The term novel is defined as a fictitious narrative typically representing character and action, and that is what the novel, “Frankenstein,” is all about. In Mary Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein,” the main character, Victor Frankenstein, has his life story put on display as readers see the transformation of a young Swiss boy to a guilt ridden adult by having an infatuation with science, by the creation of a monster, and how he handles the obstacles that he himself creates. Infatuation is almost an understatement. Victor has plenty of flaws, but I feel like his complete obsession with particular things would ultimately be his demise, or tragic flaw rather. The signs of obsession started at an earlier age. When Victor’s family decides …show more content…
From even before the monster is created, readers see Victor begin to slowly but surely lose himself. Victor changes from a very determined and ambitious young adult, to a completely different adult driven by all the wrong reasons. After the creation of the monster, Victor’s actions cause a direct reaction back to him, and the reactions all stem from the creature. Once Victor had made it clear that he would give no attention or companionship to the creature, the creature wanted Victor to feel the same emptiness that he did. Victor began to lose those he loved, the first being his younger brother William Frankenstein. Rather than letting the authorities know what had happened, and who the true murderer was, Victor allowed for his cousin, Justine Moritz, to be framed for the murder and ultimately put to death. While reading this in action, readers patiently wait for Victor to do what is right and ultimately save a family member while he still can and confess that there is a vengeful creature out there and that it was his creation, yet Victor never does. The events that take place after this completely snowball, and it is all because Victor refuses to do what is right. The death of Justine was followed by the death of Henry Clerval, Victor’s closest and dearest friend. The marks on the bodies resembled strangling, and Victor knew that the creature was the murderer of both victims. However, no authorities were ever notified that there ever was a creature, so the rampage continued. The creature was destined to make sure the emptiness was felt by Victor, and so far it didn’t appear to be enough. Victor was selfish enough to allow his younger brother and best friend to be killed, and this was not the end. Following the deaths of Clerval and Justine, came the deaths of Elizabeth, Alphonse, and Victor himself. Once Victor traveled
The constant desire for knowledge may cause the obliteration of the relationship one has with themselves. Victor becomes obsessed with creating life, and this causes his overall health to decay. Victor has just created the malicious monster and his initial reaction is: “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the soul purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I have deprived myself of rest and health” (Shelley 51). Victor falls in a fever and it takes him many weeks to recover. The hours he spends working on his creature, and trying to attain his goal of creating life, has made him malnourished because he does not stop his quest for knowledge, even to eat! This causes the decay of his health, and makes him very ill. Once he creates the mutant, he is mortified by the spectacle, and feels animosity towards it. His extreme pursuit of knowledge causes him to cloud his judgment. Because Victor is miserable with his creation he even contemplates suicide: “I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever” (Shelley 91). His extreme pursuit of knowledge, has proven to be negative, as the very thought of what he creates causes him to want to take his own life. This shows the decay of his relati...
We are introduced to Victor who is found by Robert Walton, now when Victor begins to retell his tragic story he gives us a general view of who he is, where he was born, and what has happened in his life. We then progress through the story and arrive at the rising action which is when Victor returns back to school after his mother’s death and sisters recovery of scarlet fever. Victor sets out to create a living thing upon his return and this is when it all goes down hill, he successfully creates the monster but he is horrified at the site of the creature he then runs like fearful gazelle leaving the creature/monster to wander (very smart Victor). Skipping ahead the monsters causes quite a bit of trouble and strangles a lot of people, and this is all caused by him not being provided with a connection with anyone. Now before he really starts his strangulation spree he spies on a family (the Delacy’s) that teaches him unknowingly how to speak, read, and of general human connection and relationships. This moment of distant watching and learning has left him wanting things even more, he then reveals himself the Father who is blind and he is kind to the monster when the children arrive they terrified and reject the monster. Throughout the tale of the monster is reminded of his indifference by others resulting in him
The novel tells the story of the scientist Victor Frankenstein, who is keen on the
