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Frankenstein: Selfish And Selfishness In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Victor Frankenstein is selfish. The novel portrays Victor as a selfish character who is only concerned about his own well-being. Frankenstein wanted to manipulate the power of life. He abandons his creation because of the creature’s appearance and also withholds information or lies about his creation. Due to Victor 's selfishness, readers feel sorry for his creation. Frankenstein created the creature so he could manipulate the power of life, not to learn from the experience. He is so immersed in his studies, fascinated by the creation of life. He studies what the human body is made up of and how it falls apart. Victor completely disengages from the world when away at school after his mother dies of scarlet fever. "It is so long before the …show more content…

In reality, he is disgusted by the sight of his creation so he abandons it leaving it all alone in the world without any guidance and runs away to the next room. Victor himself suffered from being a social outcast and now he bestowed the same feeling onto the creature by abandoning him. By treating the creature as an outcast, “he will become wicked … divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations—malevolence and selfishness” (Caldwell). Not only is Victor selfish for abandoning his creature but he is shallow as well. Instead of realizing that he achieved his goal of bringing life to an inanimate body he runs way because of how hideous it is. "Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily" (Shelley 228). Even Walton is repulsed by the creature’s …show more content…

These are Victor 's last wishes before he dies a short time after. “And do I dare to ask of you to understand my pilgrimage... No; I am not selfish...and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes" (Shelley 218). This means that Frankenstein is very obsessed with killing the creature. It has come to a point where his only purpose in life is to have the creature killed. Even if that means he has to ask a stranger or a friend to finish the job for him. In the quote he claims not to be selfish, even though all he cares about is killing his creation to make himself feel better. Since these are Frankenstein 's last wishes, it foreshadows his death and makes it so he won 't be the one to kill the creature. This quote also tells us that even in his delirious state Victor is still enraged with the creature, which means that he will not die in peace, but disturbed and unfulfilled. The creature becomes defensive. "Life...is dear to me, and I will defend it" (Shelley 96), this is ironic because not only does the creature kill others showing his selfishness, which he is mirroring Victor 's earlier selfish intentions for creating the creature, but earlier he was suicidal. Now the creature has to ask permission for a better life from a person that doesn 't even seem to value it. The creature also reminds

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