Symbolism in Frankenstein

The tragic figure in Mary Shelley’s horror novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, is truly an instrument of suffering for his loved ones in his life. Frankenstein’s Creature horrifies Frankenstein and sets off a series of events that corrode his relationships and harm his family and friends; furthermore, Frankenstein’s actions cause the innocent characters to suffer the most, which contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

   Frankenstein can be read as a tale of what happens when a man tries to create a child without a woman. It can, however, also be read as an account of a woman's anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive capabilities. The story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman's experience of pregnancy and related fears. Mary Shelley, in the development and education of the monster, discusses child development and education and how the nurturing of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of an individual. Thus, in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and thoughts about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development.

Frankenstein, a novel first published in the year 1818, stands as the most talked about work of Mary Shelley’s literary career. She was just nineteen years old when she penned this novel, and throughout her lifetime she could not produce any other work that surpasses this novel in terms of creativity and vision. In this novel, Shelley found an outlet for her own intense sense of victimization, and her desperate struggle for love. Traumatized by her failed childbirth incidents, troubled childhood, and scandalous courtship, many of Shelley’s life experiences can be seen reflected in the novel. When discussing the character and development of the monster, Shelley launches an extensive discussion on the

The word monster has a negative connotation to it and usually refers to something that is evil in nature. In chapters ten and eleven of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Victor is shown to be more monstrous that his creature.

This novel reflects Shelley’s own childhood, which consisted of her feeling obligated to rebel against her own father’s wishes and his choice for her marriage. Frankenstein is a way for Shelley to tell her own experiences with parental conflict and how she feels she was affected by her demanding father and the environment she grew up in, by comparing herself to Victor’s monster. Shelley analyzed her own characteristics, and the characteristics of her father, and placed them within Victor and the

Frankenstein’s characters suffer in a couple of ways, psychologically such as through loneliness or through emotional pain of the death of close ones, and physical suffering. Shelley herself was an only child, so could have been considered lonely when she was younger, and her mother died, which is obviously a death of a close one. While suffering is deserved by some of the characters as they bring it upon themselves, some of the characters are not deserving of their suffering as it is thrust upon them.

Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in 1816 when she was just 20 years old. Even at a young age, she was able to craft what is considered the first science fiction novel. At this time of her writing, a scientific revolution was occurring and with it came advances in topics like radiation and atomic theory. With this rapid change in science and human understanding, Shelly chose to write a story as plea against unorthodox scientific experiments. She portrays this idea with the use of the characters Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created. Through her use of these characters, as well as her use of allusions from religious texts and other literary works, she is able further her argument against untraditional science.

Playing God is a role that no man should ever take upon themselves. Many conflicts may arise and we may never know where to draw the line between the human world and scientific discoveries. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the main character decides to act as God and creates a being that serves as tragic figure and functions as an instrument of unintentional suffering to others. The novel is about a man's quest for acceptance and shows the potential destruction people may cause while trying to find their place in the world.

There is an animation on Youtube, “le ravissement de Frank N. Stein,” (Schwizgebel) in which you are in first person perspective, and wake to an abstract landscape before your eyes. You see flashes of death, then a laboratory. You walk through the door, to see another door, then another, and another, endlessly walking though barren rooms, until you descend the stairs to more rooms. You walk until the rooms begin to host abstract forms that slowly morph into human-like ones, and in the end, the forms become copies of Frankenstein’s Monster and the Bride. And then you continue walking through these rooms flooded with them.

Though the conclusions arrived at here are of the same theoretical place as the philosophical minds had deliberated before, the explanations had by Burke and Shaw circumvented parallel processes of thought, to more rely upon their similar conclusions, both rooted in historical precedent. With Frankenstein, however, Shelley stays committed to its endgame in practicing metaphorical weight and symbolic meaning, not only for setting the classical arguments incorporated here, in definite terms. This isn’t even in creating some microcosm of a singularized case in which man had sought to defy the natural barriers, and replicate the things he saw, and experienced. Instead, interactions between characters and unfolding conflicts set upon them, are to represent both these spheres converging. They are depicted less as staunch absolutes, but more so met with being altered, and changing the perceptions drawn up all along. Conferred later in an accounted byproduct of a more recent mindset, this nonetheless stands for lessons at the underpinnings of how we have grown as a society in general, which Shelley would seem to remind us of. As opposed to some alleged “Modern Prometheus,” Victor’s pursuit comes up barely mythicized, and as Bate says, “is a healthy disorientation… to realize that the Western man may not after all be the master of all things” (Bate 480). Likewise, the creature takes on a role within the self-fulfilling prophecy, subject to the maltreatment of human benefactors, and,

