Character Analysis
Victor Frankenstein is by far the most profound character that leads the plot of the story. Victor grows up in Geneva reading works of remarkable and intelligent alchemists to understand more about the secrets of life. This gradually affects him during his attendance in university at Ingolstadt, where he learns and masters all the teaches his professors have to give him. Victor becomes intrigued with the “secrets of heaven and earth,” (Shelley 33). While he is the protagonist of the story, he narrates the events from his own point of view. From his happiness and joy of creating a living being to his regret and demise to kill the monster. While studying in Ingolstadt, Frankenstein discovers the truth and hideous of life. He creates a grotesque monster that
…show more content…
Frankenstein came through many hardships to destroy the monster, including the death of himself, his loved ones, and innocent people who did not deserve to die. All the burden and deaths of the people fell onto Frankenstein’s shoulders. Victor’s goal was to defy the natural process of human life and in the end he met his demise. Victor Frankenstein grew up as a remarkably intelligent man with wealthy parents and a healthy lifestyle. Frankenstein undoubtedly believes that he must fix his mistake and goes on a journey to find and kill the monster; however, every clue and every close encounter ends with someone not involved dying. Victor tries his hardest to keep the existence of the monster as a secret but fails when too many of injustices happen. As time goes on his feeling of guilt and remorse expands and cannot prevent the disaster that will happen. “I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever” (Shelley 81). Frankenstein is resorting to suicide to rid all his problems and fear that he must deal with. He believes that he can save himself from misery by ending his life. Little did he know that the monster will be
Because victor abandoned his creation and left it to run wild, the monster was left to find food, clothes, shelter, and educate himself, the monster eventually discovers his creator’s true feelings towards him and seeks out revenge against him, starting Frankenstein’s lifetime of punishment (Mia, 2016). Victor’s sin is not against God but against nature. His sin is that of Hubris, an attempt to become master over the powers of nature through the creation of an unnatural man. His corresponding punishment is to become a slave to the wicked actions of his monster. He is forced to watch his loved ones be murdered one by one, while he remains powerless (Mia, 2016). In the final chapter of Frankenstein, the creature does express remorse for his terrible acts, as they caused the death of his creator, surely he weeps over the body of victor Frankenstein whom he has loved from the second he opened his eyes (Westwood,
Firstly, Victor Frankenstein is a very determined and resolute man. Once he is struck by an idea he will not give up until he has tried every method in order to substantialize his theory. His perseverance is shown in the novel when he endeavours to bring back life to a composition of dead limbs. For example he goes to cemeteries in order to collect the components needed for the experiment, so he does everything
During Chapter 5, Victor created the monster but he didn’t give him the proper care that the creature needed to be able to live with society. In page 35 and 36 within the chapter, he “escaped and rushed downstairs,” as he was filled with horror for what he had created. So he abandoned it as it was too much out of his control, leaving him alone in the cruel world that won’t accept him. Because of the lack of care and affection, the creature learned to hate as he tried to make the world like him, but failed. And as a first act of his hatred, he started to kill all of Victor’s family to get back at him for recreating him. He strangled William as he has “the print of the murderer’s finger on his neck.” He killed Henry as he also had “black marks” around his neck.” And he killed Elizabeth by rushing into Victor’s room and having the same fate as the other two. All of his family were gone and not there to be with Victor, just like how the creature felt when his father left him. Sad. Helpless. Alone. And that’s what became the death of Frankenstein. A slow, painful death with no one to be there with
Throughout the entire of the novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley shows that Frankenstein’s demise is a direct result of his own decisions. Mary displays this through three vivid actions that Victor did; the creation of the creature, the death of his Brother and trial of Justine, and the ignorance Victor had that led to the murder of Victor’s wife, Elizabeth. Victor was a very smart student with an immense drive to accomplish whatever he told himself he was going to accomplish. With Victor’s early studying in college, Victor describes his situation when studying “Victor’s cheeks had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. “ (Shelley 40), Showing Victor relied so heavily on studying that he was hurting his body
Victor Frankenstein in the book Frankenstein faces many terrible situations and has to face many consequences for trying to play God’s role in creating life. Victor seen and dealt with many situations as a young boy that will lead to his madness and obsession with science. Victor has always been intrigued with science and life ever since he was a boy. He studied natural science endlessly trying to master how to create a creature that could sustained life. When Victor finally creates his creature, he becomes disgusted with how it turns out. Victor runs from his creation failing to teach him any social or moral qualities. The creature haunts Victor killing many of his family and friends. Victor will try to run from the many problems he has caused. This causes Victor’s misery throughout the book. Victor becomes the true murderer in the book for trying to play God and create life with science.
