The True Monster Created by Victor Frankenstein In Mary Shelly’s gothic novel Frankenstein, protagonist Victor and the Monster illustrate a conflict between humanity and monstrosity. The portrayal of this character reveals his transformation from man to monster. This exposes the ironic twist in this tale that the sinister being created by Frankenstein is himself. Victor Frankenstein evolves into the true monster in this novel by alienating himself, creating the monster, and showing irrational behavior. First, Frankenstein alienates himself from society when he is creating his monster. Victor secludes himself for around two years “in a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation” (53). Victor is afraid of people discovering what he is doing in his lab. Victor goes on, “so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation"(54). Since his creation has demanded all his time and attention, he isolated himself from society. When Victor becomes entranced in his studies, he loses sight of what is really important. His loss of interaction with humanity causes him to transform into an evil character. …show more content…
“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet” (55). He begins to think that he is this omnipotent being and the maker of man. Victor says “a new species would bless me as its creator and source” (52). He takes on this role as a god; however, there is only one true creator of life and that is God. Frank violates the laws of nature and mankind by creating this monster. Therefore, he must be held accountable for his creature’s
Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein is a novel narrated by Robert Walton about Victor Frankenstein and the Monster that he creates. Frankenstein grew up surrounding himself with what he loved most, science. He attended Ingolstadt University where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy, but being involved in academics was not enough for him. Frankenstein wanted to discover things, but did not think about the potential outcomes that could come with this decision. Frankenstein was astonished by the human frame and all living creatures, so he built the Monster out of various human and animal parts (Shelley, 52). At the time Frankenstein thought this creation was a great discovery, but as time went on the Monster turned out to be terrifying to anyone he came in contact with. So, taking his anger out on Frankenstein, the Monster causes chaos in a lot of people’s lives and the continuing battle goes on between the Monster and Frankenstein. Throughout this novel, it is hard to perceive who is pursuing whom as well as who ends up worse off until the book comes to a close.
At first, Victor believes himself superior to nature, and he builds a creature to prove his dominance. After gathering the information and materials needed to create life, Victor begins to fantasize about what he is about to do. He sees “life and death [as] ideal bounds, which [he] should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into [their] dark world. A new species would bless [him] as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to [him]” (Shelley 55). Life and death are natural things, but Victor thinks that he can “break through” them and create life. He alone would be the person to “pour a torrent of light into their dark world,” as if he was God, ruling over all of the world. This shows Victor’s lack of respect towards life and how he intends to overcome the boundaries set by nature. Unlike the Romantic who revered and honored nature, Victor wants to use it for his own gain. He expects “happy” and “excellent natures” to obey him, and he doesn’t dwell upon the consequences of his actions. His outlook changes after the Creature comes to life. As Victor stares into the watery, lifeless eyes of his creature, he finally realizes his mistake in trying to disrupt the natural order of the world. Scared by the outcome of his actions, Victor attempts to run away and find comfort in nature. He travels to the Arve Ravine, where “the
As he goes off to college, interested in the science behind life and death, he ends up going his own way and attempts to create a living being. Victor “had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (Shelley 43). The being Victor has created does not by any means sit well with him. As victor is away from his family and for six years, he is neglectful to them, which only adds to his sorrow and misery. Victor’s isolation is brought upon him because of himself, however his creation, or “the monster”, is isolated from any connections with humans against his will. To start out, the monster would have had Victor there with him, but Victor is ashamed of what he has created, and abandons the monster. The monster is a very hideous being, which sadly is a contributing factor to his isolation. With nobody to talk to at any time, naturally this will be condescending and frustrating. Although the monster is able to
What is a monster, really? Is it really a Creature that has three eyes instead of two, with pus seeping out of every crevice in his face and an abnormally large form? Or is it someone with a mind so corrupt it rivals that of Satan? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story within a story that centers on the tale of a man with an immense thirst of knowledge and a fetish to imitate the Creator. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a lot like the Greek mythological tale of the Greek God, Prometheus, and his brother, Epimetheus, who were assigned the task of creating man. The story captivates the theme of monstrosity. Mary Shelley wrote the novel in a form so the reader’s opinions never stray far from sympathy for the monster and apathy for Victor Frankenstein. The novel looks at “Monstrosity” and “Humanity” in a deeply analytical way.
The monster of the novel is often misattributed with the name, “Frankenstein.” However, Victor Frankenstein can ultimately be considered the true monster of this tale. His obsession would lead to the corruption of his soul and the creation of two monsters—one himself, and the other, the creature. In attempting to take on the role of God, nature would become a monster to Victor and destroy his life. These elements of monstrosity in Frankenstein drive the meaning of its story.
