Some people believe they can choose their family, but these people would be wrong. A family is given to a person without much warning and each person must cope with their own. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a novel focused on Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who aims to create life, but does not foresee the consequences. He neglects his creation as well as his family in the process, which leads to several heartbreaking deaths, and leaves him with too many regrets. Shelley makes the argument through Victor’s story to say how important it is, however difficult, to take responsibility of a person’s actions in all aspects of the world including scientific responsibility, social responsibility, and parental responsibility. A parent not only has …show more content…
This is a good and true intention to begin with, but soon becomes “a serpent to sting” him in ways he could never foresee (14). After the monster murders Victor’s younger brother William, Justine is thought to have been the culprit. Instead of admitting the truth, he refuses to take responsibility and allows her to be executed. At this point, the bettering of society is obviously far from his thoughts. The morally correct action to take in this situation would be to tell Geneva, his home town, of his mistakes and take full responsibility for his actions, which would, in turn, grant Justine her life. This choice would also protect Geneva from the unknown of the monster, which costs others their lives. Later in the novel, Victor is also tempted to create a second female monster as a companion after his first creation threatens his life, and is eventually aware of the catastrophe it could become. If the monsters were to reproduce, or even on their own, they could do much more damage than has already resulted in the creation being alive so far. Victor does “right in refusing” the creature a mate for the reason of protecting the people in the society around him (220). He ponders the dangers of allowing the monsters loose in the world, and recognizes the problems it would cause. This demonstrates the responsibilities to protect humanity as a whole, and not only think about a person’s own needs, which is what Shelley illustrates to the reader through Victor’s
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
In a world full of novelty, guidance is essential to whether a being’s character progresses positively or negatively in society. Parents have a fundamental role in the development of their children. A parent’s devotion or negligence towards their child will foster a feeling of trust or mistrust in the latter. This feeling of mistrust due to the lack of guidance from a parental figure is represented in the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. The creature created by Frankenstein was shown hatred and disgust from the very beginning, which led to its indignant feelings toward his creator and his kind.
With nobody to reason with, Victor makes senseless decisions while he is alone. Victor begins this with his process of creating the monster. Nobody in the right mind would ever dig up graves, but that is just what victor goes and does. Once this creation is finally given life, which Victor has spent two years striving for, Victor foolishly abandons it. Victor comes to his senses to some degree after he brings life to the monster as he states, “‘now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 43). Had there been companions around Victor during this creation time, perhaps someone would have been able to guide Victor away from creating the “wretch” (Shelley 43) he so hopelessly conceived. As for the monster, he makes fairly good decisions even without guidance from anyone, including Victor, his creator. The monster has the desire to learn and gain knowledge as a genuine individual. As the monster is continuously rejected and shunned by mankind, his natural benevolence turns to malevolence. In his loneliness, the monster wrongly decides to declare “‘everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery’” (Shelley 126). Say the monster was able to have comrades of some kind around him, he would not have turned to this
but Victor thought to himself and says “I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, torn to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.” (Shelley 124 )Victor making the decision to not make another made the creature furious but Victor had his reasons like what if the creatures create more what if he doesn’t leave him alone just what ifs. He worries about making another creature because he wonders if the female would be as bad as the creature he first created. Victor does not make the second creature and tore it apart. Abandoning the creature caused him to learn for himself.
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
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.
The confrontation between the two demonstrates Victor 's weaknesses as an individual. Although Victor is the Creature 's creator, he refers to his creation as an "abhorred monster" (Shelley 68) and is willing to "extinguish the spark which he so negligently bestowed" (Shelley 68) upon him. This demonstrates Victor 's lack of responsibility. His goal was to create life, essentially to play God. Once the monster began to murder those dearest to Victor, he failed to take responsibility for the creature 's actions. Another weakness in Victor 's character is revealed through the dialogue exchanged between creator and creation. Instead of calmly trying to reason with the Creature, Victor lashes back at the Creature. He even suggests that the two "try their strength in a fight in which one must fall." (Shelley 69) The monster, however, maturely and eloquently urges Victor 's "compassion to be moved" (Shelley69). Because Victor is full of "rage and horror" he wants to destroy his own creation even though victor is playing god in recreation of humanity. They both are to blame due to the fact that Victor created the creature as well as the signs of irresponsibility between the two for the Creature killing people and for Victor trying to recreate
I believe that Victor and the creature are both right about what they want and yet monstrous in their reactions. Victor is right about what he wants; one reason is because he is very committed to his work and in creating life for his creature. On the other hand he is evil because he abandoned the creature and left him on his own: "I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited" (Shelley 57). Shelley shows Victor's monstrous reaction to the creature in the way that he abandoned the creature to his own luck and he shows no responsibility for him.
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.
Victor was consumed with all the information he had learned from school and his own experiments and he did not care to offend anyone who would try to show affection. The monster wanted Victor to create a monster just as hideous as he was because he didn’t want the other creation to find attention from someone else due to the fact that the female monster would be scary. Victor did abandon the monster and that was a selfish act because he didn’t want the burden of something that was unable to fend for itself to consume him; furthermore, the reason why the monster killed Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother was the selfish act of revenge.
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).
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
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, values of society are clearly expressed. In this particular society and culture, a great value is placed on ideologies of individuals and their contribution to society. In order to highlight these values, Shelley utilizes the character of Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the main character of the novel, and with his alienation, he plays a significant role that reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values of individualism and use in society. This is done through Victor’s actions of self-inflicted isolation.
Shelley also connects various points about the monster by saying that in most cases committing such cruel acts can only mean that it’s a cry for attention because the monster is desperate for attention that Victor can’t give. However, it’s easy to point the finger at the monster for all of the crimes that he’s committed towards Victor and his family. However, it can be reversed because the monster does suffer injustice in his own
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly explores the concept of the body, life, ‘the self’ and most of importantly humanity, which is repeatedly questioned throughout the novel. The definition of humanity is the quality of being humane or in other words someone that can feel or possess compassion. Despite all the facts against the “monster” in “Frankenstein” he is indeed what one would consider being human. Humanity isn’t just about ones physical appearance but also includes intellect and emotion. Some people argue that the “monster” is not a human for he was not a creature that was born from “God” or from a human body. That being said, the “monster” is not only able to speak different languages, he can also show empathy - one of many distinct traits that set humans apart from the animals. Both the “monster” and his creator, Victor, hold anger and feel a sense of suffering throughout the novel. Victor is a good person with good intentions just like most individuals, but makes the mistake of getting swept up into his passion of science and without thinking of the consequences he creates a “monster”. After completing his science project, he attempts to move forward with his life, however his past – i.e., the “monster” continues to follow and someone haunt him. While one shouldn’t fault or place blame on Frankenstein for his mistakes, you also can’t help but feel somewhat sympathetic for the creature. Frankenstein just wants to feel accepted and loved, he can’t help the way he treats people for he’s only mimicking how people have treated him, which in most cases solely based on his appearance. Unlike most of the monsters we are exposed to in films past and present, the character of the “monster” ...