Many aspects of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Frankenstein parallel each other. Zen’s narrator and Victor Frankenstein are both arguably insane, considering the fact that Zen’s narrator was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the fact that Victor was able to ignore the ethics of his experiments well enough to forge ahead with creating a new human being. Additionally, Victor and Phaedrus and, to a lesser extent, the narrator, are all extremely driven to achieve their goals. The most interesting parallel between the narrator and Victor, however, is the similarity in their relationships with their creations: Chris and the creature. Victor and the narrator both abandon their creations and treat their creations as less than themselves, …show more content…
In his initial description of his monster, Victor uses language that indicates that he finds his creature to be hideous. It is not until the creature has begun quoting Milton and methodologically murdering Victor’s family that Victor realizes that the monster is at least his equal. Similarly, in Zen, the narrator does not respect his son at first. He shows this quietly, through his interactions with Chris and through his thoughts about Chris. For example, when the narrator and Chris were climbing the canyon, the narrator characterizes his son as an “Egotist,” when Chris celebrates his reaching the top first (Pirsig, p 107). The narrator, after living through his Phaedrus phase, should have no right whatsoever to call anybody an egotist. Additionally, bragging about his IQ for no reason whatsoever makes the narrator seem like he himself has a large ego as well. As a result, he should be more forgiving with his son. Although he and his son are guilty of egotism, he judges his son just as more harshly for showing egotism in an isolated case as than judges himself for his perpetual …show more content…
They show that it is not easy to have a good relationship with someone else if it is not build upon mutual respect and equality. Both Victor and Zen’s narrator attempted this, and it did not go well for either of these characters. In fact, Chris and the narrator’s relationship grew far stronger following the incident where the narrator decided to tell Chris about his possible future mental illness. Even though the narrator wanted to protect his son from the truth, this wasn’t good for their relationship. By deciding what his son should know, the narrator placed himself above his son, therefore straining his relationship. By telling his son the truth and therefore putting himself on the same level as his son, they are able to have a normal, fulfilling relationship. This is in contrast to Victor and his creature in Frankenstein. Victor never truly respects his monster, so they aren’t able to have a quality relationship with each other. Victor, in the end, is unable to respect his monster’s choices enough to be able to bring himself to make his monster a mate, and so, even though the monster was Victor’s creation, he went on to kill several members of Victor’s family. Just because Victor could not bring himself to respect his monster, his relationship was ruined, and as a result, he lost his life. So, mutual respect is a requirement for a good
The shore near, the scent of home far, but I clung on. The rough bark of the log chafed against my bare chest, and my hands were weary from holding on. I inhaled, praying that my body can push toward the sand, and I felt my strength bitterly rise for a last stand. I heaved my futile body on the dry sea of sand and quietly allowed the light to dance one last time in the sunset of my existence.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has several literary devices- such as structure, imagery, and many intricate details. She perfectly places words and puts them in such a way that the passage has a dual tone. Shelley begins with establishing the monster’s nature as being peaceful, because he wanted to reason with Victor. Him wanting to reason shows the importance of his decision to meet with Victor and shows that even though he has been through a great deal, he is still respectable to others. The audience gets to see the creature’s humble nature and makes the audience feel sympathetic towards him. This creates a peaceful tone to the passage. The monster wants to be loved by “any being and if they showed benevolence to me, I would return them hundred an hundred fold” (Shelley 148). The creature’s begging makes it sound like Victor will answer his plea. Using a broad term like “being”, demonstrates the monster’s need to be loved, putting him in a position with the audience again feeling empathetic towards him. Eventually, Victor’s compassion begins to fluctuate. The desperation the creature has looks like the desperation a human might have. This only gives the readers another reason to relate to him which leads to the other tone, impossible. Victor’s unreasonableness heightens this shared discontent as not only has the build up of the creature’s wistful nature made him an utmost identifiable character, but our views are adjusted in such as way that Frankenstein is seen
The novel Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus cannot be categorized into only one genre because it has various features of different genres. It is certainly a tragedy. Although the core narration starts with a story of how Frankenstein’s father meets and marries the protagonist’s mother, she first has to endure the death of her father called Beaufort. Thus, the novel already begins as a tragic exposition. As a result, the narrative fiction ends with almost everyone including the protagonist and the antagonist as dead.
