Many who first think of Victor Frankenstein, and some who read Frankenstein, may think that he is insane. It is true in the facts that he does have emotional outbursts at random times, which leads one to believe so. But in fact Frankenstein is bipolar. Bipolar disorder is when you are unable to control yours actions, whether they are manic or depressive. Frankenstein experiences drastic changes in mood, which can be clinically diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The severe mood changes that Victor Frankenstein experiences are not unexplainable. One minute he is completely fine and content, and the next he can be completely depressed or overly excited about an event. Bipolar disorder is exactly this. Most of the time people with bipolar …show more content…
Victor also experiences all of these symptoms. Victor feels extremely guilty that he has created this creature, "It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me that might infuse a spark of being into lifeless thing that lay at my feet" (Frankenstein 34-35). The guilt expressed through the words of Victor shows how severe his mood changes are. He goes from being delighted that he has accomplished the impossible, to regretting ever the thought of creating something so hideous. Victor feels empty through out chapter five, because he feels so bad for creating this creature. Also the extreme loss of energy that Victor experiences after his manic episode, verifies that he has bipolar disorder. " for I was lifeless, and did not recover my senses for a long, long time."(Frankenstein 38) Throughout the novel one gets the sense that Victor Frankenstein is insane. But clinically he can be diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. He shows all the symptoms without a doubt, that he is severely ill. Victor is unable to control his feelings and actions which cause his brain to make him have very severe mood changes or manic-depressive episodes. Bipolar disorder cannot be diagnosed physiologically (i.e. blood test etc.). It most likely passed down through DNA, so that is probably why he wasn 't diagnosed during his time. It is only recently that
Frankenstein’s creation was lost in the world with no one who could have understood him . It felt sorrowful and unfulfilled emotions as seen in this quote. Betrayal by Victor leaves a large impact the monster carried, which, turned into a monster full of hate and dissatisfaction. Victor’s creation was not a monster , but new born baby in a grown horrific body that was not to be called his own . It becomes a monster both mentally and physically, who will be feared by all . Victor not giving him the love he needed gets the monster enraged, which leads the monster to cause series of events that affects Victor unforgivably. .
Victor knew that what he was doing was hurting his body physically and mentally, “My labors would soon end, and I believe that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease” (Shelley 42) Victor felt this way when he was in the midst of the creation of his monster. Victor knows that his decisions were hindering his body and his ruining his limited time that Victor has on this Earth. The hindering of someone’s body and wasting of time is going to be a direct result of Victor’s demise. The actual creation of the monster also took a toll on Victor; Victor describes the monster by saying “No moral could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 44) Another example of Victor’s description of the creation of the monster the night before “I trembled exclusively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night” (Shelley 46) Even the next day, after the monster was created, Victor still was hurt by the creation of the monster which then led to Victor being very sick, only to be nursed back to health by Clerval. All of this could have been avoided by Victor if he would have not of created the monster. But because Victor decided to create the monster, the consequences of these actions were the ultimate demise of Victor with the person responsible for the demise being victor
When Frankenstein is the narrator, the mood and tone shift from Walton’s mood of enthralled and tone of meditative to Frankenstein’s horrified tone and suspenseful mood. Frankenstein first establishes his truly horrified tone through the diction that he uses in Chapter V, when his creation finally comes to life. Frankenstein uses diction like “catastrophe,” “horrid,” and “disgust filled my heart” upon the sight of his beast, and even goes further to call his creation a “miserable monster.” The diction in this section of the book is intense, and it creates a tone of horror towards the monster that Frankenstein has created. The diction also creates a suspenseful mood for the reader, because now that Victor’s creation has gone bad, they have no idea what might happen next. In Chapters 8 and 9, Frankenstein continues to establish his horrified mood when he perceives that it was his creation that killed his brother, William, and this in turn causes the death of Justine. When this happens, Frankenstein uses words and phrases like “tortures of my own heart,” “desolation,” and “accursed hands” to describe his emotions about the suffering he has caused. Frankenstein’s emotions are destroyed so badly by the thought of what he has done that he even refers to himself as a “madman.” This diction proves to the reader that the author’s tone is indeed horrified; the fact that the reader once again
In the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the character Victor Frankenstein can not be identified as purely evil or purely good. An interest in science leads Victor to create an evil monster, however midway through the book Victor develops sentimental feelings for the monster, even though he has committed many acts of pure evil. Victor abandons the monster which contributes to the overall theme, regarding nurture vs. nature. Throughout the novel, Victor is faced with challenges and hardships as a child that causes his character to become morally ambiguous.
