Theme Of Parental Figure In Frankenstein

Imagine skipping that awkward childhood stage of life and going straight to being an adult; never having to worry about parent’s rules or curfews. But if all of a sudden, one was forced into the world of adults with the mindset of a newborn child, one would not know the difference between right and wrong and possibly even become a victim. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster is the true victim of the book. He is abused in multiple ways, he does nothing to warrant the unjust treatment he receives and he is forced into solitude.

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

In many situations today, the children most common problem can be trace back to their family issue. Without a strong bond of relationship between their parents can consequently cause a destruction of children’s future. Even more, the children grow up unsteadily with aggressive behavior and the sign of depression. This has come to be a controversial issue and as well the depth of the story that is contain in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. To many misinterpretations from the movie, the creature itself was to accused to be a villain in the plot. As it show in Mary Shelly’s novel a deeper analysis has reveal that Victor Frankenstein is the real blame for

"We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves-such a friend ought to be-do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures,” writes the narrator of Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein. Without a companion of some sort, people will only suffer more. However, without the supervision of parents, children altogether are greatly affected for the rest of their lives. An innately good and sympathetic creature, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster struggles to survive in the human world. After creating and abandoning his creature, Dr. Frankenstein is the juxtaposition of a monster, portraying humans as shallow, judgmental, and uncaring. The monster simply wants humans to accept him as one of their own. Facing rejection in different forms, he becomes truly monstrous and evil, giving up hope of companionship as a result of his abandonment. Modern case studies of abandoned children report similar ideas. Children who are abandoned do not learn about morality, yet only people with morality are accepted by others as human. Children who are abandoned are frequently not accepted by others as human ultimately.

A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques.  Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love.  To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”.  Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility.  Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was raised by a single parent, her father William Godwin. She acknowledges the mentally stimulating role a father plays in the development of a daughter, presumably speaking from personal experience. She declares, "There is a peculiarity in the education of a daughter, brought up by a father only, which tends to develop early a thousand of those portions of mind, which are folded up” (Veeder). Shelley offers in Frankenstein a portrait of how children’s minds are shape, and ultimately their fates sealed, due to influences from their fathers. Alphonse, Victor’s father, made mistakes in his parenting that negatively shaped the development of Victor’s mind and how he treated other living things.

The gothic fictions “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley and Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” approach the importance of a parent role and the effect of such role on the child’s life. In Mary Shelley’s novel, she uses Victors past and present to demonstrate how the poor treatment from his parents lead him to poorly fathering his own child. In contrast, James’ takes the approach of showing parenting in a more overbearing and overexerted way, in demonstrating the relationship between the governess and the children and as their guardian how she seeks to protect them from all danger. This essay will look at these two works and how critics have interpreted this theme to view the similarities in the effects of certain parenting and the differences that led to these outcomes. In looking at the main characters of both narratives and their approach with their children it is possible to see how there must be a balance in the presence and absence of parental figure in the developmental period of a child or creature’s life. Moreover, if such balance cannot be attained this could be the leading factor to the detrimental downfalls of the families in these novels.

A vital component of being a parent is their efforts of responsibility regarding their child. Therefore, a parent is deemed to look upon their child in a positive manner, with the intentions to support them. Victor Frankenstein dedicates majority of his life discovering multiple aspects of science, for the hope of reanimating life. This process evokes much ambition, only to be quickly diminished. Therefore, in chapter five of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley utilizes juxtaposition and auditory imagery among the birth of the monster to foreshadow there will be a decrease towards parental responsibility.

For years, scientists have pondered the extent as to which parenting influences human conduct. This question belongs under one of oldest debates in psychology known as nature vs nurture and is explored in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. By demonstrating the significance parenting plays in the characters’ behaviors, Shelley takes the side of nurture, warning against ineffectual parents. Many of Victor Frankenstein’s worst attributes as an adult result from his upbringing rather than his inherent temperament. The first sign of this careless parenting is demonstrated when Caroline presents Elizabeth as “her promised gift.”

Frankenstein is also relatable because of the parent child relationships in the novel. There are two different types of parent child relationships in the novel; the good, Alphonse to all his kids, and the De'Lacy family as a whole. Alphonse has a great relationship with Victor, Elizabeth, and Justine. When Alphonse gets the letter from his late sister’s husband, Elizabeth’s real dad, that it was his sister's dying wish that Alphonse take care of Elizabeth; Alphonse “did not hesitate , [he] immediately went to Italy [so] that he might accompany the little elizabeth to her future home (Mary Shelley).” Alphonse is a good example of this because of the way he devotes himself to his children.

Any parent is expected to care for their child, if not there are consequences. Frankenstein experienced these consequences to their fullest extent, through the death of loved ones, the torment that went on in his life, and the people that exiled him. Frankenstein learns that anyone can create a monster through negligence of love, protection, and

In “Frankenstein” otherwise known as the “The Modern Prometheus,” the author Mary Shelley unfolds a gothic tale that at the surface is a cautionary horror on the sin of creating a visual monster but upon close inspection unfolds a framed buildingroman that encapsulates how society can shape one self through the eyes of a growing creature (1). At a fundamental part of creatures growth, chapters eleven through fifteen, the creature encounters the De Lacey family where he learns and grows to understand human emotions through each of the family members and through their interactions with each other. Shelley utilizes key notions of societal understandings of family relationships to demonstrate how the creature, like a child, yearns to be apart and learn from those around them. The yearning to be apart of society becomes a fundamental part in how the mind of the creature is dependent on the acceptance of society around him, but through the visual depiction of the creator himself, this ultimately creates a turning point in how he is the monster. The family in essence represents a rapid structure of the bildungsroman for the creature as each of the members and actions of the family represent a growing stage in the creature’s life that outside of his relationship with Victor Frankenstein becomes apart of his upbringing.

Johnson’s article “My Monster/My Self” argues that the ideas of being a mother, writing an autobiography, and female authorship are intertwined in Frankenstein, by Shelley, and two other books, Friday’s My Mother/My Self and Dinnerstein’s The Mermaid and the Minotaur, which are used primarily to back up the ideas she presents about Frankenstein.

The role parents play in the development of a child's morality and ethical views is exponential. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores what happens when a parental or guiding figure is not present. As a child, our belief in what is right and wrong is solely based on the opinions our parents instill in our feeble minds. The “monster” in Frankenstein is born into a world with no guidance and the decisions that he makes originate from bits and pieces that he gathers from humanity. Mary Shelley gives her own opinions on how that affects the morality and decisions The “monster” makes.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is a far-famed expression that fits on several father and son relationships; on the other hand, it isn’t the situation of both Amir and his father. As far as father-son relationships are concerned, the father is a significant role model for his son, and every boy needs a fatherly figure. It was rather ironic that Baba wanted Amir to stand up for what’s right and not be a coward, but he selected to adopt the cowardly route because of his unresolved issues. In Frankenstein, a monster was created by the doctor, but he failed to provide him a conscience. The monster committed murder; however, he was “created” without a conscience and the actions taken happened due to the way he was created.