Another aspect of romanticism that is prevalent in Shelly’s novel is the way Frankenstein, and his creation, are controlled by their emotions. Frankenstein is continually ruled by his feelings of fear, guilt, and love throughout the novel. For instance, he works for nearly two years to accomplish his goal of creating life, only to immediately flee because of fear when his work comes to life. This was a major illustration for the reader that despite being an experienced scientist Frankenstein was still ruled by emotions. In a large portion of the novel Frankenstein seems to be completely motivated by his fear of the creature he created. When his brother died, he feared people discovering his secret so he let an innocent woman stand trial. When the monster requested a partner, his fear of the monster propelled him to try, only to have his fear of having two creatures alive stop him from completing the work. At the end of the story, Frankenstein’s anger over the death of his family members propelled him to chase the creature across the frozen waters, which lead to his death. Frankenstein was a brilliant thinker who was continually consumed and motivated by his emotions. Frankenstein’s creation was also very much controlled by his emotions. After he is created and Frankenstein flees from him, he searches across the land to find companions. The creature is repeatedly rejected because of his looks, and because of that he is self-conscience of the fact that he is

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has a simple origin, compared to other stories. While stories such as It by Stephen king started a several year process of creation, Frankenstein began simply as a campfire story Mary Shelley shared with her writer friends one evening. Although the origins of this novel are fairly simple, it provides an in depth psychological perspective on the darker side of human psyche through the shifting first person perspective. Usually these darker aspects are associated with the character’s personal struggles, but one specific theme in all the characters. The theme of obsession has been consistent and the central focus of the three main characters Victor, the creature, and Robert. With this central theme in mind the author, Mary Shelley shows that obsession leads to the characters suffering negative psychological and physical effects, as well as impair their decision making. This is depicted through the decline of physical and mental health through Victor’s struggles with his obsessions with knowledge and justice.

Frankenstein is a gothic novel that many people know the horrors of this creature. Frankenstein, the character was conveyed by the agony that Mary Shelley received from her huge loss several occasions. She was born in London in 1797, her mother died after she was 11 days old, sister committed suicide after she married with Percy Byssche Shelley. She was happy, but afterward she had 3 miscarriages and lost her husband when she was 25. It became a nightmare which is hard for anyone to receive painfully. This tragedy was inspired to write about the Frankenstein. The character, Dr. Frankenstein, a man who engrossed to put life to the dead by bringing several parts of the corpse to sew together. Finally, he made the inhuman live as the monster that

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Shelley is an author who wrote the novel of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley herself in her life, experienced many deaths of close friends and family. When she was first born her mother died, furthermore Mary had a baby, who died 12 days later and her husband Percy Shelly drowned. Maybe it was these experiences, which led Mary Shelley to write such a novel of great horror published in 1818. Frankenstein itself is called 'the modern Prometheus'.

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley offers an ominous tale of science gone terribly wrong using the theme of the father and son relationship that also goes terribly wrong. Though Victor Frankenstein does not give birth per se to the Monster, Frankenstein is for all intents and purposes the Monster's father as he brings him to life via his scientific knowledge. Once the Monster is alive he looks to Frankenstein to protect him as a father would, but Frankenstein who is mortified by his creation shuns him. The longer the Monster lives without Frankenstein's love and the more he discovers what he is missing, the angrier he gets and he sets out on a mission to destroy Victor Frankenstein. In Frankenstein, Shelley's purpose is to reveal what happens to society at large when individuals fail in their duties as parents.