A foil is when a characters differences contrast with another in order to show the main characters traits clearly. By using certain parts of their personalities, the reader sees the other characters opposing qualities. When an author uses foil in a novel the main character is thoroughly developed because the reader can gain more information about the characters own reactions. Mary Shelley’s use of foil characters in Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus enhances the story greatly. Shelley’s way of comparing Victor, the Creature, Robert Walton and Clerval is what leads to the readers greater understanding of who Victor is. The most obvious foil throughout the novel is the Creature and Victor, child and father figure. Shelley uses their similarities …show more content…
This shows Victor’s true personality, not that he is a strong scientist, but that he is a man who cannot handle the consequences of his actions. By avoiding what he created, he causes people to die, chaos is created, and the Creature begins to feel the need for another companion when he demands Victor “My companion must be out of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create” (Shelley 175). The Creature is seen as the bad guy when it is revealed that he killed William, Clerval, and Elizabeth. However, if Victor had just made that tiny feeble step to teach the Creature the difference between right and wrong so many things could be stopped. The most important use of foil that is used in Frankenstein is how the Creature is seen as the bad guy of the novel, in order to show how truly bad Victor was in creating him and abandoning him.
Without foils in the story, there would be a boring plot line because we could not see deeper into who the characters really are. Everyone would either be the same, or have nothing in common at all. Mary Shelley’s use of foils excelled in Frankenstein because without them, Victor would just be seen as the ultimate bad guy who created this Creature without any need to care for it or even destroy it to stop everyone else from being harmed. Instead, the reader gets a deeper look into his motives, his pain and agony, and why he may have not been able to stop
If you have the Harry Potter series, or almost any other story you have been introduced to this literary device that instantly makes your story attention-grabbing, and page-turning. This writing tool is known as a character foil. A character foil is a character that displays contrary, or opposite character traits. An example of a character foil is Draco Malfoy, and Harry Potter. Their rival relationship and other conflicts are the perfect example to showcase foils at work. To continue, in the iconic “Romeo and Juliet” written by William Shakespeare, there are two known character foils in the first Act: Benvolio and Tybalt, and the Nurse and Lady Capulet.
Mary Shelley was an extremely talented writer who used many different techniques to make Frankenstein so engaging. Her most notable tool was how she managed to entwine stories within each other. Other books may do this once in their story but Mary Shelley repeatedly does it allowing us to see the story in other peoples perspectives.
2. Foils are integral to this play, because many of the devious plots are revealed to the reader through them. A foil is a secondary character which [*1] illuminates certain things about a primary character to the audience. The major character may reveal secrets, such as murderous plots or traps, or feelings, for example, a perspective on death or the love of another character. This can happen if the minor character is primarily a listener on stage. Another scenario is if two characters, major and minor, share similarities, but have distinct differences. These variations in personality will reveal something important about the main character. The "something important" could be a fatal flaw or a good point of their personality. Many foils are used in this play, but there are two important ones which happen to be for the same character.
He toils endlessly in alchemy, spending years alone, tinkering. However, once the Creature is brought to life, Frankenstein is no longer proud of his creation. In fact, he’s appalled by what he’s made and as a result, Frankenstein lives in a perpetual state of unease as the Creature kills those that he loves and terrorizes him. Victor has realized the consequences of playing god. There is irony in Frankenstein’s development, as realized in Victor’s desire to destroy his creation. Frankenstein had spent so much effort to be above human, but his efforts caused him immediate regret and a lifetime of suffering. Victor, if he had known the consequences of what he’s done, would have likely not been driven by his desire to become better than
A foil is a character who serves as a contrast to another character. Writers often use foils to emphasize differences and traits of characters. Such an author would be William Shakespeare, author to many plays, including “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”. William Shakespeare uses foiling to emphasize one of the main character’s traits and differences. This “ foiling” relationship is between the main character Romeo and Paris.
Foils are used in plays so that the readers are better able to understand the major character (Hamlet). In a foil, the minor character is similar in many ways to the main character so that we will compare the two. However, it is through these similarities that we are able to see the more important differences between the two.
