Victor Frankenstein spent months in his laboratory constructing a monstrous figure from discarded human remains. When the crack of lightening on this particular night deemed Victor a father, he proudly accepted his fate. Victor dreamed of producing an offspring but Elizabeth’s infertility posed a problem for biological children. His desire to be a father could have been satisfied through adoption or a surrogate, but Victor’s interest in the creation of life lead him to take matters into his own hands. The months of Victor’s hard work had finally come to a head when the creature calmly sat up from the operating table and stared, with deep-yellow eyes, into the optics of his creator.
“Hello my creature,” said Victor but there was no reply. Initially the creature lacked the ability to produce language, however, Victor was certain of his capability to comprehend language. Seconds after the greeting, the creature nodded his thick skull and produced a grunt as he motioned for Victor to come. As Victor slowly approached the creature he became more aware of his unaesthetically appeasing form and for a second became afraid of the giant monstrosity he had created. Victor tried to
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In fact, he was eager to present his work to the public but more importantly to Elizabeth, the creature’s mother. Victor fancied the creature, dressing him in a suit tailored by Elizabeth and combing his patchy hair. Though large in stature, the clothes covered most of the scars giving the impression of someone approachable and not monster-like at all. While the scars on his face were still visible in some sense he did not appear atrocious; the clothes seemed to create a facade to the monster deep inside. The creature’s attire along with his contagious smile made him appear beautiful. Although at first glance his appearance was daunting, the clothes presumed him civilized and his smile made him more
Rather, it is others who alienate it because of its grotesque appearance. The monster is quite literally ‘born’ into perpetual isolation beginning with Victor’s abandonment of it. He denies it domestic safety when he flees to his bedchamber. Victor disregards the monster’s utterance of “inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled his cheeks,” then escapes its outstretched hand “seemingly to detain [him]” [Shelley 49]. Examining the monster’s body language as though an impressionable infant, its actions can be read as a child-like plea for its father though the absence of speech not yet learned. Instead, its unattractive appearance causes Victor to run, leaving the creature alone with no information about himself or his surroundings. Therefore, Victor’s abandonment is a crucial justification of the monster’s negative experiences with society and nature and actions in desiring community. The monster’s alienation from family is the missing first school of human nature, and the first lesson where he learns he does not belong. The creature leaves into the wilderness to learn about the world and himself on it own, only to understand his interactions are
The Creature was born capable of thing such as love and sympathy though he lost these capabilities as a result of how he was treated. The creature’s heart was ‘fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy’ but wrenched with misery to ‘vice and hatred’. On a cold night in November, Victor Frankenstein brought his creation to life. This creation has thin black lips, inhuman eyes, and
This new side arouse from desperation and rejection, he was scared, and he could not stand the loneliness. Victor’s did not create a monster. Victor changed the character of the creature, the creature showed more humanity than his creator and now he act as though he looks, like a
This was Victor's response to the reaching out of the monster towards Victor on the night of his creation. Victor, who for months had worked on this creation, was suddenly confronted with the results of his scientific pursuit. He had labored night and day in an effort to do something that had never been done by man before. He had figured out the scientific way to bring life to that which was dead, so he blindly went forth and did it. He never really stopped to think what the consequences of his action might be. He knows that the creature he is making is ugly, but he never wonders what will happen to the creature after he is brought to life as a result of that ugliness. The monster is made oversized so it's easier for Victor to work on him, yet no thought is taken about how the creature might feel about such a form.
The creature soon began to understand human language, so he started to read the book he took from Victor Frankenstein’s lair, giving him the information on how he became. Fully understanding of things, the creature is now responsible for his sayings and actions.
In drastic contrast to Victor, The creatures early beginning had no ounce of love as victor had as Victor gave none. Naomi Hethering describes Victors want to give affection to the creature “only fleetingly“ as his first responses to the creature were of disgust, even to the point of saying “Dante could not conceived”(43) such a horror. Appearance alone caused major alienation of a son to a father or creator, and when your father cannot even accept you where can you turn? Society's judgement on appearance continues to be illuminated as his sight alone causes an entire villages to immediately erupt in violence and causes old man to run with speed “of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable”(90). Mary Shelley addresses this conflict directly later as the creature sees his own reflection and is horrified. We know the creatures character character is good as seen with his interactions with the Blind DeLacy so the only thing to pin this drastic alienation is the creature's appearance. His appearance and happenings with others drove his contempt of the beautiful. This seen with his interactions with Justine Moritz, as he prematurely decided what her reaction would be to seeing him and resented her for it, saying that “she shall suffer...be hers the punishment”(128). Mary Shelley illustrates a picture of horror on so manys faces during the
The next morning, Victor woke up to the creature standing over him. Victor jumped out of his bed and ran out of the room, completely frightened. Victor’s original thought was that his own creation was trying to kill him in his sleep. Victor peered around the corner to see what the creature was doing. He saw the creature sitting on his bed looking confused and upset. He walked over to the creature, and the creature in a broken sentence asked for water and food. Victor felt foolish for thinking his creature would want to kill him. Victor made the creature breakfast and helped him learn how to use a fork and knife. Victor could not help but laugh when he saw how funny and abnormally large the creature looked sitting at the table.
