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Frankenstein full book summary essay
Frankenstein full book summary essay
Victor frankenstein literary criticism
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Will Angelino
Mrs. Schroder
English IV
December 3, 2016
Frankenstein When the creation of Frankenstein's monster occurred, Our main character, Victor, was deathly frightened and regretted creating this beast all together. He never thought about assuming responsibility for his creation and without knowing it he let his monster wander off. Although he acknowledges himself as the “creator of a new species”, empowering his strong ego, the sight of his new living creation forces him into solitude. The first instance of Victor realizing that he would be held responsible for any of the monsters wrong doings is when he ventures back home after 6 years of being away and 2 years after the creation of his monster. He awaits outside the gates of the
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During a storm on a high mountain he comes in contact for the first time with the monster since he created. At this point in the story the monster has become conscious of the world around him and understands more aspects of his life. He’s learned to speak French through observation and this gives him an opportunity to question Victor. He almost resents Victor for not giving him a chance and how he threw him out into the world with no knowledge of what was happening. Now that the monster understands the relationship of a family he is inquisitive to who his mother or father is. Again, this is where the relationship of father and son creator creation plays a role once again. The monster seeks Victors approval but Victor wishes to have nothing to do with him. The monster is quoted saying, “Remember that I am thy creature, I ought to be thy Adam.” The creature is similar to an orphaned son of Victor, all he wants is a relationship similar to the De Lacey …show more content…
He plans his revenge on his creator for not taking proper responsibility for him and banishing him to the woods. This original banishment is what turns the monster against Victor and led him down the path of murdering those which Victor was close to. While it was the monster who committed the crimes, it is Victor who pays the price for them.
Ultimately the monster commits these crimes not because he doesn’t know any better or by accident, but rather to negatively affect his creator whom he has come to despise for creating him to be hideous and alone. He discovers how easy this task will be when he finds William Frankenstein in the forest and strangles him and frames Justine.
His later murder is part of his promise to ruin Victor's life even further. When Victor disagrees to make the monster a companion to live with the monster warns him that he will be there on his wedding night. At this point the monster has become that of a reckless and vengeful son. Poorly raised the monster has become haphazardous to anyone he comes in contact with. He doesn’t fully comprehend right from wrong which explains his reason for murder and burning down the house of the De Lacey family. It was the responsibility of Victor to educate the monster, similar to the responsibility of a parent to educate and install common sense of right from wrong in their child. Unfortunately the chance for that is far past and now Victor must pay the price.
We must ask ourselves if his guilt pardons him from his actions. Is he truly a dark and disturbed person if he feels guilt? I believe the answer is yes, solely because his guilt isn't enough to push him to try and amend for his actions. As a man alone, Victor has not at all failed. Man is flawed and as such is expected to make mistakes. In Victor's case, his mistakes are many and much, but nothing less is to be expected of a man, who in his own nature, is nothing more than someone else's creation. He did however, fail as a creator who is responsible for the actions and wellbeing of those he creates. The creature's actions are to be seen as not just his own crimes but Victor's as well. I do still that he can be classified as a morally ambiguous character. I personally believe that Victor acted selfishly a majority of the novel and has a poor moral compass guiding his actions. However, others may argue that he was acting in a way he thought would benefit those around him. There is evidence to argue both side, thus leaving Victor morally
His actions after this point are those. of an evil being, one that is damned. The monsters crimes affect Victor's family and therefore punish Victor. This punishment haunts him through the rest of the novel. Victor is weak and it is only near the end of the novel that he attempts to face his creature and destroy it to restore nature.
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
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.
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
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.
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
Victor could have easily betrayed the monster he created out of pure fear and horror, but it doesn’t make a difference to the matter of him betraying something that has no one else to depend on but its own creator. This act of betrayal shows a lot about Victor’s personal characteristics; it reveals the true monster inside of him. The Creature himself is also innocent: deserted by his fickle creator, he must fight for his survival in a hateful world. In classic tragic style, the novel ends with the tortured protagonist’s downfall and an ominous, unknown future for the remaining
Victor, out of horror of what he had created leaves the monster in isolation. The monster describes what it was like, “It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were instinctively, finding myself so desolate… I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept,” (Shelley 87). At this point the monster is just an innocent child, who in his first hours has faced abandonment and such strong emotions. However, he is pure, like most babies. While he looks like a monstrosity he shows himself to be anything but. His first encounters with humans are all very negative. A man runs away screaming just at the sight of him. Villagers pelted him with rocks and chased him away. This makes him very fearful of humans. However, when he comes across the De Lacey family in their little cottage he sees how peaceful they are and he regains some hope. “What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching, and endeavoring to discover the motives which influenced their actions,” (Shelley 93). He is curious little
“Revenge alone endowed [him] with strength and composure; it modeled [his] feelings, and allowed [him] to be calculating and calm” (145). Victor gained new purpose and even on his deathbed holds to the principle that he is justified in desiring the death of his enemy. Moment before his death he turns to Captain Robert Walton and says, “I feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable” (156). He even begins to lose the small amount of compassion he had for the creature’s struggle. When visiting his family’s graves he cries that, “they were dead, and I lived; their murder also lived” (145). Previously in the novel he blamed himself for the deaths of Mathew, Justine, and Henry, claiming to be their murderer and lamenting on the evil he had set forth into the world. Victor now places the weight of these deaths solely on the monster’s shoulders and believes it is his god given burden to cleanse the world of this evil. He had been “assured that the shades of [his] murdered friends heard and approved [his] devotion… rage choked [him]”(146). The death of the monster would not even weigh on his conscience since it is god’s
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 creature seeks revenge for the misdeeds committed against him, but also feels immense remorse for the things he has done. This revenge seems monstrous because it is committed by someone “hideous.” If it was committed by any other human in the book, it would be viewed differently. It is a very human thing to seek revenge for being wronged. Often, humans commit acts against their own kind for lesser reasons and with less provocation than the creature. In some instances, like the case of Victor’s brother, William, the creature did not mean to harm him, he did not know his own
Since this monster killed Henry, Victor knew that his family was now in danger. The monster is very happy that Victor is having to suffer because, Victor is now feeling the loneliness that he feels all the time. Though the monster’s character is not evil, the pain he feels is what he wants his creator to feel. His revenge only increases throughout the book because he is only longing for a fellow companion that Victor can only give him, but yet he is choosing not to create it. The anger that is within the monster is only growing and this is increasing the possibilities of him hurting more people.
Victor has a lack of respect for the natural world that leads him on the path to becoming a monster. In creating the monster Victor is trying to change the natural world. He is trying to play the role of god by creating life.