Symbolism, a powerful way to illustrate and depict themes in literature, is seemingly prevalent in novels. In the fictional novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses symbols to represent central ideas and qualities in the novel. Throughout the novel a number of characters, such as Victor, Walton and the monster experience the quest and desire for knowledge and discovery. Victor is intrigued with finding out the mysteries of life, while Walton is traveling to the North Pole in order for discovery. Although there is a huge advantage from discovery, the further these characters grow in wisdom, they will understand the disadvantages that comes along with this knowledge. In the novel, knowledge and discovery can by symbolized as light, while the downsides …show more content…
Walton is on a voyage to the north pole which he wonders “what could not be expected in the country of eternal light”(1). Walton comes to the realization that the “light”, is waiting to be gained, and it’s just a matter of getting to it, and believes this “light” to be solely favorable. He sends letters to his sister in order to keep him sane while on the voyage, SOMETHING Victor, which was like Walton, desires “light”, and believes he “should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world”(39). Victor is viewed as wanting to play the role of God, and wanting to achieve some discovery of his own. Before Frankenstein fabricated the monster, he believed that he was on this earth to learn, and gain insight on new material not yet known to human-kind. He spent most of his time trying to figure out the mysteries of life and to create life from dead organs. Victor have always wondered about making life and described himself as “always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature”(25). While studying in Ingolstadt and not stopping his studying until he finished what he planned to do, Victor discovered the mystery of life. He was able to replicate a living human, from dead organs and body parts. The morning after creating the monster, Victor is disgusted by what he assembled. “Light”, it can either be bright and positive, or burn, and come along with many …show more content…
While making the monster, Victor is totally distant and isolated from his friends, family and the outside world. Not only was Victor physcologically isolated, but physically also because “the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime”(41). Victor is extremely paranoid and fearful of telling anyone about what he is doing, and how he is spending his nights. He’s not able to let himself recover from all his thoughts racing through his mind, which is a result of his absolute quest for discovery and new knowledge. After waking up and seeing his creation, he is frightened and repulsed at what he sees. The image of perfect nature and science he once had, was now broken. Victor begins to recollect on what he has done, and how “light” has two sides to it. He begins to realize that the monster “became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived”(43). All of Victor’s descriptions of the monster are negative, solely based off of appearance. He doesn’t even get to know, or talk to the monster before running off, which shows how frightened and horrified Victor is. Even the monster “found, with pleasure, that the fire gave light as well as heat”(89), and when he sticks his arm in the fire, he gets burned and is not amused as to what the fire did. This shows that with knowledge, things can turn out very pleasant and joyful, like when the
In the book Frankenstein, we stumble upon several characters that play an important role in the book. Few of which that portray in different journeys such as, A scientist, relatives, and The creature/ The Monster who is the work of Frankenstein’s hands. As we continue further into the story you will learn about the many characters and their role in the book of Frankenstein.
Victor uses his knowledge and attachment to science and becomes “thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit” (Shelley 68) and that pursuit is to succeed. He puts his whole heart and dedicates his every hour to the creation, which makes him “neglect the scenes around [him] causing [him] also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom [he] had not seen for so long a time” (Shelley 68). After putting so much time and effort into the creation, Victor expects the product to be perfect, yet it is the complete opposite, unattractive and frightful. Victor barely gives the monster a chance to speak before he runs off, leaving the monster to fend for
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.
Many authors have different ways of building characters and how they look. It is up to the reader to build their perspective from the descriptions given by the author in order to understand books. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, sculpts the readers’ perspective of her monster through powerful diction and emotional syntax. After Dr. Frankenstein finally accomplishes his goal of re-animating a lifeless human, Shelley uses her strong word choice to fully express the extent of horror that Frankenstein had felt, describing his monster as a “demonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life.” (Shelley 45). Frankenstein’s horror is shared with the reader simply from a well descripted sentence. The detail Shelley put into Victor Frankenstein’s perspective is gradually shaping our own, as the reader’s, perspective. Furthermore, the diction being used adds a more definitive appearance to the monster. It helps us imagine what the monster looks like and additionally, how Frankenstein feels about his success.