Early one morning I was very hungry waterso, I went looking for food. When suddenly I saw something strange above the Waters point so I jumped right into the action and said you go up to the top of the water when it started attacking me with spears and oars obviously I attacked back I mean I was scared and that's when two of the boats sank and most of the humans drowned. But, one of them escaped so i just let
I had just left my father’s funeral. I was wondering where my brother Victor was. He was not at the funeral; could he just have been at home? Why would he miss our father’s funeral. So I got in my carriage and rode home. Victor was not at home. So I went to ask the people in Geneva. One woman told me that victor had left for the Arctic. I asked myself: Why would Victor leave for the Arctic? I realized that I had no family member left, I was all alone. All the money and property was supposed to go to victor because he was the oldest son. But now since he is not here to inherit it, the money was all mine. I being a teenager thought that throwing a party would be fun. But then I thought let me get settled and used to this empty home. I
It is Victor's story that truly exposes the true theme of the story, with him speaking of his days as a child and his first friendship with the girl his parents adopted. He lives a fine life, full of joy and happiness with friend plentiful. When he goes to college he is without friends, but soon befriends one of the professors and engaged in lengthy conversations with him. This isn't the same friendship as before, lacking the real love and companionship of his family, and he soon begins work on his creation. He so overwhelmed by the idea of creating a perfect person he is blinded from the deformity of the creature. When the creature is finished he examines his work and is mortified by it, running and hiding he escapes the creature that soon wanders away. Soon after Victor becomes sick and deathly, he shuns society and people and is almost dead when his friend Clerval arrives at the college. Clerval nurses Victor back to health, but Victor isn't physically sick, he has just
You must live life blindly and have no choice but to learn by observing others. Let’s also not forget that the creature is continuously rejected by society because of his appearance, which Victor gave him. One can only imagine what it is like to not only be rejected by all of humanity, but by its very own father. As Victor said himself, parents direct their children to either happiness or misery. In which, Victor leads the creature to “bore a hell” (146) within himself and to “spread havoc and destruction”
It was just a normal day like any other I was walking down my street and a group of us wanted to go camping, we got all our gear ready and went on, the first night was a little spooky, we were hearing strange sounds in the bushes near our campsite. In the morning we went to go see what was in the bushes nothing but unknown footprints.We were all debating on what the creature was, so the second night came by and then we heard the noise again all but Dave went outside the tents to see what was making that sound, we started shining flashlights until we heard a fast running sound away, all of were spooked out, in the morning we found out that Dave was not in his tent, we all thought he went to the bathroom but for a couple hours he still was not back.(153)
When his creation is complete and the creature comes to life Victor immediately realizes his mistake and abandons his creation. Victor not only abandons the creature but he goes into a state of isolation and self-pity. The abandonment of the creature is the opposite of the environment in which Victor was raised; this contradicts the assumption that a nurturing childhood will produce an equally loving and empathetic adult. When Victor receives the letter that his younger brother William had been murdered the question of who is the true monster becomes to be blurred. He knows in his gut that the monster he created was responsible for the murder but does not bother to say anything when a close family friend, Justine, is accused of the crime. There is no more blatant lack of empathy than letting a person you know is innocent die for a crime in which you are responsible. Also, to add fuel to the fire of Victor’s character, he actually thinks that he has it worse than Justine because she doesn’t have to live with his guilt, a disgusting act of arrogance and self-centered mindset.
It’s the tale as old as time, the monster that lurks within the shadows under the bed, or withering in the corner of the closet. The child tremors until the parent checks the entire room, vanishing all doubts of safety. As a child, I shared these fears, but as I outgrew these demons I learned that the real angst was always hiding within my self; the fear of the unknown. It’s uncontrollable, and only discovered once time has revealed its destiny. It goes beyond the standard questions of why or what. The anxiety that fell upon me was so overwhelming it disturbed my everyday; making the future my personal villain.
<br>In the novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, the characters have been portrayed effectively. Much of the interactions between characters, and characteristics of the characters have been based on events which have occurred in Shelley 's own life, or they represent what she believes is important. For example, Victor is portrayed as having a strong passion for science, and a poor understanding of relationships. Elizabeth is shown as a stereotypical woman of the time, who is also very powerless. The monster is depicted as being both beautiful and ugly, and someone who the reader feels sympathetic towards. Through the portrayal of her
The momentum forces me to stumble down. I fall on my back, the air knocked out of me. I lay for a moment, attempting to catch my breathe. As I learn to breath again, a heavy thing falls on me. My vision is blocked as a handful of black hair lands on my face. Next to my ear is a set of lips.
I’m running. I can’t scream, my lungs are burning and something is chasing me. I see a light at the end of the dark and gloomy hallway but it keeps getting farther no matter how fast I run. The thing behind me is getting closer, I can smell its rotten breath. All of the sudden I feel the sharp pain of broken glass burying in my feet. I fall onto the glass covered floor and finally a scream escapes my throat.
I then felt a breeze past me and I was knocked away from the group, managing to sit up, I look at what had done it. I saw some creature that had a body of a woman and the lower body of a spider. It freaked me out bad. Noct got in front of me, as if shielding me from that creature, he asked me if I could get up, replying to him, he nodded his head and told me to go to where Prompto was at. Getting to my feet, I ran over to where Prompto was.
The lack of an origin causes the monster to exhibit characteristics of Satan. While talking to Victor the Monster states, “Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel”(81). The monster demonstrates feelings of betrayal and abandonment as he is seen by Victor as a lesser being due to his “fallen angel”(81) status. A continuous reference to Adam demonstrates the Monsters desire to be loved by Victor for being a successful creation. However, the Monster faces reality in that he was abandoned, since Victor was “unable to endure the aspect of the being [he] had created”(44). The Monster’s expulsion from Victor’s life fuels his insecurities as he begins to “considered Satan as the fitter emblem of [his] condition”(110). Victor’s abandonment parallels to the story of Satan as he was cast out of heaven by God, similarly to how the Monster was cast out of Victor’s life. Not only, does the Monster take on the name of Satan, but also a few of the