In “Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai, the author uses foil characters in the relationship of two sisters, Nea and Sourdi. Their contrasting personalities are at the center of the plot. In fictional stories, “The main purpose of a character foil is to highlights the opposite traits of the main character”(Development of Characters). The foil character is Sourdi, her personality traits are opposite of the main character, Nea. The contrast allows Nea, the protagonist, to stand out more distinctly. The author shows the reader that Nea is headstrong, impulsive, and immature. In contrast, Sourdi is more laid back and mature. Examples of the foil are evident throughout the passage. In the scene where Nea stabs a man in the arm for tormenting her sister, her Ma states to Nea,“You not thinking. That your problem. You always not thinking!” (Meyer pg. 83) Nea wanted to protect her sister, but Nea does not think of the consequences for stabbing the man. In contrast, Sourdi always thinks of consequences. Sourdi's response to Nea, “They could take you away. The police, they
At first glance, the monster in Frankenstein is a symbol of evil, whose only desire is to ruin lives. He has been called "A creature that wreaks havoc by destroying innocent lives often without remorse. He can be viewed as the antagonist, the element Victor must overcome to restore balance and tranquility to the world." But after the novel is looked at on different levels, one becomes aware that the creature wasn't responsible for his actions, and was just a victim of circumstance. The real villain of Frankenstein isn't the creature, but rather his creator, Victor.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley introduces the change from good to evil with the attention that guardians give a child. William Crisman, in his critique of Mary Shelley’s work, identifies the “sibling rivalry” between Victor and the rest of his family. Crisman remarks that Victor feels as if he is the most important person in his parents’ lives, since he was Alphonse’s and Caroline’s only child. The Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth and Victor sarcastically remarks that he has a happy childhood. This prompts Victor starts to read essays about alchemy and study natural science. Anne Mellor, another critic of Frankenstein, proposes that Frankenstein’s creature was born a good person and society’s reaction to him caused him to turn evil. Victor’s makes the creature in his own perception of beauty, and his perception of beauty was made during a time in his life when he had secluded himself from his family and friends. He perceived the monster as “Beautiful!”, but Victor unknowingly expressed the evil in himself, caused by secluding himself from everybody, onto the creature (60). In this way, the creature is Victor’s evil mirrored onto a body. The expression of Victor onto the monster makes the townspeople repulsed by the creature. The theory of the “alter ego” coincides with Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry (Mellor). Mary Shelley conveys that through Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry, Victor isolates himself from society. Mellor describes the isolation during his creation of his creature leads to him giving the creature false beauty that causes Victor to abandon him and society to reject him.
When Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is analyzed, critics comes to a conclusion about Victor Frankenstein's creation. The creature invokes the most sympathy from the readers than any other character in the novel. Because he is abandoned by society which manipulates the creature to do evil things despite his good heart. Therefore Shelley's message throughout the novel is that a person is not born evil, they are made evil.
Although some critics say that the monster Victor has created is to blame for the destruction and violence that follow the experiment, it is Victor who is the responsible party. First, Victor, being the scientist, should have known how to do research on the subject a lot more than he had done. He obviously has not thought of the consequences that may result from it such as the monster going crazy, how the monster reacts to people and things, and especially the time it will take him to turn the monster into the perfect normal human being. This is obviously something that would take a really long time and a lot of patience which Victor lacks. All Victor really wants is to be the first to bring life to a dead person and therefore be famous. The greed got to his head and that is all he could think about, while isolating himself from his friends and family. In the play of Frankenstein, when Victor comes home and sets up his lab in the house, he is very paranoid about people coming in there and finding out what he is doing. At the end of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor says:
1. Plays have foils to help the audience understand important characters in the play. Foils are minor characters that have similarities and differences with a more important character in the play. Sometimes the minor character is just there for the character to talk to; this is the basis for being a foil. In the play "Hamlet," [Titles] by William Shakespeare, the character Ophelia is a foil to Hamlet.
Shelley created the male characters in the novel with the intent of displaying their one sidedness, proving their lack of connection to domestic matters. She is also proving their extreme obsession when it comes to achieving goals, and the deep desire to become the hero. Among all of the male characters, Victor Frankenstein stands out as a strong representation of
Random House Webster's dictionary defines a foil as "a person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast." This essay will focus on the use of the foil to contrast another character. The characters of Nora and Mrs. Linde provide an excellent example of this literary device. Mrs. Linde's aged, experienced personality is the perfect foil for Nora's childish nature. Mrs. Linde's hard life is used to contrast the frivolity and sheltered aspects of Nora's life. Nora's optimism and belief in things improbable is an opposite to the rationality and down-to-earth mentality of Mrs. Linde. Finally, the rekindling of the flame between Mrs. Linde and Krogstad is a direct contrast to the burning down of Nora and Torvald's "doll's house."
In Hound of the Baskervilles written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Watson have a special type of relationship. In the beginning the reader is shown that Dr.Watson is a foil to Sherlock Holmes. The meaning of “Foil”s a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character. In the book the reader see’s 3 things that are always memorable. Watson is seen as smart but Holmes will always be seen as a genius,Watson is very open while Holmes is very Watson is the one that trusts more.