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Important roles of the female characters in Frankenstein
Women context in frankenstein
Women context in frankenstein
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In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein creates a creature that murders Victor’s younger brother, William, then frames Justine Moritz for the crime. Justine and Victor in addition to the creature believe that they are responsible for the death. Credible literary critics have written critical reviews of the case surrounding the murder from social, spiritual, feminist, and political perspectives. The perspectives characterize Victor, Justine, and the creature in terms of the theme of responsibility along with their impacts on the internal and external conflicts in the novel. The theme of responsibility shows that Victor is the character who is culpable for William’s murder and Justine’s execution because he unjustly uses his power. …show more content…
Critic Colene Bentley in her article about political community calls Justine’s conviction the “miscarriage of justice” (Bentley). The use of miscarriage carries a double meaning: justice wrongfully used and an allusion to a failure for a that fails to result in a childbirth. Virginia Brackett, in addition to her new criticism approach, analyzes Frankenstein from a feminist perspective and explains that Victor attempts to “usurp the reproductive nature of woman” and that taking over Justine’s gender role causes her “to suffer a special victimization” because she represents “fertility and motherhood” (Brackett). Victor does victimize Justine in two ways: first by allowing the creature to kill William, then by refusing to speak up at her trial. Victor unjustly eliminates women because he intends to replace them. Therefore, he does not take the moral responsibility to save the mothers in his life because he believes they are no longer needed in …show more content…
Critic Betty Bennett also connects Victor to a religious myth because the actions of his failure “destroy the larger community” (Bennett). Therefore, by allowing Justine and William to die, Victor allows injustice to proliferate in the community. Critic Criscillia Benford also connects this spread of injustice to the community’s social frames. Benford argues that Justine “broke her natural bonds of obligation because she is monstrous,” which leads the community into recognizing “monstrosity as real, proximate, and ubiquitous” (Benford 330-331). The injustice makes Justine appear to be the monster destroying the community when really Victor is the monster because he causes the injustice. Victor acknowledges that he is evil shortly before he died: “I was cursed by some devil and carried about with me my eternal hell” (Shelley 212). By not properly handling his responsibilities, he becomes a cruel monster himself that kills Justine and
...t the monster, so there is no one who can back up his story. At the trial, Justine is found guilty and she is sentenced to death. Since Victor does not speak up at Justine’s trial, her death is the result of his silence.
Previously portrayed through Frankenstein’s letters as the sole cause of both his and society’s despair, the monster’s use of the word “abortion” instead demonstrates Victor’s individual contribution towards his creature’s destructive path. Since the definition of abortion serves as the premediated act of terminating life, Frankenstein’s deliberate decision to desert his artificial creature exhibits society’s lack of sympathy for those with uncontrollable differences such as the monster’s physical deformities. Nevertheless, the textual irony of the monster’s frustrations eventually becomes apparent when the creature exclaims “Was there no injustice to this?”. Setting off a chain reaction of several more questions, Shelly’s text further mirrors the monster’s bafflement with the careless actions of Victor Frankenstein. That is, although Frankenstein gave his creation the “gift” of life, the monster has been perpetually denied every chance to live happily because of mankind’s relentless and inescapable hatred. More so, explained as the abandonment or failure of a process, Frankenstein’s ultimate refusal to love his own creation typifies how the creator’s ironic choices remain accountable for failing both the monster and
Although humans have the tendency to set idealistic goals to better future generations, often the results can prove disastrous, even deadly. The tale of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, focuses on the outcome of one man's idealistic motives and desires of dabbling with nature, which result in the creation of horrific creature. Victor Frankenstein was not doomed to failure from his initial desire to overstep the natural bounds of human knowledge. Rather, it was his poor parenting of his progeny that lead to his creation's thirst for the vindication of his unjust life. In his idealism, Victor is blinded, and so the creation accuses him for delivering him into a world where he could not ever be entirely received by the people who inhabit it. Not only failing to foresee his faulty idealism, nearing the end of the tale, he embarks upon a final journey, consciously choosing to pursue his creation in vengeance, while admitting he himself that it may result in his own doom. The creation of an unloved being and the quest for the elixir of life holds Victor Frankenstein more accountable for his own death than the creation himself.
Social and Individual Responsibility in Frankenstein Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in a time of wonder. The main wonder was whether you could put life back into the dead. Close to the topic of bringing life back into the dead was whether you could create your own being, like selective breeding, but a bit more powerful. Close to where Mary lived, there was a man named Vultair who was experimenting with putting electricity through frogs to see if they could come back to life. With that going on close to her, as well as the fear of a revolution and the pressure on her to think of a ghost story, it is not surprising she thought of a horror story that would still be popular in the 21st Century.
