Victor Frankenstein : A Promethean Punishment

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley tells the tale of the protagonist Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Both Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s creation’s questionable actions lead them both to be considered morally ambiguous figures. Victor is ambitious with good intentions, but his ambition leads to bad results. The Creature is an innately kind and compassionate person who commits abominable actions due to how others treat him. Their moral ambiguity is significant, as it reveals that an obsession with ambition distorts one’s morals.

Her interpretation is actually quite true because in the most minimalistic explanation, Frankenstein is making the choice to desert his child and the chances of survival of a newborn on its own are next to none. This is quite a profound choice that foreshadows the hardships that the creature will soon face and also hints at the remarkable fact that the creature does in fact survive to have a long life. This is also briefly discussed by Butler: “the creature’s career works on two levels, as a survival-story like Robison Crusoe’s, and as an allegorical account of the progress of mankind over eons of time” (xxxix). The creature’s perseverance and remarkable ability to overcome his presumed infant death allows him to be perceived as an underdog of sorts, who will continue to fight against the odds. This perseverance and constant struggle is the mark of a victim trying to survive. Moreover, Victor’s lack of responsibility demonstrates his selfish nature and total disregard of the consequences of his actions, making the creature a victim of Victor’s actions.

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.

Frankenstein is characterised as the modern Prometheus in the subtitle of his novel but Prometheus brought fire and light (civilisation) to his creation and in doing so, turned his back against the gods. He suffered for his sacrifice by being chained to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle. For Prometheus and his creation fire was a blessing and enabled humanity to develop and break free of the gods. Like Prometheus, Frankenstein "steals from heaven in attempting to Œpour a torrent of light into our dark world'" (Shelley in Boyd 1984, p. 24) and is punished because of his actions. Shelley also contrasts Frankenstein with the Promethean myth. Her Prometheus brings only suffering into the world, his creation suffers, his family suffers and ultimately, he suffers. Frankenstein's

MJ DeMarco, author and entrepreneur, related choices in life to hitting a golf ball. If the club is rotated even a fraction of a degree when it hits the ball, the ball has a trajectory that diverges further away from the golf course until it is nearly impossible to get back on track. (Pros) At first the change is hardly noticeable, but later its consequences are so devastating that its new course is completely transformed from the course it used to be on. (Pros) Like this situation, DeMarco says that one bad choice can set one’s trajectory off by only one fraction of a degree today, but in the future the error is magnified and has monumental consequences. (Pros) What appears to be a good choice, ends up being a bad choice in the end. This idea connects to two of the main themes in Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus: the dangerous pursuit of knowledge and fate versus free will. The choice to pursue knowledge may be appealing, but it has life threatening consequences, like fate for instance. In Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley uses the motif of light to illuminate and connect the themes of fate vs. free will and the dangers of the pursuit of knowledge.

When Victor Frankenstein was in the two year long process of creating his monster you have to think about what his personal morals were, principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. Everyone has varying personal morals. Dr. Frankenstein goes against the morals of a medical doctor when he wastes his life away slaving over his experiment. He also tries playing God when he sparks the life back into the stitched together corpse. This corpse comes alive and is abandoned by his creator to roam the country without ever having the experience of growing up. Finally, Victor Frankenstein is burdened with the guilt of creating such a horrible creature, proving what he did was wrong. So, in the novel Frankenstein, the extension of life is the real moral question.

In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster is portrayed as a grotesque abomination. However, as Hopkins states in Contending Forces, the cultural and geographical situations, or lack thereof, in which one matures in play a crucial role in the proper development of one’s mind and brain. The monster is simply a product of circumstance. The lack of social interactions alongside geographical isolation propelled the daemon to be alienated from society, ultimately resulting in a lack of morals and an underdeveloped psyche. By being a culmination of his surroundings and experiences it is revealed that the true monstrous entities are the factors that leave the daemon predisposed to fail in a modern society. Arguably, Victor created a being, while the circumstances that said being was placed in “created” a monster. Shelley purposefully terrorizes the monster with such intensity to provoke and justify the overarching theme in this novel which states that people should not be judged on their physical appearance.

In the novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life is a “search for justice” (Styron). In the gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley the Creature is on a constant search for justice. The Creature is shown to be inherently good, but due to the corruption in society and traumatic experiences by those the Creature sought acceptance from he slowly loses his moral compass. Shelley, in the novel Frankenstein demonstrates the search for justice through many social situations and characters. Shelley connects the Creature’s search for justice to the hardships he faces throughout his life.

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

person to unleash such a terror on the world to benefit only himself and his

How important is the theme of justice in Frankenstein. Refer closely to the creation scene and Justine's trial scene. Justice is defined as justice is the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity which can be interpreted as adhering to laws of both a natural and civilised level. In Frankenstein many of the fundamental laws of both humanity and the world we live in are broken. Creation in he Christian faith is a marvel that only one being or person has the right to control.

Critic Northrop Frye once commented that "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscapes" (Frye 1). Few characters illustrate this characteristic of a tragic hero better than that of Victors Frankenstein, the protagonist of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His story is one of a brilliant man whose revolutionary ideas brought suffering to himself, his family and friends, and his creation. Victor is an instrument as well as a victim to this suffering throughout his story.

Tragic hero’s can come in all shapes and sizes. They may appear as a villain in multiple works of literature. In the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the tragic hero is the creature. He is a main character whose faults led to his overall downfall. Often, the creature is misinterpreted by people to be named Frankenstein because he is such a prominent character. While the creature is able to identify the faults in mankind it is only after extreme suffering on his own part.

Taking God’s role into your own hands proves too much for someone to take on and Victor could not escape the negative repercussions of his actions. Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist in the 1831 novel Frankenstein. Victor unnaturally creates a monster from the bodies of the deceased. This creation would haunt and torture him for the rest of his life. Victor Frankenstein foolishly assumed that he could take the role of God into his own hands and create life from death. Victor shows the negative effects of playing God through Victor’s mental state, his negligence of the creature, and the behavior of the creature.

We are gathered here today for the trial of Mr. Creation and Victor Henry Frankenstein. The creation is charging his creator, Victor, with negligence, reckless endangerment resulting in the involuntary manslaughter of William Frankenstein, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth Lavenza, malpractice, emotional, and physical distress. My client, Mr. Creation, has suffered many times at the hand of his creator, and we are here today to see that justice is served for the cruel actions of Mr. Victor Frankenstein. In the following trial, we will be proving the defendant guilty of all the above charges.