In 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published. Mary Shelley has been compared to her characters since her book was published. While reading Frankenstein, multiple similarities between Mary Shelley and numerous characters in her story can be made. Similarities such as the way she grew up, her interactions with people in her life, and people she lost in her life. All of the similarities she included are negative occurrences. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, one of the protagonists is names Elizabeth. Elizabeth was an orphan taken in by the Frankenstein family at a young age. Even though she was not biologically related to the Frankensteins, they were still her family. In Frankenstein Victor states:
Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever;
…show more content…
Her adoptive mother, Caroline Frankenstein, nurses her back to health, Unfortunately, Caroline becomes sick herself and passes away. Mary Shelley had a similar occurrence with the passing of her mother. Her mother, “Mary Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever” caused from giving birth to Mary Shelley (Meller). It can be assumes that Mary Shelley felt guilty. If her mother had not given birth to her, she would not have caught the illness that killed her. The same can be said with Elizabeth, her mother would not have gotten sick if she had not cared for Elizabeth while she was sick. Mary Shelley felt guilt regarding the death of her mother and incorporated the negative event into her …show more content…
(Shelley, Mary)
Victor’s description of his creature does not resemble giving life, but instead illustrates what death looks like. With yellow, thin skin and dun white sockets, one would think he was looking at a corpse instead of a creature that was just granted life. This compares to Mary Shelley’s life because she also tried to create life. “Mary Shelley experienced the horrors of a stillborn birth herself prior to completing the novel” (Mary Shelley). She writes how the loss of her child is haunting her. It begins with:
Mary 's journal entry of March 19th, 1815, which of course the trauma of her loss when she was 17, of her first baby, the little girl who did not live long enough to be given a name. ‘ dream that my little baby came to life again comma apostrophe Mary Road, apostrophe that it had only been cold and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived awake and found no baby. I think about that little thing all day. Not in good spirits. (Moers,
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.
Every parent has their own opinion on the best way to raise a child. Victor Frankenstein, however is a perfect example on how not to raise a child. Unlike Victor’s parents, he was not a good caretaker of the creature that he created. Victor’s parents were compassionate people not only to their children but to the poor and the rest of their family as well. Victor can recall his childhood as being grateful for what he had and for the way his parents treated others. Victor's monster on the other hand, would not describe his first months of being alive as anything close to happy. Not only was victor fortunate enough to have had such caring parents, he also had his best friend Clerval and his adopted sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was there to comfort
Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the Creature seem different from each other throughout the whole story, however, they actually share many similarities when the story is looked at deeper. Both the Creature and Frankenstein share a connection with nature, a desire for more knowledge, a need for family, and experiences in isolation.
As time goes on, many things tend to change, and then they begin to inherit completely different images. Over the years, the character, created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s famous novel, has changed dramatically. The monster, regularly called “Frankenstein,” has been featured in numerous films, such as Frankenweenie and Edward Scissorhands. Although, the characters in today’s pop culture and the monster in the well-known 1800’s novel have similarities, they are actually very different. The many similarities and differences range from the character’s physical traits and psychological traits, the character’s persona, and the character’s place in the Gothic style.
In Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, one could believe that Shelley purposely made Victor and the creature very similar to show that just because of how a person looks does not mean they are different than a beautiful human being. Victor and the creature are not alike in their physical appearance but their personalities are nearly parallel. They both have an appreciation for nature, as well as a desire to be part of a loving family.