This novel supports Shelley’s thought about society’s attitude toward female authors and how they were considered inferior. She demonstrates how female authors are shunned by society, just like the creature is shunned. The creature embodies the feminist ideals Shelley weaves into the novel and highlights societies unfair treatment of women. In some ways Shelley identifies with Victor because both of their creations were not what they expected them to be and were worried about the criticism they would receive for it. They both hid their creations for a while, Shelley did not immediately claim the novel and Frankenstein did not claim his experiment
The monster is left to live his life with no help from his creator after being abandoned. While having the mind of a newborn, this is not easy for him. By not knowing right from wrong, he murdered Victor's loved ones in order to get attention. He never had anyone to teach him how to live life with dignity and respect. This is a major loss for a living being. The creator is at fault here because the monster does not know better. Victor should have taken responsibility by accepting, raising, and controlling the monster.
A reckless abandonment cost Victor and others, their lives. The Creation killed everyone Victor loved as vengeance for his treatment and isolation. Nevertheless, Victor chose to keep his knowledge of his own doing a secret and watched in guilt as many people, including his own family, died. Victor’s ignorance becomes the
The novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley is a work of fiction that breaks the ethics of science. Ethics is defined as rules of conduct or moral principles which are ignored in the story. The story is about a person named Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial being. Victor abandons the being out of fear and the being is left to discover the outside world on his own and be rejected by people making the monster go on a violent rampage. Victor’s decision would affect him later on by the monster killing his loved ones causing Victor to suffer. Then Victor chooses to seek revenge on the monster and this choice will bring him to his death. In novel Frankenstein one might say that the main character, Victor, breaks the ethics of science when he plays God by creating his own being.
Taking responsibility is “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management” (dictionary.com). When you decide to take the responsibility of something or someone then do it to your greatest ability and do not leave any stones unturned. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley determines the role of responsibility for the welfare, acts, the deaths and the lives of others. Taking responsibility means being accountable for your actions, accepting the mistakes and taking the ownership of the mistakes that come along with one’s actions. Taking responsibility does not mean that all the actions will go as planned but accepting the consequences even if they do not go
The fact that Frankenstein’s creation turns on him and murders innocent people is never overlooked; it has been the subject of virtually every popularization of the novel. What is not often acknowledged is the fact that Frankenstein himself embodies some of the worst traits of humankind. He is self-centered, with little real love for those who care about him; he is prejudiced, inflexible and cannot forgive, even in death. While some of these traits could be forgivable, to own and flaunt them all should be enough to remind a careful reader that there are two "monsters" in Frankenstein.
In Mary Shelley’s novel there is a defined contrast between the characteristics and behaviors of Justine and Victor. For example, Justine’s actions during her unfair trial undoubtedly represent the quiet, menacing strength of women and highlights the insufficient masculinity of Victor. Justine, the wrongfully accused murderer of William Frankenstein,possesses unwavering courage which is illustrated when Shelley writes, “ The appearance of Justine was calm and she appeared confident in innocence and did not tremble”(64). This statement refutes the absurd interpretation of Shelley’s women characters as being feeble and weak. It superbly demon...
The novel’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, emphasizes the importance of having an identity by exemplifying the dissatisfaction that accompanies contorted character-to-character relations. What makes his relationships particularly perverse however, is Victor himself as a person and family member. Often, male “participants in a moral conflict,” such as Victor, “may invoke ‘justice’ and insist on theoretical objectivity” to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, c...
Although “Frankenstein” is the story of Victor and his monster, Walton is the most reliable narrator throughout the novel. However, like most narrator’s, even his retelling of Victor’s story is skewed by prejudice and favoritism of the scientist’s point of view. Yet this could be attributed to the only view points he ever gets to truly hear are from Victor himself and not the monster that he only gets to meet after he comes to mourn his fallen master.
After Victor Frankenstein's creation had wandered from his residence, the creature took matters into his own hands, killing William, Victor's younger brother. The surprisingly intelligent creature had even framed Justine for the murder in order to cover his own tracks. It was clear to the creature, and Frankenstein that Justine was not guilty of this crime, nevertheless neither one spoke up. The small amount guilt felt by both male characters, and their inability to take action and make the situation right, shows the utter disrespect, and lack empathy that males had towards women. Along with this, Justine knew that she did not commit this crime, but she still never spoke up for herself, most likely due to the fact that no one would believe her if she
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...