A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques. Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love. To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”. Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility. Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s inevitable evilness. Victor was not predestined to failure, nor was his creation innately depraved. Rather, it was Victor’s poor “parenting” of his progeny that lead to his creation’s thirst for vindication of his unjust life, in turn leading to the ruin of Victor’s life.
Explore the ways Mary Shelley presents the character of the monster in Frankenstein We are prepared for the arrival of the monster in many different ways, before he is created we know the monster is going to be a repulsive figure of a human being, but the reader is still intrigued into reading further, and because of Shelley's descriptive language we already feel disgust towards victors creation, and in doing so, we our-selves become just as callous as those people in the book that neglect Frankenstein's monster. Also because the monster was created by Victor using parts dug up from graves and morgues, and we associate graveyards with horror and death, there is immediately something sinister about the monster and to a point, Victor. The reader can already see the problems with creating artificial life in this way, and in the beginning of the novel, the reader is almost willing victor not to pursue his quest for knowledge, but victor is blinded by his own arrogance to stop and think carefully about what he is about to do. This is when Victor the man becomes separated from Frankenstein the scientist. "I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted" Victor despises death, and his mind is occupied incessantly with it, and after the demise of his mother, victor cannot escape it, and subconsciously he dedicates his life towards combating the process.
The theme in a piece of literature is the main idea or insight on characters. Most pieces of literature do not limit itself to one but many other themes all collected into one. This is just like in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This horrifying story was produced in 1818 and has several themes that she portrays throughout. The theme of dangerous knowledge is unmistakably seen theme in Frankenstein. In Frankenstein we see this theme through three of the main characters, Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton and the creature. We can see how their desire for knowledge can take them places and show them eventually what they are looking for. Sooner or later it will take them to dangerous and unwanted places. The desire for knowledge can eventually lead one to its grave. Victor Frankenstein’s scientific endeavor, Robert Walton’s search for the North Pole, and the creature’s kind heart but scary features creates this theme of dangerous knowledge.
In any novel the author is free to create and shape their characters in whatever way they see fit. In Frankenstein, Shelley does an excellent job of shaping her characters, be it however minute their part in the story, so that the reader gets a clear picture of Shelley's creations. It seems that each character in Shelley's Frankenstein is created by Shelley to give the reader a certain impression of the character. By doing this Shelley creates the characters the way she wants us to see them. She tells us certain things about them and gives them certain traits so that they will fit into the story the way she wants them to. In particular I will examine the characters of the monster, Elizabeth, and old man De Lacey.
Victor Frankenstein and his creation are alike in several ways, one of them being their appreciation of nature. Victor embraces the nature for the quick moment that he escapes the creature as it “filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy” (Shelley 84). Vict...
The creature is born into the world with a fully functional brain; however, he has no knowledge of anything. As the story progresses, the creature quickly learns the language, culture, and customs of the world he lives in. Since he is horribly ugly, he is rejected by the people of his society, this is the motivation behind his need and desire to learn about himself and the society he lives in. As the creature obtains more and more knowledge, he finally discovers his origins and birth from Victor. As a result, the Creature becomes a wretched monster, who now has no sympathy for anyone or anything. The Creature becomes fixed on the idea of needing a companion, and due to this obsession, he turns Victor’s life upside down. The Creature is able to torment Victor by killing his family members, then quickly vanishing so Victor can not tell who or what he saw. The Creature and Victor finally meet again and the Creature tells Victor of his stories and struggles. Throughout the novel, the Creature remains in the same state of being, he persistently harasses Victor and maintains a watchful eye on him. At the beginning of the novel, the Creature is an innocent being, made purely for science. In the end of the novel the reader sees what the Creature truly becomes when Victor has died and the Creature is having his last words, he says: “I felt the cheering warmth of summer, and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation”(pg. 166). This explains how the Creature is aware of how he has changed from start to beginning. The society that he lived in, causes him to shift from an innocent and loving creature, to a hopeless and wretched
Although Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre are comparatively different, the characters are delicately crafted to unfold a captivating theme throughout each novel which embodies the idea of the social outcast. The Monster and Jane Eyre struggle through exile due to an inability to fit into the social norms presented by the era. The characters embark on a journey while coping with alienation and a longing for domesticity which proves to be intertwined with challenges. Character, developed as social outcasts are appealing and sympathized with by readers because of their determination to reach a level of happiness. The voyage toward domesticity, away from the exile of society which Jane Eyre and The Monster embark on
When speaking about the natural philosophers that inspired him to uncover the mysteries of life, Victor talks about how little the philosopher knows, “He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect,” (Shelley 40). The depiction of nature as female and as something still not understood shows that Victor’s mission isn’t simply to create without the feminine, but to understand it. When Cross examines the creature’s learning of language, she makes the point that “the creature seeks language as a way of compensating for his appearance…however, the very language he learns determines not only the structures of his relationship, but his very identity, as the product of a specifically gendered and structured discourse.” (Cross 557). Here, Cross considers the creature to be symbolic of women in art, attempting to be included by learning the male dominated discourse, but never being accepted because of their inherent nature. However well the creature works as a symbol for the lack of feminine acceptance in academics, the creature is always identified as male, by Victor and the creature himself. Instead, if the creature is in some part a reflection of Victor himself, then Victor’s isolation, after his creation slays William, is self-imposed to prevent the acquisition of sympathy, by his fear of