Comparing Individualism And Views In Frankenstein By Mary Shelley

Within each book, authors express their own opinions and views. In Frankenstein, being written during the period of Romanticism, the author, Mary Shelley, expresses her own thoughts of the plot, through nature. Nature, in Romanticism, is seen as not only beautiful, but extremely truthful, also nature connects humans to a spiritual, God-like figure. Victor’s universe of obligation had his image to society for the center circle and mankind and society in the second circle. After spending months confined to a prison cell, finally free and talking with his father, Victor says “‘A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race’” (156). Here, Victor is still in and out of states of delirium, and Victor’s father is still unknowing of what, or who, the “whole human race” could be “sacrificed” to, the Creature. The word “sacrifice” meaning an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God, clearly illustrates who has the power in relationship. This supposed creator-creation relationship, or should be father-son relationship has now, roles reversed, become a slave-master exchange.

Shelley believes Victor’s obligation to mankind and society should be his center circle. After Victor realizes the long term consequences of making a second creature, and the effects she may have on all of society, he decides to destroy her. After this moment of destruction, nature finally becomes at peace. On page 139, it is described as “motionless,” “hushed,” “quiet,” “gentle,” “hardly conscious.” Nature had no fight to put up, because it agreed with the decision Victor had made; Shelley had agreed with the decision Victor had made, to protect