Victor was all the monster had so once rejected and isolated by his creator, the Monster escaped out on his own. He became vengeful because the isolation fueled hatred and anger within him drove him to
“I shall relate events that impressed me feelings which, from what I was, have made me what I am” (Shelley 80). In the second volume Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the monster’s story during his years of isolation shows the complexity of his character; this complexity makes him an enigma. In order to uncover the mysteries behind this enigma, we must analyze the factors that played a role in his development. Looking at the monster’s development, we can see parallels between the monster and feral children. Much like feral children, the monster was abandoned—during the early period of his life—and was placed under extreme circumstances, which he was forced to endure—having to fend for himself. Furthermore, because the monster was placed under extreme isolation—only having contact from a far with the De Lacey and being shunned by them when he chose to reveal himself—he was not able to connect with anyone much like how feral children were unable to connect with other people. With this in mind, it is evident that these factors during the monster’s development plays an important role in his acquisition of certain ideologies. Examining the cases of feral children will provide insights into the essence of human nature, identity, and the impact of experience on human learning (Illes and Murphy 1); these insights can then be implemented into the evaluation of the monster’s overall character. The factors that affected the development of the monster is the key to unlocking why the monster’s nature.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Hunter, Paul J. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. North & Company, 2012. Print.
When a child is created and brought into this world, it is the parent’s responsibility to nurture, guide, and teach he/she how to develop and strive socially, mentally, and emotionally in this world. Human beings have to be taught everything. Without someone teaching them right from wrong and how to survive, they could end up feral. It is the parent’s responsibility to teach their child socially and morally to help them survive. Mary Shelley uses her novel Frankenstein to analyze the idea of parenting. She compares the two main character's, Victor Frankenstein and his creature, social, mental, and emotional development throughout their childhood. Victor Frankenstein was raised in what he described as
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with the need for revenge on his monster. The demon that Victor creates kills Elizabeth, one of his many victims that are close to Victor’s heart, and this sets Victor over the psychological edge. Victor gets consumed with a burning sensation and hatred for the monster: “I was possessed by a maddened rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head” (Shelley 147). This heated quote shows the intense hatred Victor has for his creation. He actually prays for the opportunity to get his hands on the monster so he can kill him himself. Victor’s desire for the monsters life to come to an end becomes an internal need and obsession. Victor vows that he will do everything in his natural power to destroy his monster: “My rage is unspeakable… I have but one resource; and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction” (148). Victor has gone mad with the idea that he must destroy this monster, which he devotes his life to doing. His own creation, the monster, has caused him countless melancholy feelings, and it has pushed him to the brink of insanity.
The first hinting of the parent theme is Victor Frankenstein’s guardians. His parents understood the responsibility of a parent as they fed and clothed him, but not the emotional aspects of it. They had trouble expressing the correct affection to him so he believed that they had a special affection for each other, “Victor...who
His appearance scares the people he encounters, and his only desire is love. Further in the novel, there are many situations where the Monster is the victim. Shelley uses words that provide imagery for her readers. Readers will think Victor is the antagonist. He realizes if he would show the Creature love, the Monster would not kill the people. Love seems to be all he seeks, but he gets his feelings hurt when people reject and talk about him. The Monster should have to go through the bad experiences, if people would treat him with respect and and not judge him. Love and attention are the key factors that all children should experience from their parents. The Monster did not experience the love and that is what led him to being the victim in
The monster tells Victor of his feelings when he states, “You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains…I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery.” (153) After months and months of the monster trying to connect with the world, he eventually realizes that the efforts are worthless and vows to do to his creator what his creator did to him. To make Victor isolated would give him the same curse the monster has suffered through for its entire new life. Later, the creature asks himself, “Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?” The creature easily could kill Victor if that was his desire but its real desire was to make Victor suffer as the monster did. To make Victor experience the feeling isolation, the creature sets out to destroy what he hold most dear, Elizabeth. Victor describes his spouse as the “body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy.” Nowhere else in the novel does Victor come even close to describing another human in this manner. Once the monster escaped, Victor realized how important it was to be near people he loved, he had learned the terrors of isolation. The creature then uses this against him by killing the person who brought Victor out of isolation, pushing him back into an even deeper sense of isolation from which Victor can never
Parents are everyone 's first role models. Regardless of biological relation, those who raise us have a profound influence on the way we perceive and interpret life. Parents lay the foundation of our first sense of morality and empathy, and usher us to the path of our development of social skills. No matter how consciously one may attempt to have no resemblance to their parents, it is an inevitability of life that we will harness aspects of their influence and carry them through our lifetime. In Mary Shelley’s, “Frankenstein”, the influence of parental figures is displayed by the morals and values instilled in the monster.
In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein creates the creature. However, he immediately runs away because it was so hideous, abandoning his creation. After experiencing rejection from his creator, the creature feels resentful toward Victor, leading it to kill three of Victor’s close friends and family. Research has shown that the perceived parental rejection results in children growing up to be violent and depressed.
Childhood is a time in a person’s life where the most growing occurs, not only physically but also mentally. The human brain is nourished and maintained by the love and affection children receive from both parents and it continues to do so for the rest of their lives. The creature’s inability to build up courage and try to interact with society as well as his constant questioning of his existence is a direct result of an inexistent childhood as well as the absence of a loving family. Frankenstein’s mother and Elizabeth were both orphans so he was well aware of the importance of love and nurturing for people of all ages, yet he denied the creature the opportunity to receive affection of any sort. “No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles
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.
There is no other creature in existence that is as communal and gregarious as human beings, due to this, whenever one feels deserted or segregated by the rest of society, they tend to become cold and bitter. In Frankenstein, or, The Modern Day Prometheus, Mary Shelley portrays the monster, as well as its creator, as outcasts from society. Although, Victor has a family, and a wife while the creature does not, Victor feels he is emotionally detached from the rest of his loved ones. Due to his emotional confinement, Victor feels that he cannot trust even his wife with the knowledge of the horrible creature in which he has created. This sense of being an
During the Regency period in England, the lack of modern medicine contributed to many women dying from disease or during childbirth, resulting in the desertion of a parental figure. Parental abandonment affects us all in different ways; some of us grow into functioning adults, while others live in an ocean of guilt and a constant need for attention and love. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, she uses rhetorical devices such as symbolism, powerful ethos and the motifs of a lust for companionship and self-hate to illustrate the difficult ways that parental abandonment and rejection affect us and how deeply it can influence how we grow and mature.
Frankenstein was a Marry Shelley 's masterpiece, written when she was only 18 years old. The novel explores of theme of alienation, loneliness and revenge. First of all, what is alienation? Alienation is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved. The monster created by Victor Frankenstein is rejected by human society because of his appearance. As notes Anthony Badalamenti in his article Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein: : “She was also the product of her own past, suffering three successive losses in her early life that reveal why themes of being alone and abandoned run through the novel.” It means that the novel became the reflection of the inside state of Mary Shelley. And this sadness helped Mary to create a deep and powerful character. In this essay, I am going to talk about the theme of Frankenstein and I find some the articles that is related to the theme that I am talking about.