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How Is Victor Frankenstein Selfish

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Everybody has principles that they live by, including Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Readers first meet Victor as Captain Walton saves him from the ice and the cold that he found himself surrounded by after chasing his own creation. Victor Frankenstein is selfish. He wanted all of the glory that came with the creation of life, but none of the responsibility of raising his creation to know right from wrong and having other essential morals. While describing his studies, Victor says “Wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death” (pg 35-36). Victor was very concerned about glory as a student. This becomes more evident the more readers learn about Victor’s past, education …show more content…

Victor started to distance himself from his colleagues, friends and family while he became more engaged in his research. He is so deeply involved with his research that he turns his home into a laboratory. The more Victor works on his research, the more selfish he becomes. He even confesses that “a new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me” (pg 48). His own words prove that there was no logical reason for Victor to create his monster besides the glory of creating life.
Furthermore, Victor Frankenstein had the chance to kill off his monster, but he didn’t. “But I had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland,”(pg 150) Victor explains. He was ready to be rid of the monster, but instead of killing it, he let it loose to go torture others in hopes that it would stay away from him. He is selfish enough to care about his own life more than the lives of the innocent people that his creature is about to torture, even if it is the people that he’s supposed to care

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