Victor is so engulfed by his work that he is unaware of what is going on around him. He “bore onwards [with his work], like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success” and he wants to “pour a torrent of light into our dark world" (Shelley 55). Blinded by his yearning for making new discoveries, Victor thinks that his knowledge of the sciences will be enough for him to be successful. However, he does not understand that in order to create an auspicious relationship between him and his creation, he needs to have knowledge of society as well. Once his creation is animated, Victor is unable to see that all the creature wants is to be loved and accepted. The creature craves the maternal love that Victor denies him. From the beginning, Victor is unable to realize the significance of his creation. He describes how the creature’s “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath... [and] his hair was of a lustrous black... [and] his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” (Shelley 58). He immediately focuses on the negative features of his creation, and does not even attempt to learn the positive qualities. If Victor uses more social skills, rather than his knowledge of the sciences to manage his creation, all of the destruction the creation causes could have been
Furthermore, after his creation breathes its first breath, Victor already despises it, which leads to his health’s deterioration and hatred of his previous love. His love quickly changes to despise when he says, “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (53). His statement shows how his heart does a complete 1800 and stops loving the monster the moment it lives. When Victor’s “…heart palpitated in the sickness of fear…” (54), it proves how his monster tormented his creator without having to be near him. Which also leads to the teaching of the lesson “think before you act”.
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...
Based on previous knowledge of the novel Frankenstein, it is known that Victor Frankenstein is the main character of the novel and shown as the protagonist.It never occurred to me that this novel would start as a series of letters which is very relatable to another novel in the same genre: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This is very crucial to the book because it helps the reader relate to two characters. The beginning is not as exciting yet contains foreshadowing that reveals the loneliness shared by Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein. Both contain the zealous thirst for knowledge and have similar familial characteristics. Both have sisters that represent a lot to them: “And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose?”Robert asks his sister Margaret.(5) Victor and Elizabeth also
When Victor abandons the monster he runs away and tries to forget about his failed creation. It was extremely dangerous for Victor to flee his experiment because the monster soon becomes aggressive with hate and is curious to know why Victor left him; furthermore, the monster becomes obsessed with self-learning and knowledge.
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).
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.
Walton's letters play an important role for the reader may find many foreshadowed themes. As the novel progresses, the reader will realize how Walton and Victor Frankenstein share similar views on their life's roles. Both men are driven by an excessive ambition, as they desire to accomplish great things for the humankind. Walton is an explorer who wants to discover a new passage to the Pacific and therefore conjures "inestimable benefit on all mankind to the last generation" (16). Victor's purpose is to "pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation" (49). These explorers will demonstrate that such pursuit can prove to be very dangerous in quest for knowledge. Walton's ship becomes stuck in the ice and Victor's creation finally kills everyone dear to him. However, this parallel is not the only one: we can easily compare Walton's search for a friend ("I have no friend, Margaret" (19)) with the monster's request for a female because he feels alone ("I desired love and fellowship" (224)). This similarity between man and monster suggests that the monster perhaps is more similar to men than what we may perceive. If it is assumed that Shelley also shared this view when she wrote the novel, maybe she meant that the real monster manifests itself differently tha...
When Victor goes to college and his interest in science and nature grows, his curiosity to find the secret of immortality causes him to want to create a creature and bring it to life. Victor starts to create his unnatural work hoping that it will bring success in the future, “I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success.” (43). Victor states his concerns about what he plans to do but dismisses them based on the importance he places on his work. For that reason, he starts to meddle with nature to create something no one can do but God. Finally, when Victor completes his creation, the monster, he realizes that he has made a serious mistake by interfering with nature, “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.” (47). He thinks he has achieved this beautiful dream of creating a life, but now that he has, all he can see is an ugly monster. Trying to take on divine creation fails and instead of beauty, all Victor can create is something horrifying. Therefore, disrupting with nature is a trait that proves Victor is the true monster because it is a limit that no human should overstep. Eventually, it will come to a miserable
Walton has people around him, but he feels that he cannot relate to the crew members. He feels the need to have someone with him to share “the enthusiasm of success” (Shelley 22) or to “endeavor to sustain [him] in dejection” (Shelley 22). Walton is desperate for a friend and after he and his crew members pick up a weak and sick Victor Frankenstein, Walton almost becomes protective over him. Walton welcomes him in and takes care of him. Even after Victor wakes up, Walton “would not allow him to be him to be tormented by their idle curiosity” (Shelley 32). Near the end Victor even thanks Walton “for [his] kind intentions towards so miserable a wretch” (Shelley 257). After Victor reveals his entire story to Walton, Walton still accepts Victor and his mistakes and then thinks “Must I then lose this admirable being? I have sought one who would sympathise with and love me” (Shelley 257). Robert Walton was very accepting of Victor and what Victor has caused by creating this Creature, but when Victor sees the Creature, a being that he intentionally made, he runs away in fear and disgust. Victor is disappointed because “dreams that had been [his] food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to [him]” (Shelley 72). Victor abandons this new Creature that has no idea of how the world works to fend for himself. Although he meets the Creature many times after leaving, he never apologizes for