Frankenstein Character Analysis Essay

Victor Frankenstein starts as an optimistic young man eager to learn and slowly becomes and angry and vengeful man. When he first begins his journey of college Victor loves learning and gaining new knowledge. As Victor starts his studies he states, “From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became my sole occupation. I read with ardour those works…”(Shelley 36). Victor’s thirst for knowledge show just how hopeful and ready he is to learn. The extreme devotion with which he tackles his studies prove how earnest and knowledge seeking he is. Towards the middle of the story Victor’s character starts shifting, he becomes a much more depressed and defeated man. After the death of William and Justine he stated,”Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul of both hope and fear. Justine died, she rested, and I was alive.”(Shelley 77). The deaths of William and Justine, which Victor believed to be his fault, had really shaken him. His defeat is evident as the guilt and regret he feels towards their deaths weighs heavily on his shoulders. Near the end of the novel, and Victor’s life he feels he has nothing left and becomes nothing but a vengeful man bent on revenge. Before Frankenstein and Walton encounter the creature Victor confides his dying wishes to Robert, “Yet,