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Is Victor Frankenstein Selfish

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In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, the protagonist Victor Frankenstein is portrayed as a morally dubious character. Passionate about the natural sciences and interested in it since a young age, he dedicates years to the project of creating life. Painstakingly piecing together bit by bit body parts from dead people scrounged up from labs, he succeeds in creating his creature. Once he creates it, however, he is disgusted with it, abandons it, and regrets ever creating it as it slowly goes about killing all those that he loves. Though through the entire piece he refers the creature as a ‘monster’ or a ‘demon’, Victor neglects to take responsibility for his actions or make a serious effort to rectify them. Though he feels …show more content…

He travels to England to create it, but delays in his time there, spending months sightseeing when he should have been keeping his word to the monster. When he eventually settles down to work, it is on a scarcely inhabited, barren island in the Scottish Orkneys where the few people there are always in want of food, not the most promising venue for creating life. He sets to work anyways, lacking the vigor that had propelled his original project since he now knows the consequences involved. When he sees the monster spying on him through the window of his hut, he breaks down and destroys the work he has made on the female. His reasoning was thus, “I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race” (Shelley 180). Though he tries to reason with himself that he is not creating a new monster for the sake of humankind, really he is only thinking of himself and his reputation. He has been known to work for glory and prestige, to hold others opinions of himself in high regard, so it stands to reason that he would not wish to further endanger his reputation should word of any of his doings get out. However, by doing this, he enrages the monster that has been known to seek revenge in violent ways. Frankenstein …show more content…

A prime example of this is when he returns home to find his brother dead at the hands of the creature, and Justine, a maid who works in his house, blamed for it. He is in anguish over her death sentence, infuriated that the creature will take two innocent lives, however; the flaw in his logic is that he could prevent the death of Justine by telling the truth as to what he did. However, he rationalises his inaction by telling himself, “My tale was not one to announce publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon as madness by the vulgar” (Shelley 83). He believes that his story is too complex and amazing for the common people, or as he puts it, the ‘vulgar’ to accept, and they would think him mad. Again, his selfish nature overrides his better judgement, as he makes narcissistic excuses for why he did not want to come out as the inadvertent cause of his brother’s death. Only after the death of Henry Clerval,his father, and his beloved Elizabeth, does Frankenstein finally tell a local magistrate about the monster, and that it must be persecuted. The only thing that could motivate Frankenstein to come clean about his scientific malpractices was the death of nearly all of those closest to him, as he put his own reputation above trying to save the lives of others. By then of course, the magistrate believes it is not practical to actively pursue

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