Victor Frankenstein: The Tragic Hero Of Frankenstein

hroughout the course of the novel, the battle for control of one another takes center stage. There is no one person who is all powerful in the novel, however, there are many relationships that have a balance. Victor and the Creature hold the premier power struggle throughout the novel, they constantly are trying to gain the upper hand over one another. Mary Shelley makes the fight for dominance and power a focal point in her novel by showing the battle for power between conflicting character such as the Creature and the De Lacy family and also between Victor and the Creature.

The novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley depicts certain ideas that can not be described or written within novels. For example, the telling of the story between three different narrators can teach the reader about putting together “pieces of a puzzle” in order to understand the plot of the story. The three narrators in Frankenstein are Victor, Walton, and the Creature, all with very distinct personalities and character traits. Of these storytellers, Victor could possibly be debated as the most extraordinary. The qualities that make Victor pictured as this unique character, that the fact that he is a dynamic character, and that he is an unreliable narrator. His personality and traits are different and similar to some of the other narrators such as the creature.

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.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Hunter, Paul J. Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. North & Company, 2012. Print.

The Story of Frankenstein is a story of sadness, pain, and loss. It has shown itself as an incredible achievement in literature and its captivated readers for over two centuries. One observation remains though. This story is not only known as Frankenstein but also as The Modern Prometheus. This story, as can be seen, draws many parallels with the story of Prometheus and it’s characters. This subtitle is more than just another name for the story, it is the same story but through a different lens.

Although the question of “who is to blame” Is up in the air, it’s quite obvious that the monster was directly to blame for the murders. But, when you think about the fact that he was merely created and not born, so he wasn’t able to differentiate right from wrong, or how to control his feelings. His anger was stemmed from his hate of his creator Victor. The wrongs that Victor did unto the creature is what caused the creature’s anger to overtake whatever bit of logical thinking and ability to reason and in a way, throw it out it out the window. So, physically speaking, the creature was to blame. Although, the person to blame behind the deaths in Frankenstein would be the person who decided to make the monster in the first place. If you create

Frankenstein was published in 1818 and since then, it has been a Gothic masterpiece. The story of Frankenstein was a famous literary artwork of Gothic fiction which was later followed be the Romantic Movement. Throughout the novel, Mary Shelley emphasizes on the theme of revenge. Mary Shelley, along with other Gothic novelists showed the character of human beings as woefully imperfect and at mercy for supernatural and powerful forces such as nature and death.

Society views those who are aesthetically pleasing in a positive way and those who are less pleasant to the eye are immediately judged in a negative way. In the novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley shares the comparison between Victor’s actions and how a man should not sacrifice his humanity in the pursuit of knowledge. Mary gives us many examples as to when Victor did not remain engaged in the real world and how that backfired. Victor’s creation slaughters his cousin, younger brother, and best friend. Victor’s actions become the characteristics of a monster to which he kills the monster’s potential mate and causes the death of the most important people to Victor.

In literary works, authors often use minor characters to accentuate certain characteristics of a main character, often traits that are going to be important down the road. Justine, the family servant, is accused of murdering Victor’s young brother, William. Even though she pleads guilty to this crime, her and Victor know she’s innocent. However, Victor knows that his creation is responsible for the murder but doesn’t say anything, letting Justine take the fall for it. When people only think of themselves, others often innocently suffer for those actions. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Justine is used as a foil for Victor to highlight his flaw of selfishness, and how their relationship foreshadows the devastating deaths of Victors loved ones

The monster that Victor Frankenstein created was a Byronic hero. A Byronic Hero is a charismatic, broken, dark individual often in exile with a troubled past. The hero has flaws that make him more human like and attainable to the audience. He is a vulnerable and imperfect being and in these traits we find Victor Frankenstein’s monster. Lord Byron penned the first Byronic hero in 1812 and when Mary Shelly wrote, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,”(1823) she was arguably influenced from his epic poem, “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.” (1812-1818) Additionally, Shelly was greatly influenced by John Milton’s, “Paradise Lost,” (1667) as evidenced by the correlations between Satan and Frankenstein’s monster. Both characters exhibit traits of having an alluring and attractive nature while simultaneously being frightening and a danger to society. Victor Frankenstein longed to reanimate a living being and in his efforts to do so, he created a monster that will prove Doctor Frankenstein is just as monstrous. In the corpse turned monster, we find the Byronic hero.

There are many similarities in the novel Frankenstein by mary shelly, between the protagonist Victor frankenstein and the monster he strived to create. One of these comparisons in character, is that the monster and Victor are reciprocals. When victor created his thing, he created the mirror image of himself. They were always and always will be linked. The monster helps cast victor's role, and image in the story in a number of different ways. In the following paragraphs I have mentioned four of them.

The role of victor is subverting the mythical norms in Frankenstein. Usually the creator is considered superior and perfect in his qualities however, in this novelette, the creator himself is flawed he fails to own his own creation. On the complete contrast, Mary Shelley portrays the Creature to be an isolated figure that spends his life desiring a companion and friendship. The Creature is so rejected by society, so abandoned by Victor and the people he come across, that he becomes filled with hatred towards everyone, particularly for the one who placed him into this terrible state in the first place – Victor. The first abandonment occurred right after the “birth” of the Creature. The Creature, born as a neutral

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a man by the name of Victor tells his story of creating a human being from dismembered body parts and manages to bring it to life. This creation goes on to kill multiple friends and family members of Victor, which leaves him alone, isolated and depressed. Victor goes on to tell his story to a sailor named Robert Walton, who is on a pursuit for knowledge and to benefit the scientific field. Shelley demonstrates how scientific exploration and advancement has a multitude of negative effects on human life and especially their mental health, as demonstrated by Victor and his quest for knowledge.

Frequent in dark, grim works of literature is the presence of a tragic figure—a character, usually the hero, whose life completely falls apart and brings about the destruction of others as well. Most tragedy in these stories could be avoided if a single character was removed from the picture. This character usually leads to harm and suffering in everyone around them. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is most definitely a tragic figure; he caused many deaths and single-handedly turned the piece into a tragedy.

Marry Shelly wrote her novel once summer day as she had challenged her friends, who did compete each other for the ability to write the most horrifying story. The competition resulted in Marryʹs success. The novel was named after the protagonist “Frankenstein.” Frankenstein is a of series of stories; a story within a story within a story. It relates the adventure Robert Walton, an explorer, was in his exploration adventure toward The Archaic Pole. During his rest time, Walton encountered two men, and listened to their mysterious and tragic story that he had ever heard.