Good And Evil In Frankenstein Essay

Childhood nightmares of an alive again human body assembled from parts is further described in Frankenstein, showing an almost human side to the being so often painted as pure evil. Frankenstein, the creator of Creature, left a monster to its own devices, leaving a being to learn its own way of life. To do this, Creature leaned upon four pieces of literature, Paradise Lost, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Plutarch’s Lives and Ruins of Empires.

Victor Frankenstein has a tendency to want to play the role of God; he has a God complex. In this, Creature relates Victor to Satan in Paradise Lost by John Milton. But, Victor is not ultimately who relates to Satan. Creature sees himself as the abandoned Satan, cast away by the Creator. Paradise Lost tells the story of the Forbidden Fruit in an attempt to show Satan as an usurper ultimately lost to his desired world, God’s world. This story is similar to the Book of Genesis in that it contains the similar themes of betrayal, loss of innocence, and sin. Rather than learning about the

It follows the moral decision of human beings and the stories of where moral compasses have failed. Creature sees this as the basis of all humans, the presence of good and evil. But, for Creature, it would best serve his upbringing through learning of society in a different book that deals more closely with an individual’s choices within the whole of society. A book that shows that choices are necessary to be good or evil, rather than that humans are inherently both, would show Creature that his decisions make him the evil he is, not his very existence. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald could show Creature that an individual, such as Jay, is ultimately the deciding factor in morality, not an individual's species. Jay chooses his fate, rather than is given it. In Plutarch’s Lives, though, the moral of the story point towards a natural tendency for good or evil instead of