Morality In Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley tells the tale of the protagonist Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Both Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s creation’s questionable actions lead them both to be considered morally ambiguous figures. Victor is ambitious with good intentions, but his ambition leads to bad results. The Creature is an innately kind and compassionate person who commits abominable actions due to how others treat him. Their moral ambiguity is significant, as it reveals that an obsession with ambition distorts one’s morals.

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, acts of cruelty serve as the driving force behind many tragedies within the novel. Set in 18th century Switzerland, Victor Frankenstein embarks on a horrifying journey to satisfy his growing desire to create life. However, Victor and his creation are overcome by their selfish agendas and growing hatred of one another, creating seemingly endless misfortune for their selves. The enemies' constant misunderstandings of each other ultimately turn an innocent victim into an inconsiderate and hate-filled monster.

A morally ambiguous character is a character whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as either purely good or purely evil. The creature brought into being by Victor Frankenstein is the principle morally ambiguous character in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" which is demonstrated through the sympathy that the reader feels at the moment of his creation and instantaneous abandonment, his present but questionable morals, and the feelings of immediate hatred that the reader has towards him as he slaughters everyone that Victor cares about. The creature, or monster as he is referred to in much of the novel, has guilt piled

If a child acted violently toward another child, should the parents of that child be held responsible for the inappropriate behavior, or should the child take full responsibility for his/her actions? This question of responsibility comes up often in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. Her horrific and dark tale of the mad, science-obsessed Victor Frankenstein, wanting to create life from what had already been dead, evokes questions of who is at fault for the creature’s murders. Although some may say that the creature is at complete fault because he is own “person”, but ultimately Victor is at fault because he is the one who created a being that destroyed the lives of innocent people due to how he treated the creature.

Furthermore, guilt is an intense emotion that allows an individual to either confront a situation and free them self of guilt, or avoid the emotion by placing blame onto others. Victor Frankenstein chooses to be reckless but is simultaneously conscious of his faults throughout the novel. After the death of his brother William, and the unjust persecution of Justine, Frankenstein states, “I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible…” (Shelley 3.61). Guilt stemming from his actions profoundly impacts Frankenstein, as he is now able to reflect on the gravity of the situation and his mistakes; his conscience is now in full command of his emotions, however, due to Frankenstein’s disconnect

Mary Shelley expresses various ethical issues by creating a mythical monster called Frankenstein. There is some controversy on how Mary Shelley defines human nature in the novel, there are many features of the way humans react in situations. Shelley uses a relationship between morality and science, she brings the two subjects together when writing Frankenstein, and she shows the amount of controversy with the advancement of science. There are said to be some limits to the scientific inquiry that could have restrained the quantity of scientific implications that Mary Shelley was able to make, along with the types of scientific restraints. Mary Shelley wrote this classic novel in such a way that it depicted some amounts foreshadowing of the

The novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley is a work of fiction that breaks the ethics of science. Ethics is defined as rules of conduct or moral principles which are ignored in the story. The story is about a person named Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial being. Victor abandons the being out of fear and the being is left to discover the outside world on his own and be rejected by people making the monster go on a violent rampage. Victor’s decision would affect him later on by the monster killing his loved ones causing Victor to suffer. Then Victor chooses to seek revenge on the monster and this choice will bring him to his death. In novel Frankenstein one might say that the main character, Victor, breaks the ethics of

When Victor Frankenstein was in the two year long process of creating his monster you have to think about what his personal morals were, principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. Everyone has varying personal morals. Dr. Frankenstein goes against the morals of a medical doctor when he wastes his life away slaving over his experiment. He also tries playing God when he sparks the life back into the stitched together corpse. This corpse comes alive and is abandoned by his creator to roam the country without ever having the experience of growing up. Finally, Victor Frankenstein is burdened with the guilt of creating such a horrible creature, proving what he did was wrong. So, in the novel Frankenstein, the extension of life is the real moral question.

Shelley’s Romantic novel Frankenstein (1818) compares and reflects values of humanity and the consequences of our Promethean ambition against the futuristic, industrialized world of Blade Runner (1992) by Ridley Scott. The notions of unbridled scientific advancement and technological progress resonate with our desire to elevate humanity’s state of being, mirrored amongst the destructive ambition to overtake and disrupt nature and its processes. The disastrous implications of overreaching the boundary between progressive and destructive power and knowledge are heeded through the ultimate and inevitable loss of self and identity, transforming humanity into a form of monstrosity.

In the religion Taoism, the Yin-Yang represents all the good and evils within humans. However, it is often difficult to tell the difference as good and evil is only based on perspective. In literature, writers and authors use the technique of having morally ambiguous characters to have this effect on readers. These characters are used to discourage readers from being able to distinctly identify if the character is either purely good or purely evil as a way to allow the story become more complex and be based on the reader’s perspective. In Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel, Frankenstein, the Monster is seen as a morally ambiguous character through Shelley’s use of identity, references to Paradise Lost, and multiple perspectives within the narrative structures to suit the overall theme of good and evil where it is based on morals and beliefs.

In the novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life is a “search for justice” (Styron). In the gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley the Creature is on a constant search for justice. The Creature is shown to be inherently good, but due to the corruption in society and traumatic experiences by those the Creature sought acceptance from he slowly loses his moral compass. Shelley, in the novel Frankenstein demonstrates the search for justice through many social situations and characters. Shelley connects the Creature’s search for justice to the hardships he faces throughout his life.

person to unleash such a terror on the world to benefit only himself and his

How important is the theme of justice in Frankenstein. Refer closely to the creation scene and Justine's trial scene. Justice is defined as justice is the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity which can be interpreted as adhering to laws of both a natural and civilised level. In Frankenstein many of the fundamental laws of both humanity and the world we live in are broken. Creation in he Christian faith is a marvel that only one being or person has the right to control.

On the topic of science and morality, both have varying definitions that bring into question of how they relate to one another. Although some seem to pit the two against each other as opposing arguments, many versions of these definitions allow one to draw lines between the two, ultimately allowing for the conclusion that they have a connection. Science and morality resemble each other because both collect and organize data, derive from observation of the direct world, and make use of data to draw conclusions. The two share highly similar ways of processing and analyzing data. They help to develop a better understanding of unknown things in the world, as well as of known things that remain unjudged in daily life. Through these processes, the two ideas have similar goals and allow for the advancement of mankind in multiple ways.

Can science go too far when it equips man with tools to manipulate life? Some of the underlying ethical dilemmas presented in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are similar to ones we struggle with today, such as selective abortion. Shelley’s doomed creature mirrors the devastating result of bringing an unwanted offspring into the world, then shirking responsibility for it thereafter. The practice of playing God and choosing who does and who does not “earn” life ultimately results in profound negative moral consequences.