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Human nature aspects frankenstein
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Recommended: Human nature aspects frankenstein
Avery Teal
Ms. Watson
Pre-AP English
November 23, 2016
Mutation of Human Nature In Mary Shelley’s ”Frankenstein” the main character, Victor, struggles with guilt that plagues his thoughts. He is constantly brought down by the death of his brother; a death he feels responsible for. The “monster” he created murdered Victor’s brother, William. A dear friend of Victor is wrongly accused of the murder and is sentenced to death. These two events throw Victor’s psyche into a dark haze clouded by grief and deep remorse. In the story, Mary Shelley includes a poem that ties into the theme of the nature of humanity. The poem explain the mutability of the emotions that humans feel. The poem is included to show the mutability of Victor’s emotional. As Victor begins to progresses through the story, he begins to change his position on the monster and the loss he has dealt with, this ties back to the mutability of human nature.
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He repeatedly blames himself and feels that his emotions will never changes. The poem helps explain his nature. “We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day. [Sic]” (Shelley 111) The poem suggests that one bad thought can pollute a human’s emotions. As Victor thinks about the death of his brother and Justine, we see how his nature changes. “I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness… There was always scope of fear so long as anything I loved remained behind” (Shelley 103) Here we see how Victor’s psyche becomes extremely tainted by these thoughts and they haunt his every moment. He fears for the ones he loves and expresses remorse for those that died. The poem and his guilt tie together in the theme of human nature and the effects that thoughts and guilt can have on mental
Shelley characterizes Victor in a way that he acts on his impulses and not with rationality. As a result, Victor does not take the time to teach or talk to his creation. This action leads to his downfall as his loved one’s are killed by the Creature taking revenge on Victor for leaving him to fend for himself. Victor’s actions have consequences, hence why all his loved one’s are murdered because of his instinct to leave out of fear and safety. Shelley proves that our id demands immediate gratification of needs and thus, is in control of our actions.
In the novel Frankenstein, Victor, the main character, is driven to insanity and death by his motivation, his own creation. He dedicates all of his time and knowledge to create a living human being from dead tissue. This "monster" becomes his motivation and influence throughout the rest of the novel. Victor blames himself and feels guilt for all of th...
Shelley 94). Victor’s various thoughts of rage and hatred that had at first deprive him of utterance, but he recovers only to overwhelm the creature with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt, as he recalled creature’s misdoings to his loved ones. However, Victor pauses to “conceive,” to “feel,” and to “reason” with monster (M. Shelley 94). As Victor follows his creation, he notices the “air [to be full] of exultation” and “the rain” beginning “to descend,” showcasing Victor’s consent to change his view. (M. Shelley 98). Chapter 10 is exemplary of the Romantic Period where story becomes an allegory for real emotions and struggles. Victor’s
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...
Shelley 1st addresses Victor’s nature. He describes being born a Genevese with a family that is “one of the foremost distinguished of that republic” (Shelley 18). Frankenstein continues to explain his family with adjectives like, “honour,” and “integrity” (18). Shelley’s diction once addressing Victor’s nature describes his family as honorable and prestigious. Being no exception to this prestigious heritage Victor ultimately becomes a victim of his nature. Victor’s greed for power, a bit like the ability that had succeeded him, is simply too exuberant for him to handle. “I had worked…for the sole purpose of infusing life into academic degree inanimate body… I had desired it with ardor that approach exceeded moderation,” Victor states (39). Shelley’s use of powerful words like would like, ardor, and exceeded portray the thought of this overwhelming would like for power in Victor’s nature, and foreshadows Victor’s final downfall.
In Frankenstein, Victor’s monster suffers much loneliness and pain at the hands of every human he meets, as he tries to be human like them. First, he is abandoned by his creator, the one person that should have accepted, helped, and guided him through the confusing world he found himself in. Next, he is shunned wherever he goes, often attacked and injured. Still, throughout these trials, the creature remains hopeful that he can eventually be accepted, and entertains virtuous and moral thoughts. However, when the creature takes another crushing blow, as a family he had thought to be very noble and honorable abandons him as well, his hopes are dashed. The monster then takes revenge on Victor, killing many of his loved ones, and on the humans who have hurt him. While exacting his revenge, the monster often feels guilty for his actions and tries to be better, but is then angered and provoked into committing more wrongdoings, feeling self-pity all the while. Finally, after Victor’s death, the monster returns to mourn the death of his creator, a death he directly caused, and speaks about his misery and shame. During his soliloquy, the monster shows that he has become a human being because he suffers from an inner conflict, in his case, between guilt and a need for sympathy and pity, as all humans do.
