Examples Of Morally Ambiguous Characters In Frankenstein

Morally ambiguous characters are important for several reasons. First, they force us to make a determination regarding questions like "Is it OK to behave poorly, to lie for example, in order to protect someone from unnecessary pain?" They force us to see that the world and people are not black and white, but mostly we live in the gray areas. They force us to look at our own willingness to judge others without

Morally ambiguous characters are important for several reasons. First, they force us to make a determination regarding questions like "Is it OK to behave poorly, to lie for example, in order to protect someone from unnecessary pain?" They force us to see that the world and people are not black and white, but mostly we live in the gray areas. They force us to look at our own willingness to judge others without the full information. In a novel, they show us how the other characters judge others without all the facts, etc.

Moral ambiguity is defined to be the lack of clarity in ethical decision making. This is when a situation has moral elements but the morally correct answer is unclear because of emotions or principles one may have. There is a fine line between good and evil. No one is perfect, therefore everyone can be considered morally ambiguous, some more than others. In the frame novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the Creation’s moral ambiguity shows that social isolation, the concept of family, and emotions can have a major effect on behavior.

Despite that humans are inclined toward good, Victor and the monster make poor decisions because of their self-interest. Both Frankenstein and his creature, although they ultimately cause the deaths of many innocent individuals, are initially good: the creature especially exhibits the natural human quality of empathy. He reflects that his “heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine" (219). He is predisposed to see the best in, and therefore sympathize with, other people. Victor is also initially good: he has compassion for his family. He values his friends and family, especially his fiancée,

Victor’s arrogance also has a damaging affect on Elizabeth. In his seeking a new method of creation, he is rejecting Elizabeth as a sexual partner and child bearer – her primary function as a woman and destiny since arriving with the Frankenstein family – ‘a union’ was always intended. So, she spends the years of Victor’s absence awaiting his return so she can fulfill her purpose. As a result, she pays with the burden of an intense longing and sexual

Science has been improving throughout the history that changed the way we think and live. Furthermore, as more things are being discovered we attempt to make our lives better. Since chemistry had contradicted alchemy, we were able to go for the modern technology. This all happened when people thirsted and hungered for their new knowledge. However, would this scientific knowledge affect our morality? Mary Shelley wrote this remarkable book “Frankenstein” which talks about this issue. The book points out the creation of monster, death of Justine, contrast of Henry and Victor. With these I will explain these symbols and concepts; and analyzing his world views too.

ey’s novel Frankenstein, the conflict between the subordinate character—the monster and the dominant characters—human beings runs through the beginning to the end. The human beings are the dominant power because the society belongs to them and they get to decide who’s accepted and who’s not. The behaviors of the monster tries to get involved to fit in with the human society is a reflection of human being’s dominant power, and thus makes the monster subordinate. It sounds impossible for people in the 19th century to embrace a disfigured monster, despite the fact that he acts like human. Through the novel, it looks like that the mainstream remains its dominant power but in fact the subordinate monster in some way successfully threats its stability.

A grey area exists when dealing with the ethics of scientific research and experimentation, especially when considering morality and the scope of researching and creating life. Literature provides a way to examine what happens when a scientist’s research extends into this grey area. As Sigmund Freud proposed in 1920, summarized by M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, that “literature and the other arts […] consist of the imagined, or fantasied, fulfillment of wishes that are either denied by reality or prohibited by the social standards of morality and propriety” (Abrams 320). Another component of Freud’s theory states, “that each person’s personality is formed of three parts: the Ego, the Superego and the Id” (ReadWriteThink). The id represents

After reading the two novels Frankenstein and The Sorrows of Young Werther, I realized that both antagonist Victor and Werther are disturbing because they caused a lot of problems. Werther is the antagonist in The Sorrows of young Werther, at the beginning of the novel whether is happy because he has escaped because he wanted to avoid the problems that he was facing. One of them was with Leonora the girl he was dating. It seems that she really was in love with Werther, but he ended up cheating on her with her sister. Another reason why he decided to move is because he had some family issues with his mom and aunt.

“I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm” (Shelley 30).

The conflicts of science and morality has been discussed throughout time, whether it be in popular literature, and fiction as well as in different statements and studies by people in different fields of knowledge, such as sociology to mathematics. In some ways, science can be right as it will help man eventually fix any of the problems he or she may have. However, it could also have a negative effect on man, meaning that humans will go through a serious moral degradation since they are creating life through science not natural.

Victor Frankenstein seemingly goes through several moral pitfalls throughout Mary Shelley’s novel. Between playing God and inviting life to be placed upon a concoction of otherwise left-over body parts, or, completely abandoning the Creature during its first second of life. Is either one morally correct? No. But in my opinion, one is far worse than the other.

“It was on a dreary night of November,” (“Frankenstein”) when Victor Frankenstein, after years of unhealthy labor for the sciences, discovers the answer to a question he wished was never asked. Since “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley was published almost two centuries ago, arguments over the moral and ethical obligations in the world of science have ignited. In 1818, Frankenstein destroys his own innocence, develops a god complex, and upsets nature. However, these ethical dilemmas still appear in modern scientific research and study. In 1973, the Stanford Prison Experiment similarly removed any remaining childlike innocence from the young participates, evokes a god complex from some of them with consequences, and the researcher, Philip Zimbardo, admits to disrupting human nature for the sake of the experiment (“The Lucifer Effect”).

The first thing that comes to mind when hearing of the character, Frankenstein, is a big, ugly, evil, distorted monster that media has created and shown to viewers for years. Movies make him out to seem like the bad guy who goes around terrorizing people. His image is frightening as well as some of his violent behavior. I grew up thinking Frankenstein was some sort of monster or villain but through the reading I came to see that not only is Frankenstein the name of the creator, and not the monster himself, but also that the monster’s creator is the one to blame for the behavior of his misunderstood creation.

The role of victor is subverting the mythological customs in Frankenstein. Generally the maker is well thought-out higher and ideal in his traits though, in this tale, the creator himself is imperfect he fails to possess his very own formation. On the absolute contrast, Mary Shelley depicts the individual to be a lonely being who survive his whole life wishing a partner and acquaintance. The individual is so abandoned by the social order, so deserted by Victor and the public he came across, that he turned out to be packed with revulsion towards everybody, mainly for the one who positioned him in these awful situations in the first place – Victor. The primary rejection happened exact after the “birth” of the individual. The monstrous Creature,