How Does Victor Frankenstein Change Throughout The Novel

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.

According to page 76 in chapter 10 “...that I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!”, this shows how angry he was to the monster. By knowing and reading this you can notice and get a sense of feel of how Victor was now starting to regret creating the monster. On page 79 in chapter 10 it says “ Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined,” circumstances of which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and author? Cursed (although I cursed myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.”, this shows how he feels now that he has seen what the monsters has

Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein’s triumph as he reanimates a dead body, and then details his guilt for creating such a thing. When the creation realizes how he came to be, and is rejected by mankind, he seeks revenge on his creator’s loved ones. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley portrays Victor Frankenstein as the true monster of the story through the use of literary devices revealing the characteristics that Frankensteins and monsters share, and shows how Frankenstein’s irresponsibility leads to his monstrous labeling.

The monster asserts,” It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation… I sickened as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’... ‘Accused creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” (Shelley 134). The monster discovers Victor’s hatred towards him, sending him into a revengeful attitude. The monster’s first experience of love comes from Victor creating him; although now that it is gone, the monster obtains no concept of love. His absence of love adds to his unethical and lethal terror on Victor and his family. Kim A. Woodbridge writes, “Even though the creature received a moral and intellectual education, the lack of nurturing and loving parent as well as companionship and acceptance from society led him to reject morality and instead destroy”. Victor’s gluttony causes the monster’s immoral turn to violence. Representing another deadly sin, Victor only provides for himself and puts his interest and well-being before the monster’s. In doing this, Victor not only angers the monster, but compels the monster to feel unloveable. The one person the monster wants love from the most deserts him, creating a destructive animal, ready to

Victor Frankenstein worried about everyone else and playing God, rather than trying to do right, morally. Victor had to go through a lot of steps and difficulties to create the monster. After the creation of the monster, everyone including Victor abandoned him. Victor refused to create a girl creature to avoid a lot of problems, but he did not realize the hell the monster would end up causing him. Victor regrets trying to play God because his action would cause him great troubles and consequences.

The monster notices that humans are afraid of him because of his appearance, he feels embarrassed of himself, as humans do when they don’t seem to be accepted. He admires the De Lacey Family that lives in the cottage, he also learns from them, and hopes to have companion as they do. The monster is like humans, as mentioned, in the way that he wants someone to listen and care about him. He is discovering the world and his capacities, he seeks knowledge and understand plenty aspects of life by learning how to speak and read. “The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys” (Shelley 47). The monster developed feelings and emotions as humans. The creature is different from humans also, since he never got to grow up as a normal human, and

Victor Frankenstein, a man obsessed with scientific oddities since his youth, finds a way to reanimate the dead. In the hope of creating “a new species [who] would bless me as their creator,” (33) he designs what he hopes to be the creation of a man-made human being. However, his attempt produces merely a living being, a being which Victor grows to despise and fear, despite his initial claims that “darkness had no effect upon [his] fancy” (31). However when faced with his creation later within the novel he describes his experiment as a catastrophe when he “saw the dull yellow eyes of the creature open” (Shelley 35). In an attempt to be accepted by Victor, the creature journeys into the village to learn the ways of the humans. However

monster avoid pain again and how he is able to sit and think about how

Throughout the novel, “Frankenstein,” the “monster” was seen as hideous. As a result, many including the creator himself did not give the “monster” a chance and portrayed him as evil. Rather than looking at his personality, they looked at his outward appearance, which scared them off and made them assume he was a “monster.” When readers, including myself, read this story, we feel disappointed about how during this time everything revolved based upon looks and not on what really mattered like charisma. Overall he is portrayed as an evil, scary creature. When Victor describes him he is so harsh and cruel it makes him seem to be a monster. “He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks,” (Shelley 59) this phrase proves how when Victor describes the monster he did not care to think about what the monster was trying to say because he was too scared of his horrible looks.

I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing"(155). By eliminating Victor’s friends and family, the monster completes this plan of turning Victor’s life into one similar to his own. Depriving one of their family and friends, something which is done by both Victor and the monster, is a truly horrible deed which makes Victor’s creation a true "monster".

Victor, after being convinced to create a female companion for the monster, realizes that this will only create double the amount of destruction, he then makes the choice to discontinue his project to prevent more devastation. Instead of less damage resulting from this choice it only brings more harm to his life and everyone around him. First, his good friend Henry Clerval is murdered by the beast and Victor is accused of this murder, “The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions.” (Shelley 129). This was Victor’s reaction upon seeing Henry’s corpse and demonstrates how deeply his pursuit for knowledge affects him. Even though he is later released on circumstantial evidence, he will be scarred for life knowing that he responsible for yet another death. Given that Victor destroyed the monster’s only hope of having someone else like him in the world; the monster swears revenge and that he will return on Victor’s wedding night. Victor misinterpreted this warning and instead of the monster attacking Victor, his creation attacked and

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.

The monster believed that Victor would accept him, but after he realized that not only did Victor not want to assume his position in the monster’s life, but society also rejected him, it became a transitory thought, and instead became replaced with his bloodthirst towards Victor and his loved ones, which he knew would hurt way worse than just killing him; making him lonely like himself. Both Victor and the monster partook in horrid acts, in which held horrendous actions; the main one being Victor creating the monster in the first place which in result caused the both of them heartbreak, loneliness, and pain. If Victor wouldn’t have created the monster, then his life would not be filled with so much grief and emptiness; Victor is the true monster, although they are both the primal protagonists as much as they are the antagonists because of the display of the emotions they both portray as lamenting humans/monsters, and the power they give to nature in order to destroy one another. Victor used nature to his advantage, although it was wrong; Victor used nature to create and destroy the monster; he used the

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is a story about how important having a family is to some, but also judging someone based on their appearance. Victor Frankenstein starts the novel by describing his childhood with his loving and supportive family. Family is very important to him because he did not have many friends growing up. While Frankenstein is away at school he starts to become very depressed and you see his attitude towards his family and his life change. Being away at school, he creates a “monster” by using different pieces of corpses and that becomes the only thing that matters to him until he sees how hideous it is. He immediately hates his creation just because of how he looks. Frankenstein begins to abandon everyone and thing in his life because of his obsession with the idea of glory and science, causing the novel to go from Romanticism to Gothic. The “monster” finds a family living in a cottage, by watching all winter he learns how a family should love and accept others. By seeing this, Frankenstein’s creations understand what was taken from him, and will do whatever he has to do to have a family of his own.

     The monster is created towards the beginning of the story as a middle-aged creature. He may be characterized as manipulating, and intelligent, and from kind by nature to malevolent. He is a round character, is described as being eight feet tall, and simply hideous. The monster kills Victor?s younger brother, friends, and lover, and does not stop until Victor himself is ruined and killed. He may easily be considered Victor?s downfall. The monster is never named, so he is referred to as his description, a monster or a daemon. He wants, more than anything, a companion. The monster tells Victor, ?You are my creator, but I am your master? (116) after his heart turns cold from lack of love.