Viktor Frankenstein: The True Monster

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Recommended: Literary analysis for frankenstein

Nick Smith
English 4
Mr. Farrington
January 5, 2017

Viktor Frankenstein’s chosen isolation and his ignorance for those who care for him as well as his own creation make him the true monster. In contrast, the creature’s wish to attain to achieve friends and social interactions almost make him more of a human than Viktor Frankenstein. Looking beyond the outer appearance of the monster, it seems evident that what he began as was not a monster. Instead it was the extreme misconceptions of humans, resulting in extreme isolation of the creature, that caused him to become a monster. The creature had no “relation or friend upon earth,” hence he, in a way, is linked to humans (Shelley 147). The health and survival of a human baby is dependent on …show more content…

Viktor has set out to create life, to make something live that had not before. His mother’s passing may have pushed him over the edge into this, and he works tirelessly to create another person. “I began the creation of a human being” (Shelley 54). Viktor refers to the body at his feet as, “the lifeless thing” and it may very well be the beginning of his disassociation of the creature with humanity. Viktor seems to be quite content in isolation. His passion for his work causes him to revert to isolation. He mentions that “no youth could have passed more happily than mine” (Shelley 67). Furthermore, his parents emphasize to him that it will cause them great distress if he doesn’t stay in touch with them. Despite their pleading and past kindness to him, Viktor still …show more content…

He genuinely cannot stand the sight of the creature. If there was a person who should be able to overcome the creature’s physical presence, it is Viktor. Not only is Viktor the creator, but he also put so much of his own time and effort into the creature. But the creature’s body is too hideous. Furthermore, Viktor attributes his change in feeling to “human nature”. This contrasts with the horrifying description that the reader is just given of the creature. Here, Viktor is explaining the creature’s disgusting body, and explaining his reaction to it as human nature. Humans deny the creature because of the way he looks, yet the creature is made from human bodies and desires to belong to the community of humans. By sheer definition, the creature cannot have “human nature.” Human nature is a way of behaving that all humans are born with. It is a phrase that describes the way humans are inclined to react to situations based on the fact that they are humans. It is something that humans have naturally, but since the creature is not a naturally occurring being he does not have human nature. The creature will also be unable to understand human nature. He is not equipped with the knowledge of how humans behave, and does not understand it. The creature is not a human that was born, he is a being that was made. Therefore by definition he is lacking human nature, and it is this human nature that causes people to exclude

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