Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Frankenstein character development essay
Character of Victor Frankenstein
Character of Victor Frankenstein
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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 …show more content…
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
The boy only wanted attention from his father. The greatest depiction of Frankenstein’s gluttonous, self-indulgent negligence is that of his child’s first moments of life. It takes but a night to steer his creature to the path of destructive apathy. Frankenstein has no care for those around him, and should never have been given the secret to life, considering his lack of interest in family and his obvious disregard for the laws of nature, creating life; and of man, withholding information of a dangerous being. Victor abuses his son with words and neglect and then wonders why his creature acts out harmfully towards others.
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
Like a mother, Victor brings new life into the world, technically making him the father of the creature. The fact that Victor describes the creature as,
To begin with, Victor Frankenstein grew up in Geneva. Spoilt by his parents, Victor had a good childhood and his parents wished nothing but happiness for him. The way they showed it was through Elizabeth in which his mother presented to him as stated in the article, “my mother had said playfully,—"I have a pretty present for my Victor—to-morrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally, and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.
Victor experiences very little joy at all after the creation of the monster. He suffers from numerous bouts of depression, he most tolerate the deaths of his brother, best friend, and wife, all of which were murdered at the hands of the monster. His friend Justine is executed because of the death of William, for which she is falsely accused and convicted. His father also dies after the murder of Elizabeth, Victor's ill-fated bride. With so much death surrounding his life, how is it possible that Victor could still be cognizant of his actions when he decides to pursue the monster and end its violent fury? He can't. Victor's mind is so clouded by the sorrow and pain of his past that he is blinded to the fact that he is attempting to destroy a creature with far greater physical strength and speed than any mortal. Much of his conflict appears to be created by the monster, when in fact the torment comes from Victor's own hands because he himself created and gave life to the monster.
In the first chapter of the novel, as Victor tell his story to Walton, a mariner, we find that Victor came from a very wealthy family from Geneva, and that he lived the first part of his life in Italy. His mother was the daughter of his father’s friend, making her substantially younger than him. We are told that she is incredibly loving and caring and that she “possessed a mind of an uncommon mould” and had nursed her father during his illness until his death. Frankenstein’s parents are very deeply in love, and Victor was an only child for the first five years of his life, doted on by them as we can see when he says “they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow on me”. Victor’s first memories from his childhood are his “mother‘s tender caresses” and his “father‘s smiles of benevolent pleasure”. They refer to him as being ...
The beginning of Frankenstein’s dream started as a young man, Victor’s interests lie in science, chemistry, and the balance and contrasts of life and death. Acting as a hypocrite, Victor explains how parents should be there to teach you to become great, “The innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as the fulfilled heir duties towards me” (Shelley 16). Victor says that his parents play a big role in how their child turns out; if the parents treat you bad then the child will come out bad but if he learns from good then he will come out to be a perfect little angel.
Victor finds his monster absolutely repulsive, and even nauseating. This seen in the following quotation, “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.” (Shelley 36) Dr. Frankenstein has never seen anything so horrible and soon falls ill both from the sight of it and the realization that his monster is now out in the world and it could be doing anything. This shows how his drive for knowledge to be able to create life is damaging his health both mentally and physically. Furthermore, when the monster escapes from Victor’s laboratory it stangles Victor’s brother, William Frankenstein, to death. Victor must now bear the guilt knowing that he is responsible for the death because he created the monster and allowed it to escape. He must also keep the beast a secret from everyone else for fear the he would be held responsible for his brother’s death or they will believe he has gone insane, both of which results in Vict...
As a tragic hero, Victor’s tragedies begin with his overly obsessive thirst for knowledge. Throughout his life, Victor has always been looking for new things to learn in the areas of science and philosophy. He goes so far with his knowledge that he ends up creating a living creature. Victor has extremely high expectations for his creation but is highly disappointed with the outcome. He says, “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). Frankenstein neglects the creature because of his horrifying looks, which spark the beginning of numerous conflicts and tragedies. At this point, the creature becomes a monster because of Victor’s neglect and irresponsibility. The monster is forced to learn to survive on his own, without anyone or anything to guide him along the way. Plus, the monster’s ugly looks cause society to turn against him, ad...
