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Victor Frankenstein Research Paper

Decent Essays

Rachna Shah
5th Hour

In a family, one expects intimacy and affectionate behavior: healthy, reciprocal relationships. Yet no such benevolence and empathy can be found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Therein, deserting his loving family, 17-year old Victor Frankenstein is blinded by the promise of everlasting fame. He transgresses the laws of nature to create life, and in doing so, fathers a deformed being. Victor’s abandonment of his son alienates him, sowing the seeds of a destructive conflict wherein Creature becomes monster, vowing to destroy all that his father holds dear. The narrative’s violence clearly originates in Frankenstein’s renunciation of his son and the according collective values. Shelley crafts this isolation-induced hostility …show more content…

Instead of accepting the laws of nature and grieving with his family, he is driven to replenish the void of death, erecting new life from used body parts. The unnatural birth prevents filial love, thus forever forbidding the son from societal integration. Excluding women and God from the genesis, Victor is the sole Creator, and thus bears the sole responsibility of caring for his child. This exacerbates the immorality of the hasty desertion of his newborn. A child needs unconditional love, but perceiving him hideous, Victor deems him hopeless and flees the scene, futilely endeavoring to erase it from time. The novel’s conflict thus originates in Victor’s alienation of the Creature and the avoidance of his paternal role. Through such an origin, Shelley illustrates that there is a limit to science: the purity of family life should not be tampered with. Mankind is limited in controlling the delicate process of life, both in regards to the ‘could’ and ‘should’ of the …show more content…

Plagued by loneliness during the critical period of childhood, he is forced to fend for himself. Forsaken, the Creature constantly questions his history but receives no answers. He views the De Laceys as his surrogate family yet is never truly integrated into a social environment. Detached from society despite ardently yearning to join it, the Creature is doomed. He learns his morals from books, particularly that of justice. His twisted conception of justice that leads him to frame Justine as the murderer of William. He attacks Justine since she represents what he is forever excluded from: humanity. At the novel’s end, the Creature expresses regret that he has become a monster. As it is his nurture - or rather, his lack of nurture - that has culminated in this calamity, Shelley suggests the danger of Victor’s forbidden command. Knowledge is not meant for one’s own success but for the prosperity of the community. Just as mankind is accountable for the collective burden of comprehension, the father is responsible for his son. Neither of these expectations are met by Frankenstein. Through biblical allusions, Shelley suggests that Victor’s utilizes scientific mastery recklessly. He wishes to be God, but is not willing to bear even human obligations. At one point, Victor realizes the duties of a creator in bestowing upon him a partner. However, he spurns the needs of his Creature as inconsequential and

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