Cadin Vu Mrs. Sweney English 8 P3 26 April 2023 The Truth of the Creature’s Story Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein uses the theme reality vs. imagination and social contract to reveal to the reader that people should deal with their consequences and they should not judge people by their looks. The theme reality vs. imagination in the book demonstrates to the reader to not be fearful of their problems and to deal with the consequences of their actions. This is illustrated when Victor creates the creature, it kills his family, and has an imaginary presence near Victor. To start, Victor Frankenstein makes a creature with dead body parts and stitches, while isolating himself from his family and society. Then he considers that, “now that I had finished, …show more content…
This immediate regret proves that even working day and night, losing his time and sanity, only now does he realize the major mistake he has been created. Frankenstein was so focused on creating the creature that he never thought what he would do with it afterwards. Another example is when the creature kills William, Victor’s adopted brother, and Justine, his adopted sister, is sentenced to death: “Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish. . .And on the morrow, Justine died” (75). This consequencial guilt highlights how, when Victor symbolizes the creature as “a hell within me”, he sees the creature as the pure evil monster that represents his bad side. He also does not tell the court that the creature killed William because he is afraid people think he is crazy, and it will only lead to more deaths of his loved ones. The last reason is when Victor promises to make a female creature for the original creature to …show more content…
In the book, the creature is mustreated and harmed because of his looks, including when Victor leaves the creature, the Delacey family beats him, and during the conversation with Robert Walton. Firstly, when Victor makes near the start of the book, he disaproves in what he has created, and runs away: “I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house, which I uninhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night” (). Victor’s unreasonable fleeing quickly demonstrates to the reader how people will immediately react to the creature, even his creator quickly decides to run. It was not the creature’s fault that he was left malnourished and unraised, which started the everlasting rivalry between his creator. Another example is when the creature observes the Delaceys for over a year, learning and surviving in a hovel. When he understands the rough times they go through, he stops stealing their food, and even helps them collect firewood. Then when he tries to get a chance to talk to them, “Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung; in a transport of fury, he clashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick” (123-124). This violent attck illustrates how even when helping them survive, he still gets rejected. No matter what he does, nothing will change his appearance, and, even with a kind heart
Although Victor knows that the creature is responsible for the death of William, the creature cannot fully conform to that categorization. This is due to the fact that the creature is in a position where the laws of society do not necessarily apply to it, due to the life and death boundaries that it is balanced between. The laws of society can only apply to the living as the law enforcers would not consider the dead of being able to commit the crimes of the living. This is evident in the fact that a deceased criminal will no longer be obligated to serve their criminal sentence. Because the creature is an amalgamation of dead people brought to life, the laws of the living are not inherently established in the creature.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a thematically engrossing novel that follows the treacherous narrative of protagonist Victor Frankenstein as he submits himself entirely to passion and the fervent desire to acquire natural knowledge and the resulting consequences that follow. The outcome of his ardent frenzy of discovery is a monstrous creation that he instantly regrets creating upon first sight. Throughout the Frankenstein novel, Victor and the monster engage in an everlasting mutual war that sets them at ends with each other through their personal pinings for the things that set them apart. It can be proven that throughout the novel the two protagonists come off as both intriguingly similar upon in-depth analysis and strikingly different on
He goes on to blame Victor and humankind for his murder. He knows in his heart that if not for his treatment by humanity, he would be kind. The creature believes that if he had someone that looked like him, he would be happy. And ultimately Victor agrees to create the creature a
Through Victor's absence and abandonment of his creation, he guarantees the creature a life without love, compassion, or direction, showing that he is the true monster. Frankenstein’s focus on the possibility of creating life rather than its morality proves fatal. His creation attempts to learn from and contribute to society, until ultimately rejected. The actions of the creature are a direct result of its creators shortcomings/failures. Frankenstein is given Victor Abandoning creation/
The Creature’s Attack Against Victor In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the creature acts as a foil for his creator, Victor Frankenstein, revealing how men who act as God face consequences that ultimately lead to their own emotional decline. With this, the creature’s repulsive appearance, harm to Victor’s brother and wife, and desire to be accepted by society accentuates Victor’s fear, misery after the creation of his creature, and societal acceptance. The creature’s cadaverous looks emphasize Victor’s fear to take care of his creature. The creature being “Formed into a hideous and gigantic creature (Shelley 58)” made “Disgust fill [Victor’s] heart (59).” This made Victor “unable to endure the aspect of [the] being [he] created, [causing Victor to] rush out of the room (59).”