Lee Zimmerman, author of Frankenstein, Invisibility and the Nameless Dread uses many resources to explain multiple theories on the novel Frankenstein, one being the theory that Victor’s childhood and upbringing are not what they seem. He reveals to Walton that “No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence.” (Shelley 43). Zimmerman continues on to explain how Victor may be defensive and actually could have been raised by a careless father, which contradicts what he had said earlier in the novel.
The father knows that his child has not been given the chance to end life blissfully, and believes that him committing suicide is the closest he will get to a happy ending. The father is aware that it is not right to embed the idea of suicide into a child’s head, but he is only trying to protect him from the dangers around him. Even though he knows his son’s life will not last long, he does not want him to witness the full potential of monstrosity, and how easy it is for someone to take another’s life away. Differently, in Frankenstein, Victor is faced with the decision to create another female monster so that the monster he already created has a companion. The monster proposes, "You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.” (Shelly, 153). After refusal, Victor finally agrees to go through with the idea, not only because the guilt of rejecting his creation— but the fact that he does not want the monster killing anyone else that Victor loves. Victor hopes that the female companion will end the monsters desire to kill, which will protect his loved ones and himself, but knows that it is not right to create another creature that is potentially dangerous to themselves and also society, because if the monsters breed, they can create a race of evil. Victor is left pondering the outcome of his potential decision, and ends up destroying the female creature during the process of creating her. Thinking he made the right choice, he is proven wrong when the monster is enraged and takes away the love of Victor’s life, and then ends both of their lives. This shows that Victor tries to prevent harm to his loved ones, but one choice
A child's first steps are taken in the home. These experiences shape their existence for the rest of their lives. Jean Hall says that “The family may help the child grow up...loving...or a tyrant”. This fact holds ground in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as Victor and Elizabeth's childhood and the Creatures “childhood” are vastly different, which push them down very unlike paths. These differences are made so to connect the book to Mary Shelley's overall messages she wants to articulate about: Society's emphasis on wealth and appearance, and Nature vs Nurture.
Although some critics say that the monster Victor has created is to blame for the destruction and violence that follow the experiment, it is Victor who is the responsible party. First, Victor, being the scientist, should have known how to do research on the subject a lot more than he had done. He obviously has not thought of the consequences that may result from it such as the monster going crazy, how the monster reacts to people and things, and especially the time it will take him to turn the monster into the perfect normal human being. This is obviously something that would take a really long time and a lot of patience which Victor lacks. All Victor really wants is to be the first to bring life to a dead person and therefore be famous. The greed got to his head and that is all he could think about, while isolating himself from his friends and family. In the play of Frankenstein, when Victor comes home and sets up his lab in the house, he is very paranoid about people coming in there and finding out what he is doing. At the end of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor says:
Because of Victor’s need for fame and desire for power leads to Victor becoming a monster. Victor begins his quest to bring life to a dead person because he does not want anyone to feel the pain of a loved ones death. At first he is not obsessed with his project. As he moves along in the project he thinks about what will happen to him. "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me." (Shelley 39) He realizes that he will become famous if he accomplishes the task of bringing a person back to life. The realization that he will become famous turns him into an obsessive monster. He wanted to be admired, and praised as a species creator. He isolates himself from his family and works on the creature. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I 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 156) By spending most of his time inside on his experiment, he has no time to write or contact his family. He puts fear within his family because they fear for him.
Before the monster awakens Victor uses the word “father,” but after the monster awakens he refers to himself as “creator” and “author.” The monster on the other hand does see Victor as a father, “I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life” (Shelley 118). The monster also recognizes the obligations Victor has to him. The monster first feels abandonment from Victor. The reader knows this when the monster says, “But where are my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses” (Shelley 101). This is what leads the monster into a life of abandonment and