Frankenstein: Discussion Questions

As a result, this can lead to disobedience and unethical acts that can result in violence. This is shown within the book. That due to the lack of basic needs, the “monster” kills William, the brother of Victor.  What led to his shameful phase, was the painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong. That he knew that he killed William, but due to Victor actions and behaviors of Mistrust, his only way to learn was to demonstrate violence. The monster states, “I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet… clapping my hands, my enemy is not impregnable.” This offers some evidence on why he continued the murder, he wanted to deeply hurt the person that forsaked him. He wanted to have pride, rather than shame, but it was inevitable.

When the monster is betrayed by Victor the only thing that comforts his hurting is the thought and idea of revenge. The monster goes after Victor's brother, little William. When Victor finds out about his loss, he knows it was the monster which had made him feel devastated about what has occurred. This broke Victor emotionally because the relationship he had with his brother was robust. Victor cared about his brother more than his owned wife Elizabeth. The mindest the monster had was knowledgeably because of the way he knew taking the closest person away from Victor will harm him the most.

As the novel goes on everyone Victor once cared for are decimated in the path of his creation. "I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head" (Shelley 103). Now, due to his unwavering lust for knowledge, all that was once good and innocent has been stripped from him. This has left him as a former shell of himself, to be compared with his own creation, solely driven by vengeance.

Victor made the right decision because the monster and the creature may not keep their promises. The monster may not keep his promise to leave humanity alone. The creature may not keep her promise and go and love somebody else instead of the monster. They both may not keep their promise and still continue killing people and not live in the forest. They both won’t keep their promise and procreation together.

Victor tells the reader, “I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures.” (NEED CITATION) Because of this overpowering guilt and depression, Victor even contemplates suicide; saying, “I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever.” (81). But throughout all of his suffering, Victor found hope and love in Elizabeth. In one of the letters he wrote to her, he proclaims, “I fear, my beloved girl, little happiness remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centered in you.” (168). In this statement of love, Victor summarizes what he has to live for. His happiness does not remain in science, friendships, or family; but resides in his future with Elizabeth. He later talks about the last moments of his life during which he enjoyed the genuine feeling of happiness, his wedding. While alive, Elizabeth had been his greatest lover, encouraging him through all of his darkest valleys. And even in her passing, the vengeance of her death consumes Victor’s mind, dedicating his life to kill the horrific Monster which he had created.

Victor begins to possess an unnatural drive in his quest for knowledge where he begins intense study and experimentation, “These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale from study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement” eventually isolating himself from his friends and family. As the seasons passed Victor’s obsession with his studies continued to grow, “And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time” highlighting how his ambition is a fatal flaw, neglecting the outside world and his loved ones. Victor’s ambition to research and attempt to create life drains him of health and sensibility, “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree” which is ironic to the goal he wishes to achieve. Shelly’s use of irony illuminates how Victor’s obsessive ambition has become a fatal flaw.

While in Paris, Victor receives a letter from Elizabeth saying, “[t]ell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you, by our mutual happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love another?” (Shelley 194). Elizabeth is convinced that Frankenstein has found another love that satisfies him more when he is on his journeys—although she writes in the most respectful way. Frankenstein is aware that Elizabeth will believe anything that he says and he is able to use that to his advantage knowing that Elizabeth will wait great lengths of time—as she already has—to marry him. In his response to Elizabeth’s letter, he justifies his love to her but also informs her he has “one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I have surprised what I have endured” (Shelley 196). Frankenstein is desperate to marry Elizabeth still knowing the consequences of his actions as the creature previously tells him. Conscientious of his decisions, out of his selfish love for Elizabeth, Victor wants to marry Elizabeth and tell her of the threat only after the ceremony is finished. Although Frankenstein does have a good intention in marrying Elizabeth, it is destroyed by his selfish behavior.

22. How does Victor feel when his father offers the idea that perhaps an immediate marriage to

As Victors brother was killed by the creature he created, the remourse victor and his father have towards his death show weakness. Men in society are conditioned to be brought up as brave and protective. While Victors father is letting the death of

He believed that his Creature murdered his brother and framed Justine, the Frankenstein’s maid, in order to achieve vengeance for Victor abandoning him, but according to Levine, Victor is the cause for this evil, “...evil is a consequence of maltreatment or injustice,” (Levine 31). Victor’s internal flaws and shortcomings prevent him from revealing the truth about his Creation and therefore he is unable to disclose details of Williams death to save Justine. Victor cowers and stands by as the town unjustly convicts and “executes” Justine, (Shelley 117). The cowardly act committed by Victor shows that he does not possess a strong enough moral compass to do the justified act.

In chapters 9 and 10 Mary Shelley portrays Victor’s mood as dark he feels guilt that he is alive and Justine has been held responsible for his crime and has been executed. Although he is still alive feels dead, like his creation “The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart…” Victor is saddened that his life as a scientist started with good intentions he was keen to help people but this ambition went astray.

At this point Victor is responsible for two deaths and must keep this all to himself. By suffering through the guilt and the illness it is clear that his decisions that were made in order to deepen his knowledge of the scientific world are becoming dangerous to himself and the people close to him.

Although Victor’s family was one of the most distinguished of the republic of Geneva and his parents were possessed by the “very spirit of kindness / And indulgence,” (Shelley 39) his days were not filled with happiness. His troubled past started the day Elizabeth caught scarlet fever, delaying his departure for Ingolstadt. Although Victor’s mother, Caroline, was able to cure her, she died in her place. The destruction of a dear bond by an irreparable evil surely would have caused anyone to suffer, but as time came, Caroline’s death became “rather an / Indulgence than a necessity” (Shelley 45) to Victor; it was nothing more than something that delayed his departure for Ingolstadt. Because Victor is in a situation where he no longer has control, his psyche must carry the burden

Victor expresses the misery he feels regarding his actions in relation to the monster with zeal, but his remorse proves to be false when viewed with

Victor finds out that the man found on the shore was dead and then later finds out that it was his friend, Henry Clerval. He know who committed the murder but he cannot say because it is his own creation and he has kept this a secret from everyone. Victor has to go to prison but he is treated nicely by Mr. Kirwin because he knows that he did not commit the murder. After the trial, Victor is released and goes home with his father. Victor tells his father that he was the one that killed William, Justine, and now Henry. His father thinks that he is insane and that it's not true but later understands when he explains that he is thee creator of the monster. Elizabeth wants to marry Victor, which we find out from a letter. Victor remembers wants