Victor Frankenstein Quotes Analysis

Frankenstein Lit Analysis Rough Draft Since the beginning of time, Man has always pursued knowledge, but this pursuit is always kept within certain boundaries, especially while searching for the truths behind the creation and origin of life. As this quest for knowledge continues, men can become consumed with the perilous thoughts and ponderings required to attain this wisdom. In her novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explains how the pursuit of forbidden knowledge can become dangerous through symbolism, allusion, and foreshadowing proving each effectively to the reader. Employing symbolism as her first technique, Shelley uses this in the way many other enlightenment authors do. The strongest use of symbolism is prevalent while Victor is contemplating

Due to this, Victor’s power of being a creator sequence to tragic events. The theme of power and the dangers of scientific pursuit is shown in Frankenstein and the effect after his creation is made. Victor mentions, “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body… but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (43). Once Victor creates his creation, he is not able to endure looking at his creation. This shows the consequences that can arise from attaining power irresponsibly.

Victor Frankenstein is the monster because of his selfishness. He allowed Justine to die innocently when he could have said something and saved her. " A thousand times rather would I confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine but such ravings would accuse me of being a madman”. This speaks of not just selfishness, but the egocentrism of this character. He rather let someone close die than be called a madman.

In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, it scrutinizes the punishments when a man creates life, and plays the role of God. 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.

In order to protect the view he holds of himself, which stems from his god complex, Victor Frankenstein uses rationalization to shelter himself from the guilt derived from his indirect involvement with the murders of William and Justine. In allowing young Justine to confess to the murder of William, though she is innocent, Frankenstein experiences conflicted emotions. Victor writes that “such a declaration [of who the true criminal was] would have been considered as the ravings of a madman,” (Shelly 86). This rationalization of not telling the truth is because of his inability to take responsibility for his actions. In the same passage, Frankenstein describes the guilt and sadness he feels as “fangs of remorse” (86).

Shelley describes the morning after Frankenstein creates the monster and runs away- "Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned, and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt…”. This dreary scene adequately depicts Victor’s miserable, downcast feeling toward the ugly monster he has just created. Shelley also uses the imagery element to bring into view Frankenstein’s painful emotions over the result of his creation. Immediately following the verdict of Justine’s death, a deep feeling of remorse washes over Frankenstein. "The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart, which nothing could remove.

When the monster he made “grasped his brother's throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead” at the monster's feet (171). Having his own creation kill his own brother because of its anger towards him will make any person feel guilty, since it was him who created it. This led to Justine, who is innocent and accused of William’s murder, being executed. Not only his brother died, but because of his selfishness, another innocent person died from Victor’s choice. Anyone with this event happening to them will feel the guilt from a bad decision.

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.

Guilt can either be an emotion that makes a person feel remorse for his or her’s actions toward another, or can be the conduct involving the executions of such crimes and wrongs. In the novel, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, both definitions of guilt were the common theme. However, the main problem was whether the creature or the creator, Victor Frankenstein, were guiltier for their actions. The one presumed to be more guilty was Victor Frankenstein who created the monster in the first place causing his family pain and failed to take responsibility for the monster’s actions. Although he didn’t directly kill his family, the monster is guilty too.

(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.

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

By removing blame from Frankenstein, the film negates a core theme of the book: the need to face the consequences of one’s actions. Subsequently, the film looses this level of moral depth. The consequences of Victor’s actions are further negated by the omission of the creature’s murders of William, Justine, and Elizabeth, all of which are the monster’s responses to Victor’s abandonment. Each of these actions has a profound emotional effect on Victor and his family in the novel,

This much is true for Victor’s failure to take responsibility for not only teaching his creation about life but also failure to take responsibility for the actions of his creation. “Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy… you shall be my first victim” (153). Victor’s knows that he is responsible for the death of William because he abandoned his creation and made the monster learn the hard way that he would not be accepted into society. But he has no choice but to let Justine take the fall for the death of his brother because he fears being seen as a madman.

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

In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a novel that follows Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious man on his journey to defy the natural sciences. In Volume I of the novel, Victor discusses his childhood, mentioning how wonderful and amazing it was because of how his family sheltered him from the bad in the world. “The innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me” (35). When Victor brings up his childhood, he suggests that parents play a strong in how their kids turn out, either "to happiness or misery" (35). In particular the main character was sheltered as a child to achieve this “happiness” leading to Victor never developing a coping mechanism to the evil in the world.