With both Victor and the monster being similar, working in secrecy and animosity are the most present traits displayed in Frankenstein. Victor works in secrecy excluding himself from society and gives life to a monster. Victor succeeds at his goal of becoming god and achieving the power to give life but runs away from his creation. Victor flees from his experiment mostly because it
At first, Victor says no, however, after hearing the monster's explanation of having a companion, he agrees. However, halfway through the second creation process, Victor changes his mind yet again and destroys the second monster before he gets a chance to put life into it. Victor’s reasoning is logical, but this decision doesn't make the situation better. The monster retaliates by saying, “Shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were
Once the monster knows that Victor will not make his a friend, the creation says, "'from that moment [he] declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against [Frankenstein] who had formed [him] and sent [him] forth to this insupportable misery'" (121). Victor could have saved his loved ones but his fear caused the death of others. The Creation reaches a point where he has had enough of Victor and says, "'You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains -- revenge, henceforth dearer than light of food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery'" (153). The Monster had done nothing to deserve what Victor has put him through, so the fact that the Creation turns on Victor was perfectly normal.
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.
The Creature also wanted revenge when Dr. Frankenstein would not create a companion for him! The Creature promised Dr. Frankenstein that he would regret his decision to not make him a counterpart. Sure enough the Creature fulfilled his promise by making him suffer by killing off Dr. Frankenstein’s best friend Clerval and his wife Elizabeth. They both lived and went out of their way to satisfy there longing for revenge. Even so, they both found solitude in the nature around
Perhaps the man that shot the creature after it had saved a little girl from drowning would be a better example of being too quick to judge. All of the judgments seem to bring a negative effect on the judged. Frankenstein tells of the creatures payback to Dr. Frankenstein for judging his creation and not taking responsibility for it. The creature winds up killing several of the doctor's family members and his very close friend, Henry Clerval. In his search for vengeance the creature condemns himself to the internal suffering of knowing that he has taken the life of a person.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is first depicted as a hero that turns tragic due to his own detrimental flaws. Victor’s demise began when his mother died while trying to nurture Elizabeth back to health. Due to his need for an escape, Victor turns to his fascination with nature. He feels trapped in his tragic, monotonous life and craves the feeling of living again. Seen first as a genius of science, Victor is loved by others only for him to turn around and become the cause of suffering for nearly every character.
The monster can be seen as monstrous because he is hideously ugly and rejected by society. However, he is also monstrous because he lost his innocence by killing people that were innocent to get revenge on Frankenstein. The monster kills everyone who was close to Frankenstein, including Elizabeth, the person he loved the most since childhood. This vendetta was the result of Victor breaking his promise to make a companion. Frankenstein himself also has a monstrosity to him because his ambition, secrecy, and selfishness make him isolated from society.
Freud argues on behalf of the monster because he interprets Victor's refusal to let the monster have a companion as a part of being mildly content. Victor convinces the real monster that he's going to build this new "companion" for him yet decides not to after considering reasoned ramifications at the costs of the lives of others he loves. Freud argues, "When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment" (Freud 25). Victor is a monster in that he let's his own family die at the hands of the monster in order to make himself not look foolish after refusing to build the monster a woman-monster and to content himself with what is just in his eyes. Victor even travels for some time with his friend Clerval, ignoring his promised task to the monster in order to avoid further suffering.
“(168) This novel gave the idea of suicide to the Monster which was inflicted upon being denied by everyone and not knowing his spot in humanity. As the Monster read “Paradise Lost” he connected to having a war with his creator, and believes that he was Victor’s “Satan”. Thinking in the role of Satan, the Monster kills Victor’s family, just like Satan took away God’s angels. The novel “Plutarch’s Lives” gave the monster some input on life. “The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations.” (170) The Monster finally found his reason for being on earth and he believes he found his spot in humanity.