Here, is another difference between the two doctors. Dr. Frankenstein (after realizing what he has done) halts all of his experiments and does away with his laboratory-anything to get his mind of his terrible creation. He travels around, always watching his back expecting his creature to be there. Dr. Frankenstein has many qualities of the classic Byronic hero; a character that shows romanticized sorrow and pity for himself. ? . . . I am a blasted tree,? he says, ?the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be-a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself? (Shelley 153). In this quotation, he shows romanticized self-pity and remorse for what he has created. Victor calls himself a ?miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity.? By this he feels his life is over; he can no long face the world a decent man.
Victor Frankenstein’s personal accounts of loneliness and isolation show the effects involved with making an impulsive and passionate decision. Frankenstein predicts the loneliness he could experience if he were to create the monster as he observes, “When I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate in my joy” (Shelley 13). Frankenstein knows what kind of situation he is putting himself into prior to constructing the monster. He is passionate and carelessly rebellious against his own knowledge and his previous predictions in giving life to the creature. Frankenstein knows there will be “none to participate in [his] joy,” but he acts out of his own passion and desire to be “glowing” which in turn gives him extreme loneliness. This
Throughout Frankenstein, Victor proves to be quite an egotistical person. Victor’s actions will sometimes be selfish and not as noble as he would like others to believe. He creates the monster with a desire to obtain awe and fame and to make sure that his name will be remembered throughout history. “… a light so brilliant and wondrous… that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (Shelley 37). While this discovery of Victor’s may be groundbreaking, he fails to think of the negative consequences, only thinking of himself and what this could potentially
Victor Frankenstein’s emotional turmoil is clearly evident in chapters 9 and 10. Explore the basis for this turmoil and Mary Shelley’s portrayal of Victor’s state of mind.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has a simple origin, compared to other stories. While stories such as It by Stephen king started a several year process of creation, Frankenstein began simply as a campfire story Mary Shelley shared with her writer friends one evening. Although the origins of this novel are fairly simple, it provides an in depth psychological perspective on the darker side of human psyche through the shifting first person perspective. Usually these darker aspects are associated with the character’s personal struggles, but one specific theme in all the characters. The theme of obsession has been consistent and the central focus of the three main characters Victor, the creature, and Robert. With this central theme in mind the author, Mary Shelley shows that obsession leads to the characters suffering negative psychological and physical effects, as well as impair their decision making. This is depicted through the decline of physical and mental health through Victor’s struggles with his obsessions with knowledge and justice.
Victor Frankenstein's upbringing in a perfect society ultimately led to the destruction of his life which coincided with the lives of those emotionally close to
Anguish, pain, torment and suffering are all a part of our day to day lives. These may issue from a variety of causes such as great deprivation, hardships to emotional and physical loss. Many texts, such as that of Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelly in the early 1800's, depict unalleviated suffering caused by living within societal norms. However very often, these sufferings are inflicted upon people by one individual and in the case of Frankenstein, this source is Victor Frankenstein. This statement becomes evident when examining the intersecting cultural beliefs of gender, class and ethnicity of the time.
William Shakespeare had the uncanny ability to read people then put into words how individuals reacted with one another. His most known playwright is “Hamlet”. Hamlet leads the opening of the play with grandeur; but, when his father’s ghost of comes to visit him telling of Hamlet’s uncle Claudius killed him. Hamlet schemes a plan pursuing revenge. Hamlet demonstrates depression exceptionally, in the presence of his mother and Uncle Claudius. Shakespeare’s character likely labeled a “mad man” when the playwright first drew in crowds. Today, the bipolar diagnosis would fit Hamlet’s characteristics. On page one hundred sixty-seven of Susan Krauss Whitbourne and Richard P. Halgin’s book “Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders” bipolar is termed as, “A mood disorder involving manic episodes-intense and very disruptive experience of heightened mood, possibly alternating with major depressive episodes (Witbourn & Halgin, 2014)”. Through the lens of humanity, the last fifty years, mental health clients find respect. Although, there is not much information on Bipolar, we are able not understand more on its prevalence. Bipolar Disorder is manageable by medication and/or lifestyle changes.
In the novel we immediately believe that Frankenstein, the monster, is the evil twin because of his twisted and gruesome appearance accompanied with his crazed killing spree, and then added with his harassment on Victor Frankenstein his creator. However, Freud believes that the evil twin is marked by a plague, which most often appears as a disease or sickness. In the novel Victor suffers from a sickness towards the end of the novel and eventually dies from the illness. The author also uses certain descriptive writing that describes him as a sickness to himself. “I thought I saw Elizabeth,