The Importance Of Human Life In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

“I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” (Shelley, ch. 5), Frankenstein says, as he looks at the human life he has created. Obsession of a goal leads to a loss of innocence for Victor Frankenstein, the monster, and Robert Walton, in Mary Shelley’s work of literature Frankenstein.

Frankenstein’s obsession with creating human life, had caused him to be successful in the creation of his monster. Upon seeing how ugly the creature was, he proclaimed “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” (Shelley, ch. 5). Frankenstein began to neglect the monster, which consequently caused the monster to take the life of his brother William, Justine, and ultimately, his beloved Elizabeth. Frankenstein began to blame himself for the loss of his own loved ones because of his obsession with creating human life.

In the end the monster says to Walton, “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” (Shelley, ch. 24) Becoming obsessed with revenge on Frankenstein, the monster was ignorant to his love for Frankenstein. Revenge and hatred caused the monster to commit crimes that he would have never committed in the past, which he realizes when Frankenstein’s life comes to an