Frankenstein: creator or destroyer? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a creator is: a person who or thing which creates or brings something into existence. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we see how Victor Frankenstein plays the role of the creator by bringing a different species into life. In creating this species Frankenstein did not realize that this creation would be in his own image, which would result in a monster. Victor did not only rushed his work to prove his knowledge but he also did not think far ahead of the consequences which lead to the monster to feel lonely and rejected. Due to all the rejection he received including from his creator the monster turn against humanity and everything his creator loved. In this paper …show more content…
From the monster’s point of view, we see how the monster does not understand why he is treated the way he is. He does not understand why he was created or even who his creator was: “And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely Ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome”(Shelley, 96). The hideous figure that the monster describes is the result of the rushed work Frankenstein did. Collecting dead parts of not only humans but animals as well. The selfishness in pursuing further knowledge and to demonstrate this knowledge did not let Frankenstein see that this creation was doomed. I go as far as to say that Frankenstein’s selfishness did not allowed him to think about how things were going to change once the creature came to life. He was too absorbed in pursuing the impossible, pursuing what no other human being had ever done. The way he brought the creature into life was unnatural. There is nothing natural about this creation therefore he does not have the instinct to love what he had brought into …show more content…
Although Frankenstein created the monster he is horrified by the way he looks, and fails to see that the monsters emotions are very human. How terrified Frankenstein is by the monster’s appearance is how terrified he is in himself. The monster is only a visual of the person Frankenstein is. Frankenstein never stops and thinks about how the monster feels. Even when he starts to see how this hatred that they feel for each other starts to consume them, he never stops thinking about himself. Frankenstein allows his monstrous self to destroy not only the monster emotionally but his own self mentally, emotionally and
As Frankenstein is enroute to his pursuit of gaining more knowledge, he states, “I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed” (Shelley 41). Frankenstein’s decision in allowing his intellectual ambitions to overpower everything else in his life leads him to be blinded to the dangers of creating life. He isolates himself from his society when creating the monster, letting himself be immersed in his creation while being driven by his passions, allowing nobody to be near him. The fact that he allows this creation of a monster to consume his total being reveals how blinded he is to the immorality of stepping outside the boundaries of science and defying nature. His goal in striving to achieve what wants to in placing man over nature makes him lose his sense of self as all he is focused on is the final product of his creation. He starts to realize his own faults as after he has created the monster, he becomes very ill and states, “The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him” (48). His impulsive decision to make the monster leads him to abhorring it as it does not turn out to be what he has expected. Because he chooses to isolate himself in creating the
Frankenstein only realizes the full ramifications of his actions when the monster first opens its eyes, but by then it is too late and nothing can stop the monster from being alive. Instead of taking responsibility for the monster he has created, Frankenstein flees and does not really question where it went upon his return, celebrated for a bit when he “becomes assured that [his] enemy had indeed fled” (Shelley 46), and it was not on his mind until it was seen when he got to his home town. This shows Frankenstein's true personality when faced with a difficult problem, as far as physiological reactions go he has the “flight” response. Every time a situation comes up that provokes stressful emotions he seeks for solitude in
...be compared to a parent-child relationship. Even the power in parent-child relationships, which have a clear authority figure, dissolves by the time the child becomes an adult; any residual authority is based only on mutual, usually affectionate, feelings. In Frankenstein's case, his creation does come to him with potentially affectionate feelings. The creation is fully forgiving of Frankenstein for abandoning him, and comes with a request for a companion. In exchange for the companion, the creation is willing to lay low like Frankenstein wants him to. When Frankenstein fails to deliver, though, the creation becomes angry and completely disregards the authority that Frankenstein thinks he has (Shelley). The reaction is very natural, and if the creation wasn't endowed with the same human qualities as any other human, the situation would not have ended the same way.
