the book’s final pages. The Victor Shelley creates is very similar to the Satan created by Milton in his book, Paradise Lost, which explores the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. In Frankenstein, Victor speaks of his desire to create the Creature, saying, “I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-creatures.” (152). Shelley’s diction choices, such as the word “useless” exemplify Victor’s excessive hubris, portraying him as a man who creates his Creature for, in his mind, the good of society.
The Creature in Frankenstein Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” is an inspirational work of horror and science fiction; it is the narrative of an unorthodox act of creation, of a monster which torments his miserable creator. The author puts forth ideas, and reinforces it through the development of the plot, that mankind is capable of both good and evil. Shelly demonstrates the ‘humanity’ of the creature; his actions and his inclination are like those of mankind. Indeed, even the negative aspect of his character, demonstrated through his quest for revenge, has a parallel in the actions of his human creator. In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” the creature is represented as being vicious and murderous but he is not inherently evil or malicious.
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, shows how a character who is portrayed as a tragic hero, in the beginning, can become the monster in the end. Victor and the Monster in Mary Shelley’s captivating novel showed how rival enemies share striking similarities. The similarities between the two tragic characters are driven by their dreary isolation from the secluded world. A large difference is that they were both raised in two completely different environments but understood the meaning of isolation. Physical differences are more noticeable rather than their personalities.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein follows the story of a scientist and his experiment gone wrong. Victor Frankenstein, the scientist, abandons his creature at the first sight of it coming to life. The monster, left alone and afraid, transforms from a warm, loving character to one that seeks revenge as the toils of nature and reality begin to take control. Their title changes of “master” and “subordinate” are often referenced in Frankenstein, and plays off the feelings of vengeance they have for each other. Shelley has built the novel around this relationship in a way that captures not only the audience’s attention but also the character’s feelings of regret and hatred as the consequences of exceeding these moral boundaries come to haunt them in the decisions they make and influence the people around them.
Due to neglect and immediate abandonment during the beginning of his life, the creature develops a hostile attitude and seeks revenge on Victor Frankenstein. In response to the cottage dwellers attacking him, the creature exclaims “cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence of which you had so wantonly bestowed” and reveals his feelings “of rage and revenge” (Shelley 135).
While his creator lives in extreme comfort, the creature suffers extensively which it blames on its maker. When at an all time low, the creature discovers a family that fills his underdeveloped mind with the idea that he might still have hope of accommodating with the world it found itself in and attempts to acquire the traits that might enable this adaptation with a familiar environment. The creature immensely strived to be accepted by the one that made it that it would subject itself to immense self loathing and strenuous mental development. This portrays the torture Frankenstein subjected his poor underling to due to his imperfections. With this, Shelley criticizes the weakness of the faulty chemist.
Victor questions why men so instinctively attempt to become superior to nature when men are also a product of nature. He criticizes that if humans reverted to our primal instincts, “hunger, thirst, and desire” (67) that we’d be free, or content with our lives. This is his subliminal self-reflection as he understands that seeking the secret to life, by creating the monster, did not bring him happiness but rather brought him misery and self-loathing. In this last line of the passage, Shelley highlights a major morale and theme of the story which is using science to tamper with nature, a critique against the enlightenment period. The consequences of Frankenstein’s creation have not only caused the death of William and Justine but will also become the reason for his own inevitable doom
Shelley’s novel encompasses the unknown and how ambition drove Victor’s passions, ultimately leading him to the tragic end with many other bumps in the road along the way. As Victor had been in the study of life and its cause, the death of his mother had catalyzed a movement of grief which had started, “…depriv[ing him]self of rest and health. [Which he] had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation…” (Shelley 35). Even though he knew that he had been raiding graveyards, Victor believed that he created the body with the ‘finest body parts’ available.