New Life Ethics

Thesis
Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein brings to light the ethical implication and possible dangers that relate to the creation of new creatures. These dangers are illustrated through the arrogance shown by Victor in approaching knowledge, the disregard shown by his teachers, and Victor’s own neglect of his creature.

Quotes
Knowledge
Throughout the novel, Victor is characterized as a man whose downfall comes from his own arrogance. While he is at first hesitant to create a human being, “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 wonderful as man” (54), his superiority clouds his judgment. Just like the fabled Prometheus, Victor commits hubris and breaks with reality.
Quickly his arrogance escalates as his need for God like status is attained. He believes that his “new species would bless me [Victor] as its creator and source”(52). He has stopped caring completely what the implication of a God and the responsibilities he would hold, instead only thinking of the love and power he would hold over these new creatures.
Lastly, Victor begins to see himself above the things that make him human, life and death. He talks lightly of it, describing it as “ideal bonds, which I should first break through” (55) as if it were nothing. He perceives himself to be above humanity, far beyond where the rest of society is.
Educators
Shelly shows that Victor is not the only one at fault for all the damage he has caused. Instead, she places blame on Victor’s teachers. When Victor begins to study alchemy, his father quickly dismisses his studies without explaining to his son why such knowledge is dangerous. Victor later says” if, instead of this remark, my fa...

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...that the creation has put on him, Victor’s ensuing illness allows him to put off his thoughts of the monster. But in the end, the more Victor procrastinates, the most he is haunted by the monster.
Lastly, as the story escalates, the most begins to emotionally cripple Victor. When Victor refuses to create an Eve to love and cherish the monster, he begins to murder all of the companions that Victor holds dear to him. In the story the monster threatens, “You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains- revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food!” (173). Victor is ultimately responsible for the actions that the creature commits, and he realizes this as well. He is the God to this creature, so sins committed by it fall on the shoulders of Victor.

Works Cited

Shelley, Mary, and Maurice Hindle. Or, the Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin Classics, 2007. Print.