Frankenstein, By Mary Shelley

Victor worked continuously on his experiment, obsessed with finding the correct building material. It would seem that after all this arduous work he put into making this Creature, he would be in awe when it was finally finished. Upon the completion of the Creature, he finds himself in shock, explaining in vivid detail about the Creature’s “yellow skin which scarcely covered the works of muscles and arteries underneath” and its “shriveled complexion,” and “straight black lips” (42). In the human nature, it is known that when a person creates something, no matter how ugly, or how deformed it is, the creator is proud of his creation. Although, immediately after he sees his creation, Victor is unable to stare at the “monster” any longer, and paralyzed with fear and guilt, abandons the creature all alone in the world, like a new born baby. Although it might not seem like this, this particular scene conveys a deep sense

While attempting to uncover the meaning of life and death, and though he believed his experiments would further the paths of science, Victor fails to see the potential consequences of “bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 37). This, in turn, creates a monster. After his “great” experiment, Victor spends his life in grief. Despite this, he manages to belittle his creation, and act superior to him, claiming that “I [Victor] will not hear you. There can be no community between you [the creature] and me; we are enemies” (Shelley 84). Even later on, when assured by the creature himself that Victor would be left alone if he creates a female counterpart, Victor cannot see past the shreds of pride he has left and refuses, causing the death of his family and loved ones. It’s Victor’s pride and his fear of the creature that clouds his judgement and in the end leads to his

In fact, the way they had felt about each other in the end showed a distinction between the two. Even though Victor did not care for the monster, the creature still glorified and talked highly about him. However, Victor blamed everything on the monster and retains the hatred he has towards him. As Victor reflects on the past, he is filled with guilt. When stating how he felt about the monster, he said, “He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness, in evil: he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself, that he may render no other wretched he ought to die.” In comparison, the creature described his creator as superior. The monster specifically said, “I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that of irremediable ruin.” These quotes emphasize the stark difference between how they feel about one another. Victor should have taken into consideration that the monster was like this because he had experienced abandonment in a world he had not known. But, the disdain is understandable since the monster had murdered his relatives. The monster’s words seem surprising because if he thought his creator was worthy of love, why try and get revenge? Secondly, they both had different views of how they

Victor obsession with his creation represents the dark side of ambition. By creating the monster, “darkness” follow him wherever he goes through the representation of deaths and daunting weather like lightning. After his release from prison, he saw around him “nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me” (Shelley 160). By trying to turn himself into a god through the creation of the monster, that is, the unnatural, Victor is deprived of joy and is tormented by fevers, anxiety, and stress because he had thrown nature into the state of imbalance. Rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment through his scientific achievement, he lives in fear and guilt knowing that he is the cause for the destruction of his

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has undoubtedly withstood the test of time. Frankenstein’s direct association with fundamental Gothic literature is extremely renowned. However, the novel’s originality is derived from the foundational thematic values found within the relationship (or lack there of) between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he had created, in combination with a fascinatingly captivating plot. Understandably, Frankenstein can often be associated with a multitude of concepts; however, in this particular instance, the circumstances in the book seemed remarkably coherent with Shelley’s Romantic beliefs in preserving the natural world, and one’s natural existence. These values present themselves as metaphorical symbols that

“Seeing how ugly and ‘hideous’ his creation is once he has animated it, Victor abandons it in horror. Oddly enough, his is the only stated reason for Victor’s rejection of his child.”

Shelley addresses romantic conventions in Victor to convey his loss of identity. Victor is impatient and restless when constructing the creation, so much, that he does not think about it’s future repercussions. One of the great paradoxes that Shelley’s novel depicts is giving the monster more human attributes than to it’s creator [p. 6 - Interpretations]. This is true as the monster seeks an emotional bond, but Victor is terrified of it’s existence. The monster later reveals, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurred at and kicked and trampled on [Shelley, p. 224].” Victor’s lack of compassion is rooted from the inability to cope with his reality. He distances himself from others and is induced with fainting spells [Shelley, p. 59]. From this, the nameless creature exemplifies Victor’s attempt to abandon his creation to escape his responsibilities. His creation is described as, ‘wretched devil’ and ‘abhorred monster,’ eliciting that the unobtainable, pitied identity [Shelley, p. 102]. The act of not naming the creature reveals Victor as hateful, and unnaturally disconnected to his own created victim.

The enormous difference in the way Victor views the creature before and after its completion shows that he has an altered state of mind while he works on it. As a result of Victor’s secrecy about his creation, he sacrifices his health and happiness to make a creature that disgusts him.

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.

Knowledge is given to those that understand the power it holds, this power could either destroy or help one in their path to success. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we see this idea being practiced by individuals in the novel. However, they are incapable of seeing the dangerous potential outcomes of misunderstanding knowledge and the power it offers, leading to their ruin. We see the suffering as a cause of knowledge through Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life, The Monster’s dream of fitting the norm, and Robert Walton’s dangerous journey to the North. The characters in Frankenstein pursuit of knowledge leads to certain destruction, showing us the potential negative outcomes of misusing knowledge.

When first reading the book of Frankenstein does one just think of a mythical science fiction book that really has no meaning? Frankenstein can have numerous meanings depending on how a person perceives it. Frankenstein can be analyzed into many themes; some say religion, feminism, or scientific symbolization, it all depends on ones own perception. When one analyzes further into Mary Shelly’s life and then interprets the novel it is obvious that is a sociological theme. One can simply assume that Mary Shelley creates Frankenstein through on her own life experiences and the sociological symbolism shows that. Mary Shelley experiences many tragic events throughout her life that are synonymous with the monster in her book Frankenstein. Mary

Victor consistently shows many negative characteristics such as the ones aformentioned. These problems in turn caused some of the most tragic events in the story. One of the clearest examples of this was when Victor made an unplanned decision to run from the creature when he was first alive caused the creature to hate Victor and subsequently cause William’s death as well as Henry’s and Elizabeth’s. When the creature meets with Victor on the glacier he discusses how his rage had festered into something out of control because of Victor, stating “This passion is detrimental to me, for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess”(p.125). The fact that Victor left the creature when the creature needed him most makes him angry that he was alone and without a

What purpose does it serve to have multiple narrators telling a story? In Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Frankenstein, three main narrators tell the story about the creation of a monster and the events that follow. The job of narrator shifts between Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster that Victor creates. As each narrator shares his own recollection of the events that occurred, new facts are introduced to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Although Frankenstein uses multiple narrators to tell the story, it is important to look at the effects it might have on the stories accuracy. In this essay, I will closely examine the motives, differences, and similarities of each narrator to see what influences, if any, they have on the narrative.

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 audience can assume that Victor runs to his knowledge and education as his form of a friend. Victor works tirelessly to not only build, but perfect his creature to his liking for two long years. Believing that he has the solution to betterment of humankind, he loses sleep and cuts off all contact with family we see the effects of his madness while building his creation has not only affected him emotionally, but also physically as clearly stated: “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever,