Comparing Victor And The Monster In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The monster pronounces himself well to Victor, sharing realistic feelings similar to those felt by humans and a fulfilling resolution, but that was not enough to convince Victor. The presence of his monster and the idea of creating a second creation is a burden upon Victor that holds him back from acting; in retrospect, if Elizabeth were to call out to him, he would not hesitate. In the young man’s eyes, his sister is no different then he is and poses no unknown threat to society. The author’s writing in phasing shows Victor’s poor choices due to his static outlook on

Nature is an important part of both Frankenstein and his creation’s life. Often Nature is used to describe certain points in victor’s life, for example, Marry Shelley uses metaphors in nature to describe Frankenstein’s youth. “I find it arises, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.” The use of nature to describe Frankenstein’s feelings is a prominent part of the book. Nature is also used as a calming technique for Frankenstein. After Frankenstein finds that his creation has murdered his brother he retreats to nature to calm himself and regain strength. “By degrees, the calm and heavenly scene restored me". Nature is also used as an escape for Frankenstein. After the execution of Justine, a dear friend to victor, the Frankenstein family takes a trip to Belrive to try to put their minds at peace. While there, victor took a boat and sailed in the water to pass the time and get his mind off recent events. “And I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly”. Similarly, the monster also shares a deep appreciation for Nature. After the monster was created Frankenstein fled from his house, leaving the monster to

The definition of a monster is very arguable. A monster is typically seen as something inhuman and hideously scary. A human could also be a monster in that they could be extremely wicked or cruel. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein, creator of the creature, is the real monster because he is a hypocrite, he created the monster and abandoned him, and he is extremely selfish.

Victor and the Monster are extremely intelligent. Victor was a master in the sciences and in alchemy, which allowed him to be able to create a living human being out of disposed body parts. He delighted in studying under M. Krempe, a professor of natural philosophy, and M. Waldman, a professor of chemistry. He was gifted in being able to use his eloquence to convince people to do things. This was demonstrated when he was able to persuade the men on Walton’s ship not to perform a mutiny, but rather to be proud at successfully being able to break through the ice instead of giving up and turning around. The Monster proves his intelligence when he learns to speak French and learns human sensitivity just by observing the De Lacey family. He is then able to read notes that Victor wrote which were shoved in Victor’s jacket pocket, as well as the Paradise Lost book that he found. He discovers fire and its ability to both cook and to burn. The Monster is smart enough to be able to hide from society and to also evade Victor when Victor is hunting him down for revenge. The Monster is eloquent, like Victor, and is able to convince Victor for a short time that making a female monster would be a compassionate thing to do.

The monster has no relationship with Victor besides a need for revenge. When Victor created the monster, he looked at him in disgust. He abandoned his creation after looking at the creation with horror. This feels the monster with loneliness and rage, so he goes and lives on Felix’s farm. However, he realizes how alone he is, so he returns to Frankenstein and demands a female partner. He promises to cease all relations with his creator if he can give him a mate. Victor reluctantly agrees and builds a bride for the fiend he created. However, he destroys the female and dumps the body in the lake, much to the anger of the monster, shown when he states “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?”

Victor thought “for this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”(page). This quote demonstrates that once Victor had concluded his work of creating the monster, he realized that it may have been a huge mistake. He was not satisfied with his creation instead he was filled with terror. In result of his realization, he left the monster to fend for himself and suffer. Victor shows an evil side of himself by abandoning the monster and leaving him to be universally shunned by society. By Victor doing this one evil act, it causes the monster himself to go off and initiate evil acts of his own.

In the novel by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, the creature and its creator, Victor Frankenstein, share a lot of similarities throughout the story. The relationship shared between the two resembles that of a father and his son. Since Victor created it , the creature inherits certain traits of Victor’s without realizing it. Victor and the creature both have an overpowering thirst for knowledge, a love for the beauty of nature and a tendency to use it as a scapegoat, a depressing feeling of isolation from people, a desire for revenge, and the ability to play God. The relationship between Victor and the creature does not develop like a normal father-son relationship, nor does it develop as a good versus evil relationship. Both characters show hero and villain qualities throughout the novel as their relationship develops.