His mother's love was shown throughout the beginning of the book so much more than his fathers was. Together the two parents loved him so much it helped him grow and this is why his childhood was so phenomenal. When Victor was sent off to Ingolstadt, he had no real idea of what it was like to be an adult. He was taken care of so well by his mother that once she was away from her parents, her father being at home and his mother being dead, he was not sure what was right and wrong. Victor's curiosity for knowledge is what led him to be a man of science and this is why he came up with the idea to experiment and create a human being from death. Without thinking of the results that were to come, Victor's ambition to become godlike pushed him to finish his project. The end result terrified Victor so badly that even he left him alone. To start, he left him alone in his apartment and when he returned, the monster was gone. “I could hardly believe that that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval.” (Shelley 61) This is the first time that Victor does not care for his monster properly. After all of the care that Victor received from his mother, readers would think that Victor would grow up to be just like his parents and be so kind and gentle. Victor is unable to take responsibility of the monster that he created. Victor is prejudiced by the appearance of the monster which leads him to run away from his
If Victor had stayed around and showed the monster the real world, he might have not have went on to perform violent actions. This portrays Victor as a selfish character and gives more of an insight on his personal life. As a child, Victor is only interested in furthering his own knowledge and not worried about anyone else. He spent much of his time “drawing the picture of [his] early days... when [he] would account to [himself] for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled [his] destiny” (Shelley 34), or otherwise a magnificent creation that would change his future. When constructing the Monster, he put all of his relatives in the back of his mind, and only focused on his own success and victory. This further explains the theme of being selfless and only doing certain things that will benefit
He possibly could have located the monster, with the help of others, in a timely fashion, thus averting the many calamities that followed. However, Victor chose to abandon his monster and not inform anyone of its creation, and ignore it for months (Shelly 56). When Victor finally sees the monster again, it is after the monster has killed his youngest brother, william. When an innocent woman is blamed for this crime, and Victor could testify and save her life, he takes no action, saying that he would be thought crazy for his tale (Shelly 66).This in and of itself is an insanely selfish thing to do, with minimal effort Victor could have saved another person's life but because it could jeopardize his own reputation, he chooses not to. Even after two people have perished due to his thoughtlessness, Victor still does not inform anyone of the monster which he has created and still allows it to run loose. Later in the novel, after Victor destroys the companion the monster asked him to build, the monster strangles Victor's innocent friend Henry (Shelley 166). Victor’s actions caused a number of deaths and endangered many people. Henry, Elizabeth, William, and Justine all had nothing to do with the creation and subsequent abandonment of the monster, and yet due to Victors irresponsibility, they paid the ultimate price. Williams death is a turning point in the novel, as it shows victor for the first time that his actions actually do have consequences “Nothing in the human shape could have destroyed that fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it”, and yet he chooses to continue to make irresponsible choices that continue to endanger more people (Shelley
If someone were to ask people who Frankenstein is they would probably describe a tall, hideous monster with bolts sticking out of its neck. But long before movies reinvented their version of the monster, there was a novel by Mary Shelley entitled Frankenstein. In her novel, the monster is shown as child-like and uneducated. But what really makes someone a monster? Who is the true monster of Mary Shelley’s novel? Victor and the Creature present similarities and differences in their action and character throughout the novel.
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.
As a romantic, archetype and gothic novel, Victor is responsible for the monsters actions because Victor abandons his creation meaning the creature is dejected and ends up hideous and fiendish. It is unfair to create someone into this world and then just abandon it and not teach it how to survive. The quote from the creature “Why did you make such a hideous creature like me just to leave me in disgust” demonstrates how much agony the creature is in. He is neglected because of his creator. The monster says “The hateful day when I received life! I accurse my creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” Victor is wholly at fault for his actions, image and evil.
Victor’s lack of compassion and sympathy towards the monster causes him to become angry instead of guilty. His cruelness to his creation made the monster kill and hurt the people he did but “when [he] reflected on [the monster’s] crimes and malice, [Victor’s] hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation,”(Shelley 325). Without compassion Victor thinks that the only way to stop the monster is to get revenge on him, instead of just giving him the empathy and kindness that monster craved. Victor realizes that "if he were vanquished, [he] should be a free man...balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue [him] until death. ”(Shelley 731).