As previously mentioned, Victor’s childhood was full of parental support, and even included his parents “adopting” another child into their home (Shelley 35). The creature’s “parent” Victor, abandons him, leaves him to fend for himself, which results in the creature feeling angry toward Victor. The creature had a resentful, distant relationship with his creator, while Victor’s upbringing could not have been more different. Shelley uses the story of Victor’s childhood; the adoption of Elizabeth, the stories of the De Lacey children to compare to the creature and the “upbringing” Victor is denying him. The opposition in parenthood is displayed between Victor and the creature are displayed by the way Shelley writes the creature’s last quotes after Victor’s death “Once I had falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities I was capable of unfolding” (Shelley 239). The opposition lies in the monumental difference in parenting between Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein, and Victor Frankenstein. Perhaps if the creature had been cared for more adequately, the story would’ve ended much
Victor had created the creature with the vision from his dreams of a strong, tall perfect being with no flaws. His years of study with the unnatural and science had come to this final conclusion and masterful idea that he was determined to finish. To his surprise, he had created the opposite, “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 35) Victor is saddened by what he thinks of as a failure. He leaves his own apartment to go sleep in his court yard outside following his creation. He begins to isolate himself from the creature because of his fear of the creature’s outward appearance. He loses all hope for the creature without even learning anything about him. The fact that Shelley begins to refer to the being that Victor created as a “creature” shows Victor’s ignorance and lack of acceptance. It is Victor’s prejudice that blinds him of the creature’s true potential due to the unwanted preconception that follows the creature as he finds meaning in
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein and the monster that he creates are very similar. For example, Victor creates the monster to be like himself. Another similarity is that the anger of both Victor and the monster is brought about by society. One more parallel between Victor and the monster is that they both became recluses. These traits that Victor and the monster possess show that they are very similar.
Every artist draws inspiration from somewhere, and the inspiration shows in their work. When looking deeper into the life of Mary Shelley, it is easy to say that the inspiration she drew to create her novel Frankenstein, came from her own personal experiences. Frankenstein is riddled parallels to Marry Shelley’s own life. It was not just by mere coincidences either, Mary Shelley makes various references to family members (specifically by name), places she visited, and situations she faced, herself, all of these experiences are documented in her novel Frankenstein.
Frankenstein gets sicker- eventually dying from the disease. Through Mrs. Frankenstein dying, Elizabeth takes the place as the mother in the household, thus becoming the mother in Frankenstein’s eyes. Mrs. Frankenstein’s last wish is for Victor and Elizabeth to eventually get married. Frankenstein cannot come to terms with the union and decides that he needs some time to think about it, this shows that he is not ready to move on and accept his mother’s death, thus having to love another. Frankenstein uses Elizabeth as a substitute for his mother; Mrs. Frankenstein and Elizabeth share a similar past; they were both orphan children in a small village, saved by a loving wealthy man/family. Elizabeth is a mirror image of Mrs. Frankenstein which is why Frankenstein is drawn to her. After creating the monster, Frankenstein has a dream: “I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a
As Halloween is coming around the corner, ghosts, monsters, and witches come to mind. Watching classic scary movies and reading books like, Frankenstein and Edward Scissorhands, is a great way to get into the spirit of the season. These two stories have different plots, but their themes and meanings parallel each other and have connections to modern society. Although, Frankenstein’s creature and Edward Scissorhands have vastly different lives, they both experience a struggle for acceptance that is also shared by contemporary homosexuals due to societal influences that attempt to apply a predetermined characterization towards these individuals. This is evidenced by how the characters and gay people are outcasts and want to be loved.
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.
Mary Shelley discusses many important themes in her famous novel Frankenstein. She presents these themes through the characters and their actions, and many of them represent occurrences from her own life. Many of the themes present debateable issues, and Shelley's thoughts on them. Three of the most important themes in the novel are birth and creation; alienation; and the family and the domestic affections.
In this book Rousseau claims that men are made evil by society. They become monsters by the way they are treated. He writes ‘a man abandoned to himself in the midst of other men from birth would be the most disfigured of all’. Mary Shelley was abandoned by all the people who died in her life, including her mother, who died almost as soon as Mary was born. Her father disowned her when she married her husband, Percy.
The book Frankenstein shows Victor’s god-like talent of creating life. For example, Victor’s imagination pushed him to be able to create an animal as complex as man. This is illustrated when Victor says, “But my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and as wonderful as man.”(32). Victor is composing an idea of how to create a being that is in the form of a human by using body parts from corpses. His recent success in college studying on how to create life leads him to believe he will be successful in creating this creature. The author added this quote to show Victor’s confidence in his intelligence and abilities. His knowledge of death can help him reverse that transition and create life. In addition, Victor demonstrated his genius mind when he created life for the first time. Victor says, “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs” (35). Victor observes as his monster is starting to come to life. He is overwhelmed by him coming to life and how foul the creature looked. Once the monster was alive Victor fled in fear because it was a hideous sight. In the essay “Frankenstein: myths of scientific and medical knowledge and stories of human reactions,” S...