Responsibility Of Creation In Frankenstein

Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein make many people question things they thought they knew about the world and how society functions. The 1817 novel asks questions from what defines being human and how far is too far for science. One of the many themes in the book is responsibility. Who was responsible for the creature’s actions? Was the creature responsible for them or were Victor and the other people surrounding him the problem?

Mary Shelley made a statement about the importance of a parent to child relationship. Victor Frankenstein showed the good result from a parental influence. His creation however became a monster because he was miserable. Not even his own creator wanted him. Society needs us to take responsibly over our creations we bring into the world. If that’s not possible than don’t bring them into an environment where they would not be

Due to his mistakes in creating his character of God, Shelley personified Victor Frankenstein as a cold creator to provide a commentary on the harshness of Milton’s God.

Throughout “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley demonstrates how a creator is responsible for its creation in the sense that the scientist also becomes responsible for himself. In the story, as Dr. Frankenstein begins his project, which was to create a creature out of

“The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe” (Paul). Mary Shelley was an English writer born on August 30, 1797 in London, England. Shelley is best known for her horror novel Frankenstein (1818) and the Modern Prometheus (1818). She is that author of several other books which include Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), the autobiographical Lodore (1835), as well as several others. Frankenstein is a novel that follows Victor Frankenstein’s journey of attempting to receive recognition through his scientific pursuits which include attempting to reanimate life using dead human body parts, resulting in the creation of the the Creature or the Monster. The novel follows Victor’s hardships and his guilt of creating a Creature that lead to not only his downfall, but his family’s as well. An important theme that is present throughout the novel Frankenstein is the controversy over who is ultimately responsible for the evil actions that the Creature partakes in. Victor is liable for the creature 's evil actions due to his lack of morality and his failure of not meddling with nature whilst on the journey to creating life, lack of accountability to care for the Creature as his legitimate owner and hubristic nature which forces him to put his welfare before anyone else’s .

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.

Victor obsession with his creation represents the dark side of ambition. By creating the monster, “darkness” follow him wherever he goes through the representation of deaths and daunting weather like lightning. After his release from prison, he saw around him “nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me” (Shelley 160). By trying to turn himself into a god through the creation of the monster, that is, the unnatural, Victor is deprived of joy and is tormented by fevers, anxiety, and stress because he had thrown nature into the state of imbalance. Rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment through his scientific achievement, he lives in fear and guilt knowing that he is the cause for the destruction of his

Shelley addresses romantic conventions in Victor to convey his loss of identity. Victor is impatient and restless when constructing the creation, so much, that he does not think about it’s future repercussions. One of the great paradoxes that Shelley’s novel depicts is giving the monster more human attributes than to it’s creator [p. 6 - Interpretations]. This is true as the monster seeks an emotional bond, but Victor is terrified of it’s existence. The monster later reveals, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurred at and kicked and trampled on [Shelley, p. 224].” Victor’s lack of compassion is rooted from the inability to cope with his reality. He distances himself from others and is induced with fainting spells [Shelley, p. 59]. From this, the nameless creature exemplifies Victor’s attempt to abandon his creation to escape his responsibilities. His creation is described as, ‘wretched devil’ and ‘abhorred monster,’ eliciting that the unobtainable, pitied identity [Shelley, p. 102]. The act of not naming the creature reveals Victor as hateful, and unnaturally disconnected to his own created victim.

In Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, the creation, made from scraps of corpses, was built by Victor Frankenstein, a man fascinated and obsessed with the knowledge of life. Following the creation’s rouse, Victor immediately abandons him with no desire on keeping or teaching his new being. Because of his lack of nourishment and direction “growing up”, the creation goes through a process of self-deception. He endures a period of deceit by believing that he is a normal human being like everyone around him. But as time progresses, he learns to accept how he is alone in this world and disconnected with everyone. Because of the creation’s lack of guidance and isolation, he grows up feeling unwanted.

Responsibility means to be accountable for something and it can be possible to be responsible for the actions of others. Throughout Mary Shelley’s book, Frankenstein, there are multiple deaths due to Doctor Victor Frankenstein’s creation. This creation of his, was a single man made up of many dead men, brought back to life. This creature had a brain of its own but was not taught how to use it properly. The reason why this creature was not taught right from wrong is because Doctor Frankenstein was terrified of him and neglected him.

Shelley explains how Victor has a great mental turmoil after he indirectly caused the death of people who were close to him by the actions he took to create the monster. Shelley’s description of Victor’s feelings show the deprivation of hope and fear in his soul and the emphasises the pain in which he was indirectly the cause of. Victor not only caused his own mental illness, but he also caused his own physical illness. Victor makes himself physically sick by his actions during the creation of his monster. Victor’s work unintentionally causes himself to decline in health and become vulnerable to illnesses. “When Victor is working on his experiment, he cannot love: he ignores his family, even his fiance Elizabeth, and takes no pleasure in the beauties of nature. Moreover, he becomes physically… ill, subject to nervous fevers”(Weiner 83). Victor is shown to focus directly on his work, causing him to forget most of the outside world and not be influenced by forces that usually comfort and heal him. His work makes Victor subject to nervous fevers, causing himself to become sick more often and need help from family and friends more often. Although the process of creating the monster was physically taxing on Victor, the end product caused him even more pain. The creation of the creature impaired

Victor had an obligation to care for his creation, but chooses at first glance of his construction to abscond from its presence. The comparison of Victor as God-like highlights Enlightenment philosophers who have gone beyond the limits of humanity in order to attain knowledge. Victor is characterized then as a savant manipulating nature. The Creature acts as a balance for philosophers to stop and reflect upon their own enterprise and determine the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable knowledge as it pertains to nature. To this end, Shelley enforces that humanity must pay due respect to the limits placed in front of them by avoiding the Enlightenment philosophy that man is to find a definite definition for every phenomenon he encounters.

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.

May Shelley crafted one of the most renowned novels of the Romantic era and gave birth the genre of science fiction. Shelley’s Frankenstein displays many themes, but none is more significant than that of the relationship between the creator and the created. This relationship is undoubtedly complex. Victor Frankenstein’s sentiments towards his creation vary from pure intrigue as he begins to build the eight-foot-tall man to utter disdain towards him as the beast begins to push back against him. Moreover, the creation receives no nurturing from the one that brought him to life, thus turning his back on his creator. This dynamic comes in sharp contrast to that of the Puritans during the time of William Bradford. Victor Frankenstein’s creation