This ironic foreshadow, depicts the consequential outcomes of his weakening relationships and his deprecating social health. Ultimately, a universal theme seen predominantly throughout Frankenstein is the pursuit of knowledge. The quest for knowledge is not in itself deprecating, but the way Victor Frankenstein pursues it and the motivation for glory that drives him is deprecating. Thus we see, that if knowledge is pursued for the wrong reasons and through the wrong methods, it is deprecating for our social relations and mental
Although Kant would argue that the lead-strings of a Prince is demeaning to a Prince and the people. Overall we have seen that Machiavelli’s view on human nature is one of distrust and disappointment. In Machiavelli’s mind the nature of humans is a justifiable reason to manipulate and suppress people. However, Machiavelli also fears being hated as he knows that hate will result in Prince’s demise. Kant also dislikes human nature, however, Kant unlike Machiavelli has hope that man can evolve from immaturity and become enlightened.
He makes a point of taking the moral high ground over Maria, Feste and more importantly, his social superior Sir Toby, when he scorns them for their revelries and “disorders”. This in turn adds to their desire to avenge him and bring him from his level of false authority, back to his true social class of a mere steward at which he is unable to give out orders, but only to receive them. Although he is a man of supposed purity and self-denial in practice, his aspirations are such that he becomes hypocritical. In turn he makes his character one of further malevolence. He secretly longs for the life of a man higher in social status and fancies that through the love of Olivia, he could become such a person “having come from my day bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping ”.
Emotions are literalized as characters, supernatural phenomena, and the protagonist and antagonist roles. Victor Frankenstein's upbringing in a perfect society ultimately led to the destruction of his life which coincided with the lives of those emotionally close to him. Victor was raised in an atmosphere where beauty and physical appearance define one's quality of life. This superficial way of life results in a lost sense of morals and selfishness, which in turn produces a lost sense of personal identity. This can cause a feeling of failure and resentment in the later stages of life which, in Victor's case, can be externalized into a form of hatred directed toward himself.
The monster, like a newborn child, is malleable to the world, and as the object of disgust and loathing, is corrupted and driven to murderous deeds by his absolute misery of his lonely isolated life. In Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley creates a powerful story of torment and obsession through the skillful use of the literary devices of symbolism, irony, and foreshadowing. Mary Shelley uses symbolism to dramatically express the dominant theme of obsession in her gripping novel. By means of a prevalent symbol, light, Victor tells of his feverish obsession to create a living being saying, “No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
He recognises this when he says “I am malicious because I am miserable… If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear”, and so he does. He declares an “everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me”, as he blames everything that is wrong in his life on Frankenstein.
He began realizing that it was the people he loved that mattered rather than his knowledge. After seeing Frankenstein die, Walton ultimately pulls back from his perfidious mission having learned from his example of what a hunger for knowledge can do. Mary Shelley does a great job showing the harmful effects of a thirst for knowledge are, and also presenting to us where our true happiness lies, with our loved ones.
Once in a while, the news exposes horrid crimes in which offenders react to unfair treatments or uncontrollable incidents strayed from their good aims. These types of accounts often trigger debates on who are primary villains. In a complex society, one’s limited objectives sometimes trigger cascading effects, especially if one deviates from one’s rectitude. Therefore, without a precaution on the consequence, one’s free will may end with a disaster. Mary Shelley typifies this notion in her fiction Frankenstein, in which Victor Frankenstein, a fervid scientist, creates a monstrous creature in his heedless pursuit of knowledge at a cost of a few lives.
Frankenstein is about a young man called Victor who has a thirst for knowledge and ambition. He discovers the secret of animating lifeless matter and, by assembling corpses, creates a monster that vows revenge on his creator after being rejected from society. This essay will be looking at how Shelley inspires sympathy for the monster. Sympathy is a feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the distress of another. Shelley creates sympathy for the monster by creating themes of alienation and prejudice towards him.
Mary lets the reader know why Victor Frankenstein decides to create his monster through ambiguous soliloquy like ramblings and critics make sure to let others know their theories behind the motives for his heinous actions. Nevertheless, Victor wants to be famous and he intends to do so by creating a superhuman ‘monster.’ He discovers the hidden secret of creating life and starts right away into a delirious like state of work. The actual abuse of power that he commits can be seen through the lack of thought about the repercussions behind his actions (Shelley 48-51). Victor refuses to acknowledge that he usurps the power reserved to God only. A famous saying I have heard recently states ‘Play God, Pay the Price’; Victor tries to play God and he definitely pays the price by creating a monster who would destroy his whole family.