The monster, unknown to man, is dependent on “that his ‘father’ and ‘god’...assume proper responsibility for him (McClinton-Temple 979). Victor fails to do this, and as a result the monster strives for revenge on all human life. The monster’s first retaliatory act is toward the De Laceys, who he closely observes for several months in attempt to learn more about culture and language. After begin beat up by Felix while trying to interact with the human race, he “lighted a dry branch of a tree...the wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames” (118). Earlier in the novel, the monster talks about how children run away at the sight of him and pelt him with rocks, so there is a clear pattern of mistreatment. The burning of the house symbolizes not only vengeance against Felix and the De Laceys, but toward mankind as a whole. The monster’s next acts of revenges are directly aimed at Victor, as he begins killing off all of those close to Victor. When he sees a little boy in the forest and determines his relation Victor, the monster yells, “‘Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy-to him toward whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim’” (122). This act is the beginning of the monster’s murder rampage as a retaliation for lack of compassion that Victor shows toward him. The monster next moves on to kill Victor’s friend Clerval. Throughout the novel, Victor appears to spend most of his time alone and does not have many friends, and therefore by killing his only friend, the monster is sending a strong message. The monster finally begins sending direct threats to Victor, saying that he “‘shall be with you on your wedding-night’” (147). Throughout the novel, the monster has sought his revenge purely by harming Victor’s friends, but never before has he been impacted first hand. Victor,
There is a certain passage in the book that helps elude to many of Victor’s negative qualities which helps sum him up as a character nicely. It is towards the end of the book, but it still shows how Victor behaved throughout almost all of the story. “This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of a fiend- ‘I will be with
He spitefully decides to try a new approach and vows to get his revenge, beginning with seeking out Victor’s younger brother William and murdering him, since he knows this person means a great deal to him. Because of his shame and failure to admit the creature’s existence, Victor’s cousin Justine is accused of the murder and is executed because no one knows who his true killer was. The monster is now responsible for two deaths in Victor’s family. Later, Victor makes the mistake of going back on his promise to create a partner for the monster. Now more enraged than before, the monster kills his best friend, Henry Clerval, in the hopes that maybe now Victor would understand his need for companionship. Victor never returns to his work on another monster, however, so the monster follows through with his promise that he would be with Victor on his wedding night and murders his bride, Elizabeth. Finally, the monster’s revenge is complete when Victor’s father dies a few days later out of grief. One might argue that the monster’s homicidal rampage made him successful in getting his revenge on Victor. However, the monster is still unhappy. Killing all those people did not make him get his bride that he so desired. It certainly destroyed Victor’s life, but it didn’t make the monster’s life any
One part in the novel that displays this is when the monster speaks its true feeling towards victor and talks about how “unfeeling [and] heartless” he was for “[casting] [it] abroad” after giving “It” “perceptions” that the world was a “[passionate]” and understanding place (pg 229). Because of this, the monster went in the world thinking that “it” would be accepted. When he failed to connect to the humans, he automatically blamed Victor for his perils. Like when a parent helps a child with their homework but it ends up being wrong, the child then blames the parent for it. Another example is when the creature murders Victor’s younger brother William. When “It” learned that William “[belonged] … to [his] enemy… Frankenstein” he decided that William would be his “first victim”(pg 146). Once again the creature’s obsession over Victor caused his actions. If William had not had a relationship with Victor then the creature may have treated him like he did with Felix. But, knowing this connection, he felt that he had to take action somehow. Also, he might not have known that he was killing William since he had never seen death happen before, so he might have meant to inflict pain and not end his life. Those are some of the reasons why Victor being horrible to the monster is why he is remotely responsible for the
Victor Frankenstein created a creature to experiment and when the creature awoke, Victor abandoned him and hated his creature. The creature was at first pure and he love the world. However, when he found out that his own creator abandoned him he became angry and swore to make a revenge to his creator. The creature’s emotion was well represented when he said, “For the first time, the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them; but allowing myself to be borne away with the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death.”(Chapter XVI, page 137). This resentment was made when the creature figured out that his creator abandoned him and when he was betrayed by the DeLacey’s. The creature was very mad and that is what made him to determine to search his creator and afterwards, to make a revenge. Also, Victor once more became selfish when he did not follow what creature has required him to do which was to make a female for the creature. Therefore, when Victor tore the other female creature, the creature got very angry and said, “It is well I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding night.”(Chapter XX, page 167). The creature swore to revenge when Victor tore the female creature apart. This sentence that the creature said eventually led to the outcome of Victor’s selfishness. Victor’s friend, father and his wife died as result of his selfishness. At the end of the novel,