Similarities Between Jack Worthing And Frankenstein

Jack Worthing from The Importance of Being Earnest, and Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein seem to not relate to each other at all. However, upon closer inspection, the two are comparable: both Jack Worthing and Victor Frankenstein show their lack of responsibility through the lies they tell to evade their duty. As Jack grows more bored of the country, he begins to create another personality called Ernest where he can visit the city freely and avoid his responsibility. Similarly, Victor avoids his responsibility of raising up his creation by running from it. He also does not tell anyone else about his “issue.” Although Jack’s motives for avoiding his responsibilities may be more selfish, Victor’s evasion is much worse due to the fact that

Dr. Frankenstein’s responsibility originated from the creation of a creature, who he was supposed to nurture and care for it. Instead, he ran from it because “breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart,” (Shelley 59). This original retreat, a result of Victor’s abhorrence of his creation, was only augmented after the unsupervised creature started to kill Victor’s family and friends. Now, Victor chooses to run away from his creation because “...the strange nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if [he] were so far credited as to persuade my relatives to commence it. And then of what use would be pursuit?” (Shelley 85). As one can observe, Frankenstein is at first avoiding his responsibility for a more selfish reason. Once his mistake starts to be involved in crime, he avoids the responsibility of telling the police, or really anything, about the creature so that nobody will get in the creature’s destructive path. In a way, Victor grows much more concerned with others than himself, as he does not want people to waste their resources on fighting something that is so hard to take down. He would rather take

He wanted to be accepted by a woman as well as have a happy life. Victor, on the other hand, decided to keep this secret away from others so that they would not have to go through the same things that he did. He would also save people’s time, energy, and possibly lives because no-one would try to interfere with the creature’s work. On the subject of the two characters’ reactions to being forced into responsibility, although the two characters both essentially do the same thing to avoid responsibility, which is to run away from them, Victor’s reaction is worse, since he does not make any indication that he will eventually care for his creature. Jack chooses to avoid the responsibilities, but still goes back at some point or another to carry out his task of caring for Cecily in the country. Jack also mentions that he will stop avoiding responsibility if he is able to marry Gwendolen: “If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.” (Wilde 9). Finally, the result of Frankenstein’s evasion of responsibility was much more adverse compared to Jack. Jack’s lies conveniently helped his case, since they inadvertently became the truth. His journeys to the city had gotten him a wife, helped him understand his origins, and