	Near the end of the novel, the Monster requests from Victor to create for him, a female counterpart. When the Monster says, "You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and I do demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede"(140). The Monsters longing for a person he can communicate with is very important. It

Robert Walton, the captain of the ship that finds Frankenstein, notes “broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he [Frankenstein] does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth” (Shelley 16). In the presence of the starry sky and the sea the thoughts of death escape him. On Victor’s last and darkest day the element of nature is brought into the scene suggesting the importance nature plays within the novel. Despite the monsters deformities and seclusion from society, nature is able to lift his spirits and bring him hope for a better future. Nature has the same healing effect upon the monster as with Victor, “…spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my [his] memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy” (Shelley 99). With spring comes hope, as the flowers blossom the monsters feels his spirits being elevated. Just as nature flourishes, the monster is growing as well.

The monster and Victor are also related because they both know suffering. The monster knows suffering because he has no relations with any part of humanity. The only person he knows, his own creator, Victor, hates him. Victor suffers from all of the deaths he had to endure, as I mentioned before.

The monster believed that Victor would accept him, but after he realized that not only did Victor not want to assume his position in the monster’s life, but society also rejected him, it became a transitory thought, and instead became replaced with his bloodthirst towards Victor and his loved ones, which he knew would hurt way worse than just killing him; making him lonely like himself. Both Victor and the monster partook in horrid acts, in which held horrendous actions; the main one being Victor creating the monster in the first place which in result caused the both of them heartbreak, loneliness, and pain. If Victor wouldn’t have created the monster, then his life would not be filled with so much grief and emptiness; Victor is the true monster, although they are both the primal protagonists as much as they are the antagonists because of the display of the emotions they both portray as lamenting humans/monsters, and the power they give to nature in order to destroy one another. Victor used nature to his advantage, although it was wrong; Victor used nature to create and destroy the monster; he used the

Victor Frankenstein and the creature he creates are alike in a couple of different ways. First of all, they spend a lot of time studying and learning. Victor learns science and stuff of that nature (Shelley, 35), while the creature learns to read, speak, and find his place in the world (Shelley, 106). Second of all, they are both outcasts. Victor is an outcast because he only talks to two people, Elizabeth Lavenza and Henry Clerval, and he throws himself into his studies (Shelley, 29).

Throughout the story the Frankenstein’s monster is referred to as a true monster because of the different acts that he has committed, yet throughout the story the reader is made aware of the compassion and morality that Victor’s” creature possesses, like a real human. Victor is the true monster in this horror novel, because he possesses many of the characteristics that would define what a monster is. Victor Frankenstein created his monster due to his eagerness for alchemy and his unnatural obsession with being like God. Victor does not take into account the consequences of his actions. Victor rejects his creation the moment he lays eyes on it, and this caused the monster to perform the acts that he did. The cruel rejection is what begins the a journey that will soon enough be end of Victor. After Victor decides to go back on creating his monster a mate, he then destroys the half made creature which anger Frankenstein’s monster and this cause him wreak revenge on his creator. The monster tells Victor that he will be at his wedding night and the killing spree beings, Victor loses his father, and his friend Henry Clerval because of what Victor had done. In my opinion I believe that should have stuck to creating his monster a mate and this would have made things easier for him and

In Frankenstein – A Critical Study from a Freudian Perspective, it compares the monster and Victor and concludes that the monster and Victor is the “mirror-inversion”, it states that they “both are intelligent and well educated, and both start out with the impulse to be good” (Johnson 3), for example: Victor is a “dutiful son and the monster in his efforts to help the de Lacey family”, and “Yet both end up as murderers, haunted and hunted by each other” (Johnson 3). I agree with this, Victor and the monster are like contradictory parts of a same person; the monster is active and energetic but also violent and cruel, it is like the evil side of Victor. And this is the reason that Victor constantly tries to get rid of the monster but fail to do so: the monster represents Victor’s dark side, and Victor can’t escape from his own negative thoughts. Moreover, every time when Victor makes the decision which relates to the monster, the monster is like a mirror that reflects Victor’s irresponsible, timid and selfish characters, and it’s the growing of these negative characters which lead Victor to frequently make the false decision. Overall, the monster makes Victor comes to a deep understanding of his characters: if Victor does not create the monster, he would never know how destructive his mind is; also,

There are not many similarities at first sight when investigating these two main personalities. However, when looking beyond their outward apparent surface, one needs to admit that they have far more in common than just sharing the connection of creator and creation. The probably most striking aspect is their repeated urge for going into and hiding in the nature. The monster sees nature as a welcomed place to just be who he actually is and to hide himself from humans as they are scared of him and also tend to attack him due to his appearance. On the other hand Victor needs the nature not only for his mood but also for his health and makes use of it every time he feels under the weather or is critically ill : “It had then filled me with a sublime ecstacy that gave wings to the soul, and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy“ (Shelley 66).