He created a life, and then spontaneously he quickly decided to run away from his creation. Victor’s actions after creating what he created were really irresponsible, and did not correctly took care of the circumstance’s he put himself in. The creation was never actually evil, but he felt abandoned by what could had been called his father. Frankenstein, the monster, was only a seeker for companionship. He strongly desired to feel loved, rather than abandoned. Society’s evil behavior toward the monster is what altered the monster’s conduct and followed to how he acted.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley introduces the change from good to evil with the attention that guardians give a child. William Crisman, in his critique of Mary Shelley’s work, identifies the “sibling rivalry” between Victor and the rest of his family. Crisman remarks that Victor feels as if he is the most important person in his parents’ lives, since he was Alphonse’s and Caroline’s only child. The Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth and Victor sarcastically remarks that he has a happy childhood. This prompts Victor starts to read essays about alchemy and study natural science. Anne Mellor, another critic of Frankenstein, proposes that Frankenstein’s creature was born a good person and society’s reaction to him caused him to turn evil. Victor’s makes the creature in his own perception of beauty, and his perception of beauty was made during a time in his life when he had secluded himself from his family and friends. He perceived the monster as “Beautiful!”, but Victor unknowingly expressed the evil in himself, caused by secluding himself from everybody, onto the creature (60). In this way, the creature is Victor’s evil mirrored onto a body. The expression of Victor onto the monster makes the townspeople repulsed by the creature. The theory of the “alter ego” coincides with Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry (Mellor). Mary Shelley conveys that through Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry, Victor isolates himself from society. Mellor describes the isolation during his creation of his creature leads to him giving the creature false beauty that causes Victor to abandon him and society to reject him.
It is when Frankenstein realizes how different he is to other people that he realizes his uniqueness and individualism. “I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon a coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” (Frankenstein, 150). While Frankenstein is by no means a human, he is made up of human parts and still craves love and affection. His rejection from everyone he sees, including his creator makes him feel like an outcast. It was because of Victor that Frankenstein couldn’t bear to be who he was made to be and felt a need to run into isolation. Victor not only created a monster physically, but also mentally turned him into someone he didn’t have to be. Both Frankenstein and Victor struggle with balancing their personal wants and needs with societies expectations and the people around them. That is one of the true struggles of being one person living in a world of many, you have to do what makes you happy while making sure it doesn’t effect other peoples happiness negatively. Victor doesn’t do a good job of
We are shown that this ‘monster’ is a ‘creature’ and more of a human than we think. It is in the complex structure of the novel that Mary Shelley creates sympathy. We shift from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to the monster and finally back to Walton. With each shift of perspective, the reader gains new information about both the facts of the story and the reliability of the narrator. Each perspective adds pieces of information that only they knows: Walton explains the circumstances of Victor’s last days, Victor explains his creation of the monster, the monster explains his turn to evil.
So, when he created Frankenstein “the monster” he turned out to be this grotesque and unnatural creature which was different from what Victor had imagined. However, at the site of looking at his creation, Victor is now spooked by his appearance and immediately turned off by his own creation. For example, in chapter 5 Victor says, “I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, continued a long time traversing my bed chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” (Page 35). Again, we can see Shelley’s use of Gothic elements infused with the monstrous theme. However, this causes Victor to immediately stray away from the monster because he views his creation as repulsive and upsetting. Which marks the first sign of abandonment that Victor places on his creation. This doesn’t do any justice for Victor because now the monster is trying to assert himself into Victor’s life but yet feels more and more neglected from the absence of love that Victor doesn’t want to give in terms of having a relationship with
...e seeking help and strength to take care of problems in their lives. Victor Frankenstein is a man with a loving and caring family. Family and friends are an important part of his life. He has his whole life in front of him, when creates his monster. He creates the monster in the likeness of man with same need of love and affection as man. Although, this is his creation, he lets the monster down and does not care for him. The monster begins to feel neglected and lonely and wants desperately to have a human relationship. The monster turns angry and revengeful because he is so sad and abandoned. He wants Victor to feel the way that he does, all alone. The monster succeeds and Victor ends up losing all the important in his life and his own life. In the end, the monster dies and the need for human relationship becomes the destruction for both the monster and Victor.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a nineteenth century literary work that delves into the world of science and the plausible outcomes of morally insensitive technological research. Although the novel brings to the forefront several issues about knowledge and sublime nature, the novel mostly explores the psychological and physical journey of two complex characters. While each character exhibits several interesting traits that range from passive and contemplative to rash and impulsive, their most attractive quality is their monstrosity. Their monstrosities, however, differ in the way each of the character’s act and respond to their environment. Throughout Frankenstein, one assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is the true monster. While the creation’s actions are indeed monstrous, one must also realize that his creator, Victor Frankenstein is also a villain. His inconsiderate and selfish acts as well as his passion for science result in the death of his friend and family members and ultimately in his own demise.
Victor Frankenstein was the creator of the monster in the book. He was an ambitious man who had high hopes and dreams for himself, but this characteristic was the cause of his downfall. He had a ruthless desire to obtain forbidden knowledge- a knowledge that only God was worthy of having. This lead him to lock himself in his laboratory, disregarding his family, friends, and health. His one purpose was to create life. In his quest to create a human being and bestow the power of life, Victor eventually did create a creature, but this lead to a situation
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the motif of monstrosity to convey the theme that a person’s outward appearance is not what makes them a monster but rather their actions or inactions that classify true monstrosity. Despite the fact that the monster Victor Frankenstein creates is a literal example of monstrosity in the novel there are many parts that give meaning to monstrosity within character’s actions. Although Victor appears normal, since he is human his ambitions, secrets, selfishness, and inaction makes him a monster himself. Along with monstrous characters the pursuit of knowledge that is seen in Victor, his monster, and Walton in Frankenstein prove that knowledge can be a monstrosity. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is created using the life stories of different characters in the novel. The novel itself could be seen as a monster created similarly to Victor’s monster.