Frankenstein only takes action against it after his last family member has been killed by it because he cannot get accompany from his family anymore, which shows that he cares about himself more than the lives of other people. When the creature kills Dr. Frankenstein’s brother, his good friend Henry and his wife Elizabeth, he does not want to revenge because he still has his father to live for. However, after his father died by hearing the death of Elizabeth, he lost all his social interaction so he is alone and miserable. Before the monster’s depredations, he can depend on his family when he was sick or depressed; but now he is close to the state of solitude that the creature has experienced since being created. Therefore, Dr. Frankenstein becomes dehumanized and obsess with revenge. He could only feel his pain after all his family died, but never think of the creature’s desperation. The creature, with no bindings and no belongings, is on its own the whole life. As its creator, Dr. Frankenstein gives no love to it, but leave it cruelly. He could never understand why the creature take revenge on him because he is a narcissist. In the article, “Narcissism and Empathy in Young Offenders and Non-offenders”, author Erica G. Hepper explains that, “Although narcissistic individuals depend on other people’s praise and respect to feed their ego, they lack communal motivation and fail to consider the effect they have on others” (201). Dr. Frankenstein never care to think of what might happen to the creature after he rejects it. What he cares is he could not bear to look at the creature, so he just runs away. And now, Dr. Frankenstein decides to take revenge on the creature that all its miseries are caused by himself. Surprisingly, after Dr. Frankenstein died, the creature comments him by his bed, “Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me” (146)? Even though the creature
The creature’s moral ambiguity characteristic was a vile ingredient to the construction of this novel Frankenstein because it made the reader 's sympathies with him even after the audience knows he had committed murder because the readers had seen the truth this creature had to face. That he had tried everything within his power to peacefully live with them, to interact, communicate, and befriend them “these thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language”, that even though he was seen as a monster because of the looks he was created with, something he had no control over, he still had hope to be seen as equals, ”My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration;” this hope of his was utterly crushed, and can only set him up for utter disappointment(12.18). Because in the end he only received hates, scorns, violence, and prejudice from his good will. So in the end of the story, Mary Shelley’s forces the readers to see within the creature’s heart and for
Man has always been driven to create. We constantly shape the world around us by inventing stories of heroes and monsters, by crafting complex but passionate ideals about good and evil. Some relish in the power that this manipulation of reality wields; others are more innocent in that they are simply yielding to a universal longing for something in which to believe.
The novel provides no explanation for the creature 's ugliness, and if we are tempted to account for it psychologically as a mere projection of Frankenstein 's guilty revulsion from his deed, we run up against the evidence of the other characters ' reactions. The monster appears frighteningly ugly not just to his creator but to all who see him.” The fact that the monster is ugly, made him receive different treatment from his creator and from everyone else who saw him. So, when the creature finally realizes that he can no longer hope to be treated nicely by anyone, he must start viewing them the way they look upon him. This is shown when he states, “Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth." (Shelley, 175). After being treated with disrespect and as a terrifying outcast by so many people he eventually became a sadistic monster. Frankenstein’s creature is finally starting to experience some evil villainous thoughts. So at this point, he can be distinguished as a villain not just because
In the novel Frankenstein, the monster was singled out because of his monstrous looks. The reason he had such looks was because of the unnatural manner of his creation. The monster was created with a mix of stolen body parts and chemicals. One look at the monster would make anyone want to get out of his path. Once the monster came to life he was abandoned by his creator without any direction. He was left to fend for himself and deal with the prejudices that people had without getting to know his situation. The monster also didn't know how to react to the reactions from people which made him start to commit crimes. The monster said, "I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on" (Shelley 19). This eruption of angry self-pity as the monster questions the injustice of how he has been treated compellingly captures his inner life, giving Walton and the reader a glimpse into the suffering that has motivated his crimes. While the monster was wandering the town he encountered a family, and he learned how to speak ...