His friend from home comes to surprise Victor but he ends up consoling him for months — he does not want to confront the horrors he has single handedly created. He is such a disaster that he cannot write his family, only putting them under more stress. Finally, after months go by Victor begins to regain his mind and consciousness. He receives a letter from his father stating that his child brother was murdered. This, of all things, is what finally pushes Victor to return home to his family. Once Victor has returned to his family he realizes what exactly he had done. Victor’s creation had made its way to his family’s home and had taken the life of his brother. Not only is has the life of this young child been stripped away but Justine, a family friend, has been accused of killing the poor boy. Justine had never done anything but love and care for the child as if he were her own. He claims Justine’s innocence but he does not come clean— he cannot. If Victor were to mention that of a monster he would be institutionalized and Justine would still be found guilty. Justine is put to death, the second being stripped of life at the his monster. Victor feels “a weight of despair pressed on [his] heart,” (Shelley 111). These murders are the fault of Frankenstein and the weight he feels is overwhelming guilt. Without the construction of a new life, of a monster, these lives would not be lost… still he manages to fond great comfort in
Victor Frankenstein travels to Ingolstadt to study. Once there, he was stuck to the sciences and especially for chemistry. He reads all the books he could come over and going at all lectures in the subject. In the end, one thing that interests him most and is the body's structure and origin of life's principles are based. He studies the anatomy and he gets very interested in death to thus get answers about the origins of life. After some time, he finds that he is inclined to give life to inanimate objects and decide to create your own creature from dead matter. This turns out to be not too successful. Frankenstein do not think through the consequences of his actions he may have and when the monster finally gets life and becomes Frankenstein
Next, Frankenstein is not a hero because after creating the monster, he wants to destroy it because it has taken so much from him as revenge. Frankenstein is unable to kill his creation and dies after his life is destroyed completely. Why would Victor want to live his life trying to kill off something that he made? Because the monster he created was not what he wanted it to be. Why would he want to create life? Because he was mourning the loss of his wife-to-be. Frankenstein was overall a good man, he just didn't thoroughly think out his
Victor Frankenstein was a major figure in the novel with a burning desire to learn. “I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour… My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement” (Pg55). His discovery of the obscure secret to create life caused him to become absorbed in his experiment. Ambition had consumed him and the only thing keeping him alive was his passion and "blindness" to what he will produce in the end. "I had deprived myself of rest and health…but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." However this ambition eventually led to the demise of Victor Frankenstein. Fuelled by the hatred he had for the creature after the death of his loved ones, his ambition was to kill the creature. “I vow vengeance…I devote thee, miserable wretch, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I perish…” Victor failed to liberate himself from his blinding ambitions, and repent was noticeable in his last words "Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and
The novel Frankenstein, tells the life of Victor from his early childhood to adulthood. It follows him on the highs and lows of his life. In the novel, Victor begins the construction of a creature. He believes this creation will be a wonderful being. However, the monster begins to haunt Victor’s life with his own problems.
Shelley explains how Victor has a great mental turmoil after he indirectly caused the death of people who were close to him by the actions he took to create the monster. Shelley’s description of Victor’s feelings show the deprivation of hope and fear in his soul and the emphasises the pain in which he was indirectly the cause of. Victor not only caused his own mental illness, but he also caused his own physical illness. Victor makes himself physically sick by his actions during the creation of his monster. Victor’s work unintentionally causes himself to decline in health and become vulnerable to illnesses. “When Victor is working on his experiment, he cannot love: he ignores his family, even his fiance Elizabeth, and takes no pleasure in the beauties of nature. Moreover, he becomes physically… ill, subject to nervous fevers”(Weiner 83). Victor is shown to focus directly on his work, causing him to forget most of the outside world and not be influenced by forces that usually comfort and heal him. His work makes Victor subject to nervous fevers, causing himself to become sick more often and need help from family and friends more often. Although the process of creating the monster was physically taxing on Victor, the end product caused him even more pain. The creation of the creature impaired
The lasting impression of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is one of a terrifying green monster, often wrongly identified as Frankenstein. The “monster” is simply the creation of Victor Frankenstein, a character that Shelley herself paints as the real monster. The idea of monstrosity is one that is carried throughout the novel, as we see Victor exhibit characteristics of a monster, creating a being only to reject it and denying him any happiness. His lack of responsibility or concern for consequences is what leads him to this place, where his own creation threatens his life and the lives of his loved ones. In addition to Victor’s actions, the narrative is told mostly in his point of view until we get to the perspective of Frankenstein’s “monster,”
Here however, is where the Monster begins to truly straddle the line between, one of the most human and inhuman characters in the novel. He commits the murders to cause Frankenstein pain, not for fun, but so that Victor may experience but a fraction of the pain he himself has felt. Growing up, the monster was spurned because of his appearance, even attacked because of it, being left “grievously bruised by stones, and other missile weapons”(chapter XI, page 41). Being rejected by the rest of the world, the Monster turns to his creator as a last hope of finding happiness. He demands for Victor to create a bride for him, and promises that in return for this Frankenstein
Frankenstein is the story of creating life so that he can be able to see what has became of the monster. He loses much of this health and suffers strongly when creating the monster but yet the worst has yet to come. Victor realizes that he feel guilty
The monster 's appearance causes his creator to abandon him and prevents him from normal human interaction. He is forced to learn about the world on his own and spends most of his time watching others. Frankenstein is not the only one negatively affected by his existence. In the process of bringing the monster to life, Victor had deprived himself of rest and health, causing him to fall ill for several months. Shortly after his recovery, Victor learns his younger brother has been murdered. Frankenstein has killed his creator’s brother and framed an innocent girl to get back at Victor for abandoning him. After the girl is executed, Victor becomes consumed with guilt knowing he is responsible for two of his family members deaths. The monster does not stop there, he goes on to kill Victor’s friend Henry and fiance, Elizabeth. Because of his creation, Victor is haunted by depression and guilt for most of his life and died a lonely death hunting Frankenstein.