So it is only fitting that his first relief from this spell of paralyzing fear is an encounter with the beauty of nature. Directly after Victor 's creation of the monster Shelley perfectly encapsulates the acute horror, and painful realization that brings about his illness in the following quote. Shelley writes, "I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sink to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that have been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!" (Shelley, 16). Shelley illustrates just how heavily the consequences of what Victor did weigh down on his conscience. She does this by combining the description of Victors physical symptoms of panic like his racing pulse, and faintness, with a description of his mental anguish to express a deeper message from a ever more true to life Frankenstein that the reader can empathize with as he realizes the gravity of what he has done to unbalance the natural
As stated before Shelly uses figurative language in order to personify nature and the emotions of her narrators, but she also makes use of techniques such as similes. “For when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys" (Shelley, Chap. 2). This passage not only once again utilises nature to personify the emotions of Victor but also makes use of a simile in order to represent his emotions as well. This simile compares Victor’s captivation with reanimation to a mountain river. The river’s “forgotten sources” are in reference to the alchemy books he reads which are considered to be a dead form of science and his father’s disapproval with Victor’s continued research into the subject. His captivation is also “like a river” because he views it as the current that swept him up and pulled towards his destiny. The simile puts Victor’s rationality into question by drawing attention to his belief that reanimating a corpse is his destiny. Instead, the passage subtly says that Victor is ruled by his emotions by implying that he only wants to
In the novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, the relationship of external apperence and internal feelings are directly related. The creature is created and he is innocent, though he is seaverly deformed. His nature is to be good and kind, but society only views his external appereance which is grotesque. Human nature is to judge by external apperence. He is automatically ostracized and labeled as a monster because of his external apperence. He finnaly realized that no matter how elequintly he speaks and how kind he is, people will never be able to see past his external deformities. Children are fearful of him, Adults think he is dangerous, and his own creator abandons him in disgust. The creature is treated as a monster, therefore he begins to internalize societies view of him and act the like a monster.
The creator of the monster, Victor Frankenstein is a man full of knowledge and has a strong passion for science. He pushes the boundary of science and creates a monster. Knowledge can be a threat when used for evil purposes. Though Victor did not intend for the being to be evil, society’s judgement on the monster greatly affects him. As a result he develops hatred for his creator as well as all man-kind. Victor’s anguish for the loss of his family facilitates his plan for revenge to the monster whom is the murderer. While traveling on Robert Walton’s ship he and Victor continue their pursuit of the monster. As Victor’s death nears he says, “…or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death…Yet, when I am dead if he should appear, if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live-swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes” (pg.199). Victor grieves the death of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth and his father. Throughout the novel he experiences the five stages of grief, denial/ isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Victor denies ...
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...
Despite the differences between the characters in the poems, I will also go on to say how the preoccupation with death and violence all seem to stem from the apparently unstable minds of the characters; from the instability brought on by varying emotions such as grief, jealousy, resentment, guilt and madness, and the fact that these emotions may lead to paranoia.
Many inferences can be made about the main characters nature. Throughout the poem there is many examples of text evidence that shows the characters feelings, and we can analyze it, to fully uncover the characters nature. Some of the evidence is “You watch for awhile”, “You wanted to fix what you’d broken-restore the beautiful body”, “Somethings stay with you, dumping the body in the woods, like a gangster”, and “All you life, the trail of ruin you leave”. My analysis of these pieces of text evidence is that, the character clearly feels guilty about the whole accident. He would undo the damage he’d done if he could furthermore, at the end of the story he realizes that all you can do is accept the trail of ruin you leave as you live your life..
There are many different opinions on what the theme is in Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein. There is question of whether it was a feminist text or nature versus nurture, and while all themes are present, the largest theme in this novel is Victor’s abandonment of his creature and the cruelty in his actions. Victor leaves this monster he creates all alone with no guidance or friends to help him in his journey to becoming human like. Although the monster may be responsible for his own actions, Victor’s cruelty in abandoning his creation plays a large role in why the monster acts out in ways he did.
Shelley uses the gothic genre to show the dark side of human nature. Victor became so carried away with his with his experiments that he did not consider that it would be evil to try to play God. “I had deprived myself of rest and health” (51, Shelley). It can be seen here that Victor what very involved In his studies of the reanimation of life, he does not think of the moral issues that might arise from his experiments. It is Victor that controls the technology and knowledge of life, but he insists on creating the monster.