Victor Frankenstein was a regular scientist until he became obsessed and mentally ill. “This state of mind preyed upon my health… all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation-deep, dark, deathlike solitude” (Shelley 77). Mary Shelley created the character Victor, who devoted most of his time, research, and effort into creating a being which can hold life. Victor became successful, yet mentally scarred after the sight of his creature. This hurt Victor, but not as harshly as the creature's following actions. The creature goes on to kill members of Victor’s family and kill his closest and dearest friends. The creature’s actions cause Victor to suffer both mentally and physically. Victor then falls back …show more content…
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 knew that what he was doing was hurting his body physically and mentally, “My labors would soon end, and I believe that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease” (Shelley 42) Victor felt this way when he was in the midst of the creation of his monster. Victor knows that his decisions were hindering his body and his ruining his limited time that Victor has on this Earth. The hindering of someone’s body and wasting of time is going to be a direct result of Victor’s demise. The actual creation of the monster also took a toll on Victor; Victor describes the monster by saying “No moral could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 44) Another example of Victor’s description of the creation of the monster the night before “I trembled exclusively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night” (Shelley 46) Even the next day, after the monster was created, Victor still was hurt by the creation of the monster which then led to Victor being very sick, only to be nursed back to health by Clerval. All of this could have been avoided by Victor if he would have not of created the monster. But because Victor decided to create the monster, the consequences of these actions were the ultimate demise of Victor with the person responsible for the demise being victor
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
Mary Shelley makes us question who really the “monster” is. Is it the creature or Victor? While the creature does commit murder, he does not understand the consequences of his actions. He is like an infant who is unfortunately left to learn about the workings of society, and his place in it, on his own. He has no companions and feels a great sense of loneliness and abandonment. The creature voices his frustration and anger and seems to try to project his feelings of guilt onto Victor, as if to show him that he is the ultimate cause of the creature’s misery while he is simply the victim of Victor’s manic impulse. Shelley utilizes words, phrases, and specific tones when the creature vents his misery to Victor and this evokes, amongst the
In her fear-provoking novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores the consequences of fervently pursuing a desire for knowledge. She reveals the dangers of acquiring knowledge through her character, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes so consumed with discovering the origin of life that he eventually endows life upon a creature built from lifeless matter. However, Victor neglects his duties as a creator by abandoning his creation, as he is immediately disgusted by the creature’s appearance. On his own, the creature is constantly rejected by society due to his appearance, and ultimately, he vows revenge on his creator. The creature fulfills this task by murdering most of Victor’s loved ones, including his closest friend, Henry Clerval, and his own
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
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.
Victor Frankenstein in the book Frankenstein faces many terrible situations and has to face many consequences for trying to play God’s role in creating life. Victor seen and dealt with many situations as a young boy that will lead to his madness and obsession with science. Victor has always been intrigued with science and life ever since he was a boy. He studied natural science endlessly trying to master how to create a creature that could sustained life. When Victor finally creates his creature, he becomes disgusted with how it turns out. Victor runs from his creation failing to teach him any social or moral qualities. The creature haunts Victor killing many of his family and friends. Victor will try to run from the many problems he has caused. This causes Victor’s misery throughout the book. Victor becomes the true murderer in the book for trying to play God and create life with science.
