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
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
Victor Frankenstein’s moral ambiguity lies in good intentions with bad results. Victor evolves from an intellectually curious, innocent and blameless man to being remorseful, secluded and obsessed with the
Though Victor Frankenstein and his creation both have qualities that are clearly monstrous, Victor’s selfishness, his abandonment of his responsibilities, and his inability to recognize his own faults and the monstrous qualities within himself qualities within himself make him the true monster while his creation is rather the opposite.
Victor Frankenstein is a very cowardly man. He is unable to stand up to mistakes and problems that occur in his life. Instead of facing dilemmas V. Frankenstein runs away. In the beginning of chapter five after he has brought life to his creature he expresses his cowardliness “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation… the beauty of the dream vanished… Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room” (Shelley 42) V. Frankenstein’s inability to deal with problems is atrocious, instead of comprising a plan about his creature, he simply runs in fear unable to fix his mistakes. The consequence of not dealing with his creation V. Frankenstein faces for being a coward not only affects him, but it affects his family. When his brother,
Frankenstein was a coward that used science selfishly to become a God without taking responsibility of the retaliation of defying the laws of Nature. The Monster did kill many and became a murderer, acts that cannot be forgot except that they are the consequence of the negligence of its creator. That is why ethics are necessary, as people like Victor Frankenstein, in the name of the human civilization, do terrible and unethical acts. Victor had an obsession, just like the Monster, the first one with building and the other one with destroying. In the end, the Monster could have been the result of an experiment that could have to be useful for society in some way, at least, better than an indifferent criminal. Dr. Victor Frankenstein is the biggest threat to society as he has a negligent attitude, governed by impulsive attitudes, Frankenstein, in the beginning, tries to be good but the Monster embraced his darker side, his ambition, and egotism which consumed Victor's entire life, ending up in misery that involved not only the one playing as God and its creation but everyone around them that had nothing to do with
Throughout Frankenstein, Victor proves to be quite an egotistical person. Victor’s actions will sometimes be selfish and not as noble as he would like others to believe. He creates the monster with a desire to obtain awe and fame and to make sure that his name will be remembered throughout history. “… a light so brilliant and wondrous… that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (Shelley 37). While this discovery of Victor’s may be groundbreaking, he fails to think of the negative consequences, only thinking of himself and what this could potentially
Throughout the novel, Victor ignores and shows no interest or empathy towards human beings. He is an alchemist himself who is interested in making things come to life from the dead specifically. He was unable to differentiate the “impracticability” of this creation he had in mind (Shelley 54). Victor has this big idea of taking body parts of the dead people and creating this creature that also becomes known as the Monster. He does not think about the future of the
This experiment places him out of society and in isolation for months, showing his obsession with creating something that is his own. In addition, Frankenstein knows he has the ability to create the monster where he "[emphasizes] the necessary deference to nature that empirical science lacked, [Shelley] found her portrayal of Victor's artificial human complicated by the materialism of his genesis" (Willis 2). Victor's arrogance in knowledge led him to create the monster only because he knew he could. The monster is purely experimental and Victor creates the monster because his knowledge overcame his decision between morals and achievements.
Critic Northrop Frye once commented that "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscapes" (Frye 1). Few characters illustrate this characteristic of a tragic hero better than that of Victors Frankenstein, the protagonist of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His story is one of a brilliant man whose revolutionary ideas brought suffering to himself, his family and friends, and his creation. Victor is an instrument as well as a victim to this suffering throughout his story.
This need of power led Victor to create what he believed would be a beautiful human being. But he failed to see that combining the most beautiful human features does not necessarily create a beautiful human being. He was inspired by scientists who ...acquired new and almost limitless powers... (Shelley, Frankenstein, P. 47). Victor sought this unlimited power to the extent of taking the role of God. He not only penetrated nature, but also he assumed power of reproduction in a maniacal desire to harness these modes of reproduction in order to become acknowledged, respected, and obeyed as a father. While bringing his creation into the world he was himself alienated from society, and isolated himself from the community. Isolation and parental neglect cause viciousness within man. Because of his upbringing, Victor had no sense of empathy, and therefore could not realize the potential harm he was creating towards himself and his creation. The sole purpose of his project was an attempt to gain power, but instead of power Victor realized that a morally irresponsible scientific development could release a monster that can destroy human civilization.
When Victor was creating the monster he often felt guilty of what he is creating, but nonetheless he still went on. As the burden of creating life turned out to be overwhelming, Victor stopped caring about his own health which
The choices one makes can shape their life as well as the lives of those their loved ones. One must think before they make any decision, especially one that could have an effect on human life. One must realize how important personal choice is and the lives of the characters in Frankenstein make this obvious. Justine Moritz and William Frankenstein suffered due the choices of Victor and the Frankenstein family suffered due to these loses. All of the problems that faced Victor and the misery it caused his family was all due to his choice to abandon his creation when it needed him most. His personal failures as a human being causes the deaths of his friends and family who were completely innocent. Frankenstein’s failure to make any competent decisions lead to his life of misery and constant
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
This quote shows how obsessed Victor Frankenstein was with his work. Ambition makes people work hard and focus on their goals, while obsession takes up that person’s whole life. Frankenstein centered his whole life around this project, to the point where he disregarded his own health and safety. When someone starts letting go of their own health in order to gain something, it can lead them to blind obsession. This is what happened to Victor, if he had
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