Morality As Depicted In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In her romantic novel, Mary Shelley introduces Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious and young natural philosopher, and calls into question the wisdom of creating a complex being with equally complex feelings. After two years of painstaking work, Frankenstein completes his creation, but is quickly repulsed by it and represses the idea of his imminent return. With the early abandonment of his creator, the creature is left on his own and develops his sense of morality and ethics— his superego—by observing an oblivious family. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses the De Lacey family to characterize the creature and mold his personality from one of compassion to one bent on revenge, leading to a schism between creation and creator.

Victor had two loving parents that gave him everything he ever needed or wanted to fulfill his physiological and emotional needs. Since Victor did not do this for his monster, the monster would kill all of Victor’s family and friends that he loved which would bring destruction to Victor’s life. For the rest of his days, Victor would go on a search for his monster to destroy it or die trying. Unlike Victor, the monster was never loved because of the way he looked. He was left alone, even by his creator, and lived a miserable life always escaping people that would “attacked [him], until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons” (Shelley). This caused a lot of anger for the monster, and he would then release this anger onto Victor to make him pay for abandonment. In the end Victor’s death was “caused by his creature” or really by “his own vengeful pursuit of it” (Lowe-Evans). The monsters death was through “self-immolation” because of the murders he committed to get back at Victor (Lowe- Evans). Both man and monster life was ended in cruel

Though, the creature is often referred to as the monster, he cannot be viewed as one-dimensional. He is responsible for the murders of William, the younger brother, Henry Clerval, Victor’s friend, and Elizabeth Lavenza, as well as being responsible for the hanging of Justine, the maid of the Frankenstein’s. Although the creature took revenge because of his anger and bitterness, it can be said that he was not born with those character traits. He became such a being due to Victor’s rejection. He experiences hate from the very beginning as Victor is horrified by his creation.

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.

Victor would stop at nothing to finish his project and became so obsessed that he was isolated from his family and friends. His way of collecting lifeless matter for his creation is unethical and morally wrong. Eventually, he is punished for his actions: “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.” (pg.56) Additionally, extreme devotion to the building of his creation caused Victor mental distress due to the fact that he neglected his own needs in order to work exclusively on the creature: “I had deprived myself of rest and health.” (Shelley 56). This is the reason that Victor did not realize he had gone too far until it was too late. Once victor brings the creature to life, he immediately realizes the hideousness of what he has done: “Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 56). Furthermore, Victor struggles to cope with his creation throughout the novel. The creature wants to take revenge on Victor for abandoning him and causes Victor grief by killing the people he cares about. When the creature kills, Victor feels responsible and guilty of the murders. He continually breaks down with each death by “his” hands, which makes him go mad. The task of creating a monster turned Victor into a monster

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 life there are many evils that will try to defeat a person but the key to living a happy, fulfilling life is learning to have empathy for others who are facing their own evils. Empathy is hard to have if a person has not endured any real struggles in their life. Being able to know firsthand how it feels to go through difficulties helps create a level of empathy that leads to compassion for one another. Victor Frankenstein is a prime example of someone who has faced evils in their own life but in the end did not find compassion for others, instead he found his own hell. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor’s lack of empathy opens the door into his world of selfishness, cruelty, and unhappiness.

How does Mary Shelley’s construction of the secondary characters reflect upon the protagonist? Throughout Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, character parallels and analogies between Victor Frankenstein and the creature are strongly emphasized. More evidently, the character doubles between the creator, Victor, and his creature are presented through their demeanor, their desires, and their demands. Shelley emphasizes parallelisms of nature, alienation and vengeance to underscore their similarities, leading some readers to interpret Victor and his creature being so similar that indeed, they are the same person. Both lonely and outcasts in the world, Victor and his creation live forlorn and dreary lives, hungry for the love of another, desperate for

This passage taken from Mary Shelley’s horror novel, Frankenstein, on page 66-67 describes the atmosphere and ponderings of Victor Frankenstein as he solitarily ascends to the summit of Montanvert. After feeling grievance and despair as he blames himself for the death of both his brother, William and his servant, Justine, Victor attempts to find solace in the majesty of nature to repair his emotional state. However, his descriptions of the environment are somewhat grim and bleak, contrasting the pleasant and peaceful mood that being in the natural world typically evokes. This scene causes him to question man’s desire for superiority against nature as it reflects upon himself. In this passage,

Duality is shown in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, a gothic tale of a scientist whom looks to advance the life-giving qualities of mother nature. Through this novel, Shelley proves that good and evil in human nature is not always simple to define, and that everyone has both of these qualities within them. The duality of human nature is shown through the characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, who are both heroes in the novel while simultaneously displaying anti-hero qualities. Shelley forces the reader to sympathize with them both but also creates gruesome ideas of the two.

Sacrificing. Suffering. Despising. The novel Frankenstein by Marie Shelly tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque creature in an experiment trying to invent life of his own. Victor regrets his action so turns the creature lose to the world and closes himself in his abysm of thoughts. The creature toughly discovers the world on his own and declares war on humanity. Frankenstein’s act as God conducts his life and his creation’s into a series of terrific events. As the novel progresses, Victor and his monster vie for the role or protagonist. At simple site, readers think the monster and Victor are two completely different people, but in fact they share the same desires. The creature ironically becomes Victor’s doppelganger by both wanting affection, their miseries and hate for each other.

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, is one of the most important and popular novels in the Romantic genre to this day. The novel was originally controversial because it touched on many fragile subjects such as the human anatomy and the development of science. The structure of Frankenstein begins as an epistolary, narrative story told by Robert Walton to his sister in England. Walton’s letters tell us that he is exploring, searching for what lies beyond the North Pole, and he eventually connects with Frankenstein. Shelley creates the protagonist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who has a fascination with life and death. Gensis states; “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” Humans, therefore, were created as a likeness

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.

In the narrative, Mary Shelley carefully introduces various aspects of the tradition of Romantic literature and thus, the novel can also be understood as a mirror to the society of that era. Few of the Romantic thoughts evident in Frankenstein are, the idea of individualism, yearning for a utopic state, nostalgic remembrance, the symbolic use of nature and most evidently, the presence of gothic elements that showcase intense emotions and horror. Furthermore, Shelley uses the voice of three different narrators-Walton, Victor and The Monster, to engage the audience and make them understand all the three viewpoints. Through the epistolary and framed narrative, she also continues to establish new themes as the novel proceeds. The skilful use of literary devices such as allusions, monologues, imagery and metaphors helps to dramatize the text and create an impact on the readers’ mind. Additionally, two of the most impressive aspects in Frankenstein are the foreshadowing of events and the adverse use of intertextuality. Shelley by using words such as ‘fate’ and ‘omen’ sets up the course of the book in an intriguing manner. Notably though, events such as Victor referring to his genius as “the fatal impulse that lead to my ruin” (24) establishes a firm ground for foreshadowing and prepares the reader for what evil is yet to come. As previously

During the Romantic era, Mary Shelley wrote one of her famous book called Frankenstein, which became respected literature of Romantic era. Even though Frankenstein was created mainly to emphasize horror, it rather developed different point of views; it captured many audiences who sought for ideas of science and nature. Throughout the story, Mary Shelley mingled science, human emotions, and nature in order to create supernatural tale that can be understood despite specks of illogical ideas. To make the story as much as smooth as possible without any disbeliefs, Mary Shelley incorporated science and morality in order to enhance her story to be easily absorbed and felt.