Victor feels extremely guilty that he has created this creature, "It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me that might infuse a spark of being into lifeless thing that lay at my feet" (Frankenstein 34-35). The guilt expressed through the words of Victor shows how severe his mood changes are. He goes from being delighted that he has accomplished the impossible, to regretting ever the thought of creating something so hideous. Victor feels empty through out chapter five, because he feels so bad for creating this creature. Also the extreme loss of energy that Victor experiences after his manic episode, verifies that he has bipolar disorder. " for I was lifeless, and did not recover my senses for a long, long time."(Frankenstein 38)
Victor uses his knowledge not for the benefit of society, but for his own purpose of experimentation which ends up turning out the opposite way that he imagines. Knowing his own vanity, Victor says "lean from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (Shelley 38). After creating the monster and all the hardships Victor had to go through, he realizes that a person should be happy with the world around him/her and not try to change it. He admits that trying to become a man greater than who he could be drove him mad and his knowledge went in tow with it. From
Anxiety has been around for many years due to stress levels being too high or events that have happened in the past, but does anyone realize that it is a serious thing and can hurt someone mentally? While researching different academic articles about anxiety and other types of mental illness. I found a few academic journals who describe other people’s lives with anxiety and other mental illnesses. Mary Shelly author of her famous book “Frankenstein” is about Victor Frankenstein who created a monster and got very ill when he saw the beast breathe. Later, he started to neglect the beast and the monster started killing Victor’s loved ones because Victor abandoned the monster. I chose to write about mental illnesses and anxiety because. Victor Frankenstein suffers from a mental illness known as anxiety caused by the monster and events caused by him.
Victor Frankenstein, a complex character created by Mary Shelley, experienced a complete change in attitude and perspective on the scientific world as he knew it. Between the deaths of his close family and friends, to the constant fight for survival as his own creation stalked him, Victor was under straining circumstances that allowed for his evolution as a character. Pre monster, Victor had strong morals and close relationships with his family. His family was his priority. Victor’s dedication to science was always a constant nagging in the back of his mind, but it did not mean more to him than his family dead. During the formation of his creation, he began to block off his family, especially his fiancee, Elizabeth. His dedication to science was his only priority, above food and hygiene. He was driven by the creation of his monster. After creation, his family members were killed off, eliminating any type of relationship he had with them, he rejected all science and moral values.
“Illness refers to an unhealthy condition of body or mind” (Merriam). Sickness and disease are themes that are shown throughout Frankenstein, a novel written by Mary Shelley in the romantic period of literature. The story starts with a captain named Walton finding Victor Frankenstein, becoming his only true friend. After gaining his trust, Walton gets Victor to tell him the stories about the Monster. In the story Victor tells, he becomes obsessed with science and creates a monster. Victor became so scared of this monster that he abandoned it. Once Victor abandoned it, the monster became almost completely alone.The monster became intelligent and started to go after Victor, his friends, and his family. Victor did not uphold his promise to create
As a five-year-old, it seemed as if supernatural creatures always followed me; a ghost shadowed me during the day while a monster waited under my bed at night. The monster howled at night, scaring and making me sleepless. Protection from the beast appeared in an unexpected form: my wall. The wall gave me cover by muting my ears from the screeches of the monster; the wall made sure I didn’t fall into the monster’s habitat. Ultimately, the wall was my defense mechanism that protected me from the threats of the imaginary monsters and the rest of the world.
Victor, the protagonist, is a Byronic hero who voluntarily isolates himself from society as his obsession of creating a new life-being becomes his main interest. He cuts himself off from all human contact and concentrates on his scientific experiment as he wishes his “thirst for knowledge” (Shelley 38) to be stilled. Additionally, he hides a dark secret inside him, namely the creation of the monster which he irresponsibly abandons and ultimately is forced to accept the consequences of death of his loved ones.
Due to Victor 's morality inhibiting a fruitful facade as Milton 's God, his creation of the monster inevitability fosters pandemonium not only in his own life, but wreaks havoc in those around him. Specifically, the treacherous monster killing Victor’s brother William by “[grasping] his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at [his] feet” explicates the brutal outcomes when the creator of life cannot visualize the effect his creation will have on others. Victor consumed himself with this illusion of being God, blinding himself to the monster’s capacity to turn into a violent, impassioned creature whose heart would “swell with exultation and hellish triumph”(153) at depriving another being of their life. Shelley emphasizes this violence with the savage diction of “hellish triumph” and “swell” to fully convey the spreading effect of chaos from Victor’s failed action to play God. Through the allusion to hell, Shelley also creates an image of Victor’s actions