Our generation has grown up in a world with developed technology. We couldn’t imagine a world without iPhone’s, computers, television, etc. Our oldest generation is concerned about our blinded trust in technology. These fears have always haunted mankind and we’ve communicated these fears through literature. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, she shows us through Victor that our trust in technology will ultimately destroy our morality. In the early chapters we see that Victor is already teetering between being a romantic and a scientist. His thirst for knowledge finally overtakes him as he’s off to university. “[Victor] delighted which [he] desired to…learn the hidden laws of nature” (Shelley 22). What Mary Shelley shows through Victor’s statement is that in her time period, men were moving away from the romantic side of life into the unknown. Scientists were delving into topics that weren’t ever discovered. Victor was already beginning to explore the unknown world in which was left for only the heavens to know. Victor’s father advises him that natural philosophy was a waste of time but the night that Victor saw the …show more content…
The creature that he abandoned took away his loved ones. “Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will [Victor] give up my search until he or [Victor] perish” (182). Victor at this point has lost everything he’s ever known, and is forever consumed by his hatred of the creature and lost his sense of reality. In Frankenstein, Victor’s sense of morality is destroyed by the dark side of human nature and technology. Mary Shelley makes a statement through Frankenstein to call to attention that mankind is moving away from the natural healing forces of nature and stepping into the dark unknown of technology. She shows that if humans don’t have a sense of balance between the two, we could ultimately destroy our morals and nature
Before his monster came to life, he believed that he would “pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation” (Shelley, 28). Victor is motivated by his craving of knowledge to venture into the unknown and make progress beyond the confines of what had been instituted before him. However, he soon realizes trying to understand the mechanisms of life will end up only destroying himself. Frankenstein reaches the end of his quest when he gains self-knowledge about the dangerous consequences of misused knowledge. He then tries to spend the last of his efforts relaying to Walton what he really should be on a quest
2) Victor is a character from "Frankenstein" written by Marry Shelley and asapted into a play by Phillip Pullmay that changes over the course of the story. In the beginning he is excited & passionate about science. We can see this when he is explaining how he wants to use the power of electricity to Clerval on
Despite the fact that Victor is isolated in the end and isn’t happy about the outcome, “Winter, spring and summer passed...so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation"(Monster of Mary Shelley), conveys the tragedy of Victor’s creation. By spending most of his time deprived in his experiment, never going out in reality, but focusing on what is making him successful, made him crazier than he’s ever been. In spite of the fact that Victor was the creator of his monster, he had responsibilities which he ignored. “After the fact that he made ambitious mistakes, he could've acknowledged his authorities and save himself from desolation. Out of pride and ambition, his mistakes brought him to the point of unhappiness and devastation to himself and to his loved ones, most importantly 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 Frankenstein, is at fault for the creature’s actions. Victor was looking for some honor and triumph, but when he accomplished his experiment, not only did it bring terror to Victor, but to the whole world. The monster never learned right from wrong and was never raised correctly, his first moment of life, all he experienced was the fear in Victor's emotion, and was abandoned right from the start. Victor selfishly isolated himself from society and ran away from his responsibilities which caused destruction to the people Victor cared for and loved deeply. The creature was known as a monster and was doomed due to his appearance.
Joyce Carol Oates states in her essay Frankenstein Fallen Angel, “…he (Victor) seems blind to the fact that is apparent to any reader – that he has loosed a fearful power into the world, whether it strikes his eye as aesthetically pleasing or not, and he must take responsibility for it.” Victor is unwilling to care for the creature, because he finds him dreadful, so he takes the easy way out and leaves the creature to take care of himself, which he is not capable of doing. Victor’s obsession to act superhuman blinded him while he was creating the creature because he had a desire to assemble the creature from makeshift parts so that the creature would be hideous and therefore inferior to Victor. The creature is formed as an ugly being so that it is easier for Victor to walk away from. Victor is willing to abandon his own creation because he views the creature as a, “… filthy mass that moved and talked” (136).
His guilt made him flee from his family and separate himself from society. While on his expedition he ran into his creation which made him seem more monster than human. Frankenstein’s creation is represented as Victor’s more human side towards society and Victor himself.
Victor Frankenstein turns away from his responsibilities by ignoring the existence of his creation. Throughout the novel, Victor is constantly running away from the monster and not giving him attention, which resulted in the monsters change of personalities. For example, in page 71 the creation said, “All men hate the wretched; how must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” This quote suggests that because of the ignorance of Victor the monster began to become evil and have the urge to seek
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses Victor’s selfishness and ambition for knowledge to questioned how far society has to go to satisfy our yearn to be God. Vicor’s God complexion shows the dangers of wanting to challenge the limits of human knowledge without thinking of the consequences. When Victor attends university and the material he has learned is belittled by a professor as a waste of time, Victor is determined to prove him wrong. As Victor becomes more interested in the sciences and in the creation of life he sees that as the only way to make advancements that others have not yet done. He succeeded in bringing the dead back to life but not in the form he had in mind.
Throughout the novel, the main character Frankenstein, made many poor decisions that I would consider to be morally wrong and unethical. Frankenstein’s research and discoveries are ethically wrong because he was taking dead bodies from cemeteries, cutting off their limbs, and body parts to create a human like creature. He did not have anyone's consent to do this study causing it to be unethical, and he also should not be able to do this because he is playing the role of god. In the beginning of the book, Victor Frankenstein described to Walton that he had created a monster using body parts from a graveyard.
The scientist struggles constantly with sickness throughout the narrative and, while not specifically emphasized, he retreats into nature frequently after regaining consciousness to increase his mental and physical recovery. Textual evidence of nature’s effect on Victor includes when he states, “I remember... it was a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my convalescence. I also felt sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion” (Shelley 51). Victor acknowledges how the spring season, which includes the regrowth and renewal of the natural world, greatly increases his overall health to where he feels comparable to his self before he created the monster.
Mary Shelley shows this burden of responsibility throughout the book by continually showing the reader how much Victor’s unthoughtful actions affect his future, and how he copes with the results. When Victor first gets the idea
Within Mary Shelley’s work Frankenstein, Victor cautions Walton’s men on the vessel from abandoning their pursuit of exploring the arctic and its mysteries and dissuades them from returning home to their families by ridiculing them for not having the determination and will to see through their endeavor. This seems like quite a contradiction to Victor’s message he expresses throughout his tale, where he asserts that it is dangerous to pursue ambitions/discoveries of the unknown in the name of science or personal satisfaction. However, when considering why he has such a message to convey to the equally ambitious Walton, his seemingly opposite words/actions make sense. After all, the reason why Victor feels that science/knowledge is inherently
Victor questions why men so instinctively attempt to become superior to nature when men are also a product of nature. He criticizes that if humans reverted to our primal instincts, “hunger, thirst, and desire” (67) that we’d be free, or content with our lives. This is his subliminal self-reflection as he understands that seeking the secret to life, by creating the monster, did not bring him happiness but rather brought him misery and self-loathing. In this last line of the passage, Shelley highlights a major morale and theme of the story which is using science to tamper with nature, a critique against the enlightenment period. The consequences of Frankenstein’s creation have not only caused the death of William and Justine but will also become the reason for his own inevitable doom
When it comes to scientific methods, there are a variety of ways in which one can reach their goal. Of course, there are certain rules that one must follow when it comes to scientific research. The foremost of these rules is to abide by a certain code of ethics. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein disregards the ethics of research, preferring to accomplish his goals without thoroughly thinking of the consequences that might arise from creating life for the dead. Of course, he wasn’t the only one ignoring the ethical guidelines of research.