Is there a God? Is he real? These are questions that have managed to mess with humanity’s imaginations ever since the earliest stages of mankind until today. Although there has been many answers to these questions as there has been people asking them throughout history, a great majority seem to agree that God is the creator of all Mother Nature and mankind together. God is seen as this great father figure, someone who is loving and caring and someone who died for everyone’s sins. This thought made many believe that they too could create life and be like God, one of them being Victor Frankenstein. In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with the secret of life and passion for science leads to him to creating
I will not hear you. There can be no communicate between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall” (68). At this point in the novel, I sympathize with the monster even though he has become a terrible person. As his creator, Victor Frankenstein should have cared for the monster despite his disgusting appearance, but Victor ran away from his responsibilities toward creature, he did not give the creature what he wanted in his life, because he was feared of being killed by the creature. Frankenstein made the creature to murder the living humans, because the creature was very isolated and he did not had no one to talk to:” I was benevolent; my soul glow with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?” (68). If Frankenstein would have guided and nurtured the creature then the creature would have never sought revenge on Frankenstein and his family: I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend” (68). The creature demonstrated his true personality, due to the abandonation of his creator. However, the creature perceive Frankenstein of being the omnipotent God: “Remember, that I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou divest from joy for no misdeed” (68). Which demonstrates the melancholy part of the creature that was filled with loneliness and
The Creature, Victor Frankenstein’s creation, is shaped into a monster through its experiences, instead of the nature of itself, which is more expected. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, is shaped into a monster because of his mind’s power-hungry nature. Victor treats his creature poorly and he himself becomes wicked. While the Creature also becomes wicked in the end, its actions are more justified because multiple people treated it poorly, causing the Creature to lash out. Even though Victor Frankenstein and the Creature both turn into wicked monsters, to some extent, only one of
Frankenstein’s creation was a victim of circumstance. One who is brought into the world alone, with no protector to guide him, and is driven to desolation. A person with no mate is miserable, doomed to spend his life without pleasure or company. A man who is thrown out by those he deems his fellow creatures, lives a mean life, alone with infinite misery. Any creature that is demoted to this degree of torment is deserving of our sympathy. The monster is driven to his misery, and because of his anguish, transforms from a docile, loving creature, into a vicious, malevolent animal bent on revenge. Frankenstein’s monster was a victim of circumstance, and so deserves our sympathy.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley portrays an individual in a unique situation trying to overcome daily interactions while being faced with inconceivable misfortunes. Created by Victor Frankenstein, who set out on a journey to bring life to scrapped pieces of waste, he was then abandoned and left to fend for himself in a world he was abruptly brought into. After being abandoned by his creator for his less than appealing looks, this then sparked his inevitable desire for revenge. Eventually leading to the destruction of those associated with his creator. Knowing that he will never fit in, the monster began to act out in hopes of getting back at his creator for what he did. His vulnerability due to missing guidance and parental figures in his beginning stages of life contributed to his behavior. The books and article Family Crisis and Children’s Therapy Groups written by Gianetti, Audoin, and Uzé, Victim Of Romance: The Life And Death Of Fanny Godwin by Maurice Hindle, and Social Behavior and Personality by Lubomir Lamy, Jacques Fishcher-Lokou, and Nicolas Gueguen support why the monster acts the way he does. The monster’s behavior stems from Victor’s actions at the beginning of his life and therefore is not to blame. The creature in Frankenstein is deserving of sympathy even though he committed those murders because the lack of parental guidance, lack of family, and lack of someone to love led him to that. All in all his actions were not malicious, but only retaliation for what he had been put through.
Many people may think that if someone were to create life as complex as humans it would beneficial to humans. In the story Frankenstein, Victor creates an intelligent new species of life. This “monster” is rejected by society and seeks revenge on humans and Victor. Throughout Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the theme of the creation and destruction of life to illustrate how the creation of life can be a threat to many other lives.
In Mary Shelley 's timeless novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein refers to his creation as an abhorrent "monster". However, throughout relating his tale to Captain Walton, Frankenstein shows that he is the true monster. While "the monster" is overcome with a desire for revenge and a feeling of hatred towards man only after he is treated like a monster, Victor acts heartlessly while putting himself before anyone else, the true definition of a monster. Throughout the novel, Frankenstein demonstrates his selfish nature; his creation, on the other hand, shows selflessness and generosity even after being shunned by man. Shelley makes is very evident that although Frankenstein 's creation is referred to as "the monster", Victor Frankenstein is the real monster in Frankenstein.