DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS The role of victor is subverting the mythical norms in Frankenstein. Usually the creator is considered superior and perfect in his qualities however, in this novelette, the creator himself is flawed he fails to own his own creation. On the complete contrast, Mary Shelley portrays the Creature to be an isolated figure that spends his life desiring a companion and friendship. The Creature is so rejected by society, so abandoned by Victor and the people he come across, that he becomes filled with hatred towards everyone, particularly for the one who placed him into this terrible state in the first place – Victor.
However, Victors reckless and unthoughtful actions pushes the monster into a state of rage and hatred that overrides his ability to stop from exacting revenge on Victor. Victor initially creates the monster thinking that it will be an amazing creature, built from the best human body parts Victor could procure. After he views the outcome of his work he is repulsed by it and abandons it, hoping that it would cease to exist. Not only did the monster survive, but it learned to speak, write, and read. After reading the book Paradise Lost, the monster thinks of its own situation and states the following:
In the novel Frankenstein, both Victor Frankenstein and his monster live tragic lives. Between the death of Victor’s loved ones and the monster having nobody to love him in the first place, it becomes difficult to decide who really deserves the most pity. Although it may seem that victor lost more, his misery does not compare to that of the monster’s. Because the monster was ridiculed by society for his appearance and had no one to connect to, the monster deserves the most pity.
He started to take revenge of his creator by killing the people of the town and the ones that he loved. All of this would have been different if victor would have pay attention to the monster. To have a successful invention one must have responsibility and take care of
I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (42). Shelley uses the words “horror” and “disgust” to express Frankenstein’s regret. At first, Victor “desired” to make the monster with extreme “ardour,” or passion, which consumed him and damaged his “health.” The damage inflicted to Frankenstein is both physical and mental, as his physical “health” is diminished and the “dream vanished,” causing “disgust to fill his heart,” a fact which is only actually true in Victor’s
The monsters only oversight was to let the words of others around him define who he was. Through the novel, Frankenstein felt sick and asked himself why would Victor create a monster so hideous that even he would turn from disgust. (Shelly,116). Even though many would say that this was the moment when Frankenstein started to developed hatred towards Victor, this is in fact when the monster started to express some sense of vulnerability. He questions his existence and why people had this electric feeling of horror towards him.
Frankenstein, despite how determined and entrenched he was in his science, runs away when his monster is not aesthetically pleasing. Afterwards, he tries to sleep and wish his monster away like some bad dream. The monster actually believed Frankenstein would still help him after he murdered his beloved younger brother and continuously ruined his life. No one in their right mind would agree to assist a murderer, especially when the one they killed was someone dear.
In Shelley’s novel, the Creature exclaims that “sorrow only increase[s] with knowledge” (96). The Creature initially receives benefits of survival in the human world from his acquisition of knowledge, but he ultimately only causes himself pain. The Creature’s idea of befriending a human is crushed after learning that he is hated by the human race for his differences. The knowledge of humans’ hatred of the Creature causes the Creature’s sorrow, which is further developed into self-hatred. Similarly, fire allows for the pleasure of warmth and cooked food, but it also provides the
His drive for knowledge drove him to create the creature, and after it was created he soon came to regret his thirst for knowledge. For instance, after the creature came to life, he could not stand to go back into his laboratory as it would remind him of his regretful creation. The creature also came to regret himself as his, ‘father’ regretted creating him. The creature tells Walton, that he deeply regrets having become an instrument of evil and that with his creator dead, he is ready to die ( chapter 24). Anyone who has come to regret themselves or their actions, will inevitably lead to their
The monster gives Victor one chance to fix their relationship, but Victor choses his life over the monsters. “I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew” (Shelley 171). Victor doesn’t want to create “another like him” but he doesn’t realize that the only way the monster acts the way he does, is because Victor was never there to help him through life. Victor could help the monster by making a companion for him, but instead Victor got married to his own.
Frankenstein 's monster, from the story Frankenstein, is an example of a byronic hero. A byronic hero is usually a loner who might be rejected by society, have a troubled past, self-destructive, and usually misunderstood. Frankenstein 's monster is an excellent example of this, as he starts the story being brought to life through impossible ways (Shelley 42). Almost immediately, his creator despises him and eventually abandons him, giving him the rejected aspect of a byronic hero. As the monster progresses in the story, he eventually begins trying to befriend multiple people, just by knocking on their cabins only to be attacked by them and chased away (Shelley 78).
This is reinforced by the rhetorical question that serves to convince Walton that the Monster hated having to turn to violence. In both situations, a friendly and accepting hand could have led both monsters to happiness and kindness, but the lack thereof sparked the violence. Grendel and the Monster from their respective works, Gardner’s Grendel and Shelley’s Frankenstein, find themselves with no companionship, nobody to share in their joys or sorrows, which leads to violence being taken out on those who rejected them; if those victims had initially accepted and loved Grendel and the Monster, this would not have
When Frankenstein attempted to join society, he was rejected and chased out due to his differences, but he wasn’t as interested in joining the society as Grendel was. The monster was content staying away from humans until he happened upon the family of
This, would lead Frankenstein to kill people who were close to his creator. Frankenstein didn 't know any other way to express his emotions. He seemed to only do bad things, but he helped a girl from drowning and helped out a group of poor peasants. His appearance was the biggest factor. He couldn 't change it, and couldn 't help that every time someone saw him they thought he was a monster.
In the novel “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley displays a variety of themes throughout the novel. The author utilizes various themes that were controversial during the time of the release of Frankenstein. The reader can find themes like the quest for knowledge or even a prejudice theme. The quest for knowledge was one of the most controversial themes because of the use of science being utilized for evil frightened people at the time. Although, these themes were very controversial, the predominant theme Mary Shelley exhibits in the novel is family, society, and isolation.