Justine Moritz is a charitable woman, she is someone who put the need of others before hers. Leaving her mother at the age of twelve to work for the Frankenstein family. Functioning graciously Justine was performing with care and respect for her obligations. Caring for the mother of Victor’s mother for the duration of her life. Continuing to work Justine manages to work while still grieving for the lost of the Frankenstein family. Justine is a strong-willed character while justifying to the readers the possibility of overcoming obstacles with the willpower anyone can obtain. Justine background was not comparable to Frankenstein, Lavenza, and Walton. With the factors that they were of a different class. Victor finds out that Justine has
For centauries, women have been forced to live life in the outskirts of a male dominated society. During the 1800’s, the opportunities for women were extremely limited and Mary Shelly does an excellent job in portraying this in her gothic novel, Frankenstein. Furthermore, in this novel, Mary Shelly shows how society considers women to be possessions rather than independent human beings. In addition, the female characters rely heavily on men for support and survival, thus proving their inability to do it on their own. Lastly, the female characters in this novel are in many ways victimized by the male characters. In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that are set for them by society.
Throughout the book of Frankenstein, the creator of the being Frankenstein, Victor, is experienced as a suffering being. He recalls from the very beginning a time during his childhood where he was happy and surrounded by love, a time when his mother lived. Victor’s downfall or the beginning of his disgrace, initiates with the death of his mother. Victor leaves his family to start a new stage in his life, he leaves on quest for answers a true quest for knowledge. Personal motivation will lead Victor to take on the challenge of overcoming death, or to be more specific, give life to a dead body.
Even though all humans run away from the monster, he wants to help Felix’s family as he believes “it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people” despite their being strangers. This show of kindness despite no previous experience of human kindness is truly laudable and suggest that the monster is innately nice. However, in return for the Monster’s kindness, Felix attacks the monster, who now feels betrayed by his “friend”. But the monster is so resilient and kind, he takes control of his emotions and “rushes from his hiding-place and with extreme labour, from the force of the current, saved [a young girl] and dragged her to shore.” These acts of magnanimous rescue spring organically from a monster even though nobody ever teaches it the difference between right and wrong. However, Victor always considers himself before others. Even though Victor realizes that Justine is innocent, his first instinct is to protect himself as he declares, “ My tale is not one to announce publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon with madness.”Besides his reputation, Victor had nothing to lose, but because of his selfishness and recklessness, Victor causes the death of Justine. In addition, Victor is so narcissistic that he does not notice that the monster has been attacking his family and friends, such as his “dearest Henry” and Clerval. When the Monster tells Victor, that he will be with him on his wedding night, Victor immediately exclaims, "Villain! Before you sign my death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe." To the reader, it is obvious that the monster will attack his fiance, Elizabeth, but believing that the monster will murder him, Victor thinks only of himself, and he does not even think about protecting the
The idea for the novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to her one night when she was staying in the company of what has been called ‘her male coterie’, including Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley. Mary Shelley’s whole life seems to have been heavily influenced by men. She idolised her father, William Godwyn, and appears to have spent a good part of her life trying very hard to impress both him and her husband. There seems to have been a distinct lack of female influence, her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, having died weeks after her birth, being replaced by a neglectful step-mother. These aspects of her life are perhaps evident in her novel. The characters and plot of Frankenstein were perhaps influenced by Shelley’s conflicting feelings about the predominately masculine circle which surrounded her, and perhaps the many masculine traits that we see in novel were based upon those of the male figures in Shelley’s own life. In this essay I will attempt to show some of these traits.
Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, depicts a patriarchal society in which men pursue their goals against hopeless odds. Victor Frankenstein is a major male character depicted in Shelley’s work. He is “portrayed as the patriarch who creates but cannot love and who fears sexual reproduction (Griswold 87). Frankenstein is a prime example of a man who pursued their goals against hopeless odds. He reflected back on his curious childhood. During childhood, he wanted to learn the hidden laws of nature and he desired to learn the secrets of the heaven and earth (Shelley 33). From the beginning of his life, Frankenstein had the goal to discover the existence of heaven and earth. He took this in to his own hands by trying to bring a monster to life. It is hard to fathom that an individual has the ability to create another human being. It is a hopeless odd that Frankenstein would have the ability to bring different body parts, unite them with electricity, and create a new form of life. Even though this is considered a hopeless odd,
The protagonist of the novel is Victor Frankenstein. Victor has a hard time coping with life after the death of his mother. His inability to cope only gets worse with the creation of his monster. He constantly becomes ill and lives in solitude. His life is a sad story. His mother died when he was young. He creates monster that is responsible for the death of his good friend and his beloved wife. Because of the horrible news of the death of Victor’s wife, Victor’s father dies. Another important character is the monster. The monster’s life is also sad. Because of his appalling appearance, humans are afraid of him, so he is forced to be alone. When he finds a family that he believes will accept him, the family forces him to leave. However, the monster is also evil because he murders several people. Another important character is Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor’s father. Alphonse is a good father. He does what he can to console Victor and helps him become a happier person.
Geneva, Victor finds that Justine Moritz, a kind, gentle girl who had been adopted by the
Within Frankenstein, the level at which a female is portrayed is quite low. Like we have heard in class, women were not necessarily respected as much as men were when the novel was written. Published in 1818 by Mary Shelley, her story tells of the adventure of young Victor Frankenstein and the creation of his creature. Though deep within this narration of Frankenstein’s life, there seems to be an underlying theme seeping through Shelley’s writing. Shelley seems to venture into the idea of feminism and grotesquely show how men are treated much better than women. Her novel includes various concrete examples to support this hypothesis.
Most people agree that Victor Frankenstein holds the most power in the text. In creating the monster, he not only has the power to create life but also the power to, indirectly, save or destroy others lives. Critics of his character speculate that Justine could have been saved had be only confessed his actions in Ingolstadt.
Although “Frankenstein” is the story of Victor and his monster, Walton is the most reliable narrator throughout the novel. However, like most narrator’s, even his retelling of Victor’s story is skewed by prejudice and favoritism of the scientist’s point of view. Yet this could be attributed to the only view points he ever gets to truly hear are from Victor himself and not the monster that he only gets to meet after he comes to mourn his fallen master.
The novel begins with Victor Frankenstein discussing his childhood in Geneva. The major characters are Victor Frankenstein, The Monster, and Robert Walton. Other that contribute to the novel are Alphonse Frankenstein, Elizabeth Lavenza, Henry Clerval, Justine Moritz, Caroline Beaufort, Beaufort, M. Waldon, M. Krempe, M Kirwin,
Moritz had been a house maid for the Frankenstein family for most of her life. Her mother had worked for the family long before Moritz herself was born. She built close relationships with the Frankenstein family and grew up with the eldest kids Elizabeth and Victor Frankenstein. Moritz
Furthermore, Caroline’s passivity is displayed when Caroline brings Elizabeth from the orphanage and asks her husband to make Elizabeth part of the Frankenstein family. Victor describes El...
Sickened his actions, Victor prepares to return to Geneva. However, just before leaving the university, he receives a letter that his youngest brother has been killed. Victor hurries home, and while passing through the woods where William was strangled, he sees the monster and becomes convinced that the monster killed his brother. Arriving in Geneva, Victor finds that Justine Moritz, a ...
The change that Victor experiences throughout the novel Frankenstein is epitomized by his wife Elizabeth’s death. By this point in the novel Victor Frankenstein has lost every one of his family and friends that are close to him. After experiencing so much grief, loss, and guilt Victor begins to change. By only using the chapter which Elizabeths dies, it can be proved that the accumulation of other deaths and her death lead to the dehumanization of Frankensteins mental and physical states as well as his obsession with the monster. This dehumanization and change in Victor matters because it shows the growing connection between Victor and the monster he is chasing. The dehumanization that Victor experiences, is described in a specific way, using the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “ to deprive of human character or attributes.” (OED) In this essay dehumanized will be used not only with the OED definition, but also to show Victor’s attributes becoming not only less human but more and more like the monsters. The death of Elizabeth specifically exposes the full dehumanization of Frankenstein, seen though his mental state, physical appearance, and obsession with the monster, which leads to a greater similarities between Victor and the monster, this is ironic because Victor is hunting the very monster he is becoming.