Frankenstein and his creature’s parent-child dynamic is evident as the monster refers to Frankenstein as his creator, asking him to destroy him if he desired to: “‘Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom you art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life?’” (68). Frankenstein’s creature questions Victor’s motives in creating him since it is inconsistent with his goal of destroying him.
Frankenstein shows the dangers of revenge and greed by never admitting his faults. Consequently, in the cabin following Frankenstein’s death, the creature admits to Walton, “I have murdered the lovely and the helpless. [...] I have devoted my creator, the specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery” (Shelley 214-215). Unlike Frankenstein, the creature acknowledges he has gone too far with his revenge yet never regrets it when Victor is still alive. Pursuing vengeance causes the monster to completely change from his emotionally aware self seen in his childhood.
When Victor creates the creature he also abandons it. Once Frankenstein’s creature begins to murder off his family thus he begins’ to realize the importance of family. Caroline’s death contributes to Victor’s isolated nature.
Dreanna Hypes Lit comp per 7 Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, tells the horrific story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist devoured by ambition, seeks to revive life to the deceased. Thus, a horrific monster is created. Terrified of its unsightly stature, Dr Frankenstein flees his creation, neglecting it severely a result, the monster. Lonely and depressed, seeks revenge on his creator, killing several members of his family and his closest friend. Throughout shelley uses imagery and toner to amplify the horror
He wanted Frankenstein to suffer as much as he did by killing all his friends and family. With this in mind, Frankenstein went on his honeymoon with Elizabeth when a frightening scream occurred, Victor ran into their bedroom to see his wife’s pale head hanging from the bed with all life drained from her (Grimly 166). This represents how the creation didn’t want Victor to be happy with his wife since he could never have someone who loved him because of his dreadful appearance. Of equal importance, the creature found a small child that started saying he was related to Frankenstein, leading to the beast killing William, ‘“Frankenstein!...this death will carry despair to him”’(Grimly 113). This quote shares how the creation was very egotistical and shows how he wanted the human to suffer so much that he killed the innocent child to get what he wanted.
The Creature’s feelings of rejection from society and the abandonment from Victor compel him to use violence and seek revenge. In so, the Creature ends up killing a great many of people throughout the story, some of which include: Victor’s younger brother William, Justine Moritz, Victor’s close friend Henry Clerval, and Victor’s soon to be wife Elizabeth Lavenza. Many would say that the story of “Frankenstein” from the start sets out to make the creature seem to be naturally evil and a monstrosity of a thing which is directly the cause of its uncontrollable bloodthirstiness, but I believe this to not be the case. Although the Creature behaves viciously and murders several people, he is not inherently evil or malicious. It is because of the human relationships he endured and the consequences of a neglected psycho-social responsibility that drove him to do such
Duality is shown in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, a gothic tale of a scientist whom looks to advance the life-giving qualities of mother nature. Through this novel, Shelley proves that good and evil in human nature is not always simple to define, and that everyone has both of these qualities within them. The duality of human nature is shown through the characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, who are both heroes in the novel while simultaneously displaying anti-hero qualities. Shelley forces the reader to sympathize with them both but also creates gruesome ideas of the two. Frankenstein’s creature places himself in a submissive position when he begs his creator to have mercy on him and asking the creator to “create a female for [him] with whom [he] can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for [his] being.”
Before this moment in the novel, Victor Frankenstein had not been forced to face the results of his actions. Due to the fact that the monster murders Victor’s younger brother, the monster makes everything more personal to him. Not only is Victor now mourning the loss of his brother and an integral (61) part of his family, he is also aware that William’s death is entirely his fault. If Victor had not brought that creature to life, his brother would still be alive and no one would have had to deal with the pain William 's death caused. Additionally, this murder committed by Victor’s monster reveals something about it.
Victor felt really bad for William and thinks it was his fault William died. This was Victor's fault because if Victor did not create the monster, William would never of died. Victor’s nature was melancholy when he found out the monster may have been the cause for William’s death. Victor believes that his horrific creation is a part of himself. Victor regrets making Frankenstein a lot and knew it was a big mistake.
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein explores the theme of alienation and how it ultimately leads to the corruption of an individual. As Victor Frankenstein sought to discover and solve the secret to life by “bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (37), he erected a creature who was monstrous looking. As a result, the creature was continuously rejected and isolated from society due to his grotesque appearance, forcing him to navigate the world alone, unable to find any source of companionship or parental guidance leading him to become bitter and vengeful. Mary Shelley presents allusions to demonstrate how the creature’s identity in becoming a monster was forced upon him, due to the creature’s circumstances of social rejection and misinterpretation