The novel Frankenstein brings to light many problems and situations that shed light on the faults of mankind. Cruelty was a huge factor in the novel; throughout Frankenstein is cruel to his body and to his creation. When he first makes the creature he runs from it, leaving the creature to fend for himself; even when reuniting with the creature he continues displays cruelty. The creature, in turn exhibits Victor cruelty right back. Within Frankenstein cruelty can be attributed, often affecting both Victor and the creature; serving as a crucial motivator and revealing their anger, pain, frustration till eventually both die.
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.
In the 1818 novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley developed the creature to act as a foil for Victor Frankenstein, highlighting both redeemable and toxic qualities of the failed father figure: obsessed curiosity, ambition for greatness, and unfailing arrogance. Frankenstein’s failings reveal that his real ‘destiny’ was inevitable isolation and utter self destruction. He could have lived a good, long life with his family with all of these qualities at a normal, healthy level, but Frankenstein’s degree of these qualities were way past sustainable—way past endurable. Shelley related him to the creature, because his unsatisfied heart could only be
In her novel Mary Shelley explores the central ideas of rejection and abandonment, human nature, good and evil and revenge to support the conviction of Frankenstein’s responsibility in the novel and Frankenstein is a reflection of this. Shelley shows through positioning of characters within the stories that good and evil is not clear-cut and there are many moral grey areas. The readers are positioned to feel sympathy for the creature, especially since his yearnings for human contact could easily be their own. Which makes it all the more frightening when Victor and others treat him in such vile ways. Shelley uses the novel to explore human nature, Frankenstein wants the readers to see the creature as a monster however they don’t. Frankenstein
In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelly , the creature undergoes specific events that shape his personality. The creature shows aspects of being a human being and has goals he wants to achieve such as finding a companion and hopefully stopping the horrible deeds he has been doing. Throughout events , the way society looks at him shaped his opinion on himself affecting his future actions such as murdering William and causing the death of Justine. In the book , the creature explains itself of having sensations of pain mixed with pleasure when someone showed him an act of kindness towards another person . In the book it says , “ He raised her and smiled with such kindness and pleasure , such as I had never before experienced , either from hunger
This brings us back to Frankenstein, Victor 's relationship with his parents friend, and Elizabeth translated by good words, Shelley uses quotes to emphasize the importance of human relationships (especially, family 's relationship) and how important they are to a person 's well-being “My children, my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world”(24).
At the beginning of the novel Victor is obsessed with finding the secret of life. He isolates himself from the world in order to fully focus in his studies. Once he successfully reaches his objective he want nothing to do with it. His abandonment to the creation leads the creature to seek vengeance on Victor. His vengeance results to the death of William, Victor's Father, Elizabeth and Henry which cultivates Victor’s hatred. Victor's abandonment turns the creature into a child who is desperately in need of love. “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice” (Shelley 275). Victor's unjust actions hurts the creature because he does see Victor as a fatherly figure. The creator continues to show his love for Victor when he says, “I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery” (Shelley 275). At the end of The creator’s love manifest the inhuman side of Victor. Victor gives life to a human being that tries to give him love but in return he runs away and abandons the person who is essentially his
Characters influence each other’s emotions and actions, acting as mentors, and the effects can be positive or negative. Though people tend to believe that mentors usually have positive, beneficial impacts on their acquaintances, this does not always reign true. In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein serves as a mentor who severely affects his living creation. The mainly harmful influence affects the being’s views on life, and in turn, leads to the downfall of both of the main characters.
In Frankenstein the creature which Victor creates is a mirror image of himself, and an embodiment of Victor's infatuation The boundaries between religion, and science are made evident in the novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The boundaries between God, the creator, and the responsibility of man beginning a steward are put to test. The novel gives insight into major themes which still make it a classic, such as the themes of identity, science, and morality. The creature and Victor, more the creature than Victor have a problem with their identity. The creature not being human does not know human customs and inventions. The creature is a newborn has a tabula rasa, or a blank mind. Victor has a duty of being the creator to teach, and
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
Dichotomies are two thing that oppose and clash with each other because they are not related and it is shown a lot in Frankenstein. Frankenstein shows these things very well because in the book there is always two opposites or some type of fight. Some of the dichotomies in the book are Victor/ The creature, Natural/ Unnatural, Civilized/ savage, Masculine/ Feminine, and Light/ Dark.
Victor Frankenstein could have helped the creature form to be accepted by society. Within the first moments of the creatures “rebirth”, Victor could have acted in various other ways that would have impacted the creature’s initial response to human contact. Throughout the entire story, Victor could have aided the creature’s actions to allow him to acclimate to this new life style. Some examples of actions he could have taken are not running away from the creature, acting as a teacher or father figure to the confused creature, and teaching him ethics and self-control. The smallest acts of different attitudes can affect the outcome of any beings transition into society.
The attainment of knowledge did not improve Victor Frankenstein. He lacks compassion with the Creature right after it was brought to the world. His ignorance and lack of affection, brings the worst in the creature which leads the creature to kill Victor’s loved ones. After abandoning the creature for years, Victors returns back home after being informed about his brother Williams murder. While returning back home, Victor encounters the Creature for the first time after all his avoidance since past couple years. Victor realizes that the Creature has been trailing him the whole time. And even after finding out that the Creature was the murderer of his brother, he couldn't do anything because of the persuasive words the Creature explained it to
Victor is the true monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He is the reckless scientist who unleashed a creature on society that was helpless to combat the horrors and rejection that society placed on him due to his differences. Victor’s goal to generate life causes a great deal of pain through his ambition, selfishness, and hostility, both to himself and others. As a result, these acts caused him to become alienated from his friends and family, and turned him into the true monster in Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein is The Modern Prometheus, for he made the knowledge of creating life assessable, and by doing so, he is cursed to endure the ratifications of his
Mary Shelley is well known for Frankenstein; the shocking tale of a scientist creating a creature from dead people’s body parts. Even though Shelley called her novel a "hideous progeny" (Turney), it turned out to be a huge success. Her horrifying concept still intrigues people globally. This intrigue, however, is more likely due to the modern movie versions. These adaptations and especially Hammer’s, or rather Fisher’s, The Curse of Frankenstein radically differ from Shelley’s original story. This is highly likely due to it being a product of its own time. The different kinds of media (novel versus movie) also play a big role in these alternations.