In the novel Frankenstein, author Marry Shelley depicts character Victor Frankenstein as a scientist with a strong passion for forbidden knowledge and finding the answers to life through science. Though his intentions are good this leads him to the creation of a monster. Throughout the novel Frankenstein is constantly encountered by obstacles that test his passions for science and responsibility for his creation. For Victor it seems that the choice to abandon the monster is the easier path, rather than taking care of his creation. In the beginning of the book, right after the creation of the monster, Victor fled his home to get away from the creature, only to return and find that it had escaped.
He tells him ‘do your duty towards me and I will do mine towards you,’ and if Frankenstein refused, he threatened him by saying he would ‘glut the maw of death’. This shows how the Creature’s abandonment and lack of nurture leads him to become a murderer. Further proof of this is when, during the Creature’s tale he tell Frankenstein ‘I could not conceive how one man could go fourth and murder his fellow’ showing that he was ‘benevolent and good’ and had Frankenstein full filled his duty he may have remained so. The Creature admits to Frankenstein ‘misery made me a fiend’ implying that Frankenstein’s actions, or lack of action, lead to this misery. Primarily it is not Frankenstein who has to suffer the consequences of his creating life, it is the Creature.
Love, hate, revenge, and murder. All of these themes impact the way a book can be read and will be read. Frankenstein is a novel that is full of devices that constantly make reader question the entire motive for characters. It features dynamic characters, who exhibit their humanity in the most exciting ways. They exhibit humanity, by loving each other, hating the monster, the monster murdering his creator’s friend and loved ones, and Frankenstein path to avenge the loss of his family to the monster.
In Mary Shelley’s tragedy Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein indulges his desire to create new life out of dead matter by entering a “Faustian Bargain”. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the term “Faustian“ in ”Faustian Bargain” as made or done for present gain without regard for future cost or consequences (as related to the legend of Faust, who was a fictional magician who enters a compact with the devil in order to gain knowledge at the expense of his soul). Victor Frankenstein undertakes a “Faustian Bargain” because at first he yearns for the “present gain” of knowledge and ability when creating the monster, but only does so due to his obliviousness of the future consequences, and soon after completing the project regrets even embarking on it. This is clear when comparing and contrasting Frankenstein’s thought process and actions before and after his creation is born. While in the process of creating the monster, Frankenstein is both completely obsessed with his project, and, does not consider the consequences before it is alive.
Frankenstein wanted to recreate his mother, but instead he made a creature comprised of the socially repressed elements of Frankenstein (the monster) and his wish for his mother. Frankenstein's creature comprises all of the unacceptable traits of humans, those we usually suppress. These traits may actually be a representation of those traits that Frankenstein wishes he had. Mary Shelley tries to humanize the position of the impossible monster to imagine what it would be like for a monster to sustain personhood when everybody around him treats him as an utterly outcast to society. Shelley is trying to show that the creature is not inherently monstrous, but
Frankenstein Personal Response Why Victor Frankenstein is Responsible for his Death When one initially reads the gothic tale Frankenstein, it may seem obvious that Victor’s monster was directly responsible for the death of Victor’s loved ones. At the hands of his very own grotesque creation, Victor lost his younger brother, his friends and his newlywed wife, Elizabeth. However, upon reflection on the actions of Victor Frankenstein, I concluded that Victor himself is indisputably responsible for the deaths of the people closest to him. I found these three very distinct reasons that support my thoughts: he created the monster, he rejected and abandoned it, and he refused to make a companion for the monster in the midst of his loneliness. As a result of Victor’s pursuit of scientific knowledge and the desire to infuse life, he created a very grotesque creature that murdered his loved ones.
In Ray Hammond’s critical essay, he saw the novel as Mary Shelly’s “means of expressing her innermost fears about life and death in a tangible form (Hammond).” Both Shelly and her mother suffered “birthing horros which are echoed in Frankenstein (Hammond).” Shelly’s novel can be seen as a critique on amoral science, or science without forethought. In Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, the character of Frankenstein shows the danger of playing God and the ethical questions presented when man does not consider the ethical questions his experiments present. The pursuit of knowledge is at the heart of Frankenstein, as the good doctor attempts to go beyond anything ever attempted and discover the unthinkable: the secret of life. Frankenstein’s experiment is made with good intentions, as he believes his creation will help humanity. "The accomplishment of his toils" is the creature, created from human body parts Frankenstein harvested from graveyards (34).
However, some people aren’t recognized for their abilities, causing lack of acceptance, which leads to becoming an outcast. Frankenstein is an outcast, and isn’t even accepted by his own creator, “unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedroom chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep” (Shelley 90). Unlike a normal human, the monster Victor created has no family; he has no one but Victor, who won’t accept him, because his appearance is too revolting. Frankenstein endured rejection after rejection, and after he had enough, he killed William. When approached about the murder, Frankenstein explained that the root of all his evil actions were in response to his desperate loneliness.
“Gothic and Romanticism” – David Punter Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and a Monster’s inevitable doom In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, it appears that Shelley attempts to draw an important analogy between the lone genius Prometheus, the archetypal seeker after forbidden wisdom, and her own protagonist Victor Frankenstein, who also dares to transgress boundaries in order to create life. Thus the subtitle The Modern Prometheus. However, it is crucial to note the invariable difference between both old and modern Prometheus. Whereas old Prometheus suffers alone for his sin, in the case of Shelley’s Prometheus, Frankenstein, the monster involuntarily partakes in the sin, by being its final product, and therefore has to suffer too. To the reader, it seems that Shelly consistently reminds us of the lack of responsibility on the part of Frankenstein, and the monster’s inherent innocence, who is only made evil by his circumstances.
He then used electricity to give life to his creature. By making the monster, he was taking the place of God, or according to the myth, the god Prometheus, and became the creator instead of just the created. “Prometheus knows the good consequences that his acts and his pride will have to mankind, but Frankenstein acts without stopping to think what could happen after” (Pastelero). Although Frankenstein does become a creator by creating the monster, he does not care for his creation in the way Prometheus cared for his humans he created. Frankenstein was not a good creator, he was actually trying desperately to kill his monster he made.