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.
Chen 1 Shanye Chen Dr. Melinda Luisa de Jesús SSHIS 200-03: The Monsters We Make October 24th. 2013 Frankenstein and Prometheus, Knowledge and Wisdom Frankenstein，a novel written by Mary Shelley in the nineteenth century, is about Victor Frankenstein, a scientist, who creates a humanlike creature and abandons the creature immediately. The creature studies by himself and tries to find his identity, but he is not accepted by society because he’s ugly and horrible looking. Then the creature kills all the people, who Victor loves, for revenge. Frankenstein was the first science fiction and Gothic novel, a remarkable work showing a profoundness and criticism of science, which still has influence today.
In chapter 10, the monster finally finds Victor and confronts him, Victor responds to this by saying:”begone, vile insect”. The imperative “begone” suggests to the reader that Victor is alarmed and frightening by the arrival of the monster as he abandoned him. The commanding word “begone” also suggests to the reader that Victor is the one in power as he is commanding the monster. Moreover, Victor is insulting the monster verbally as he refers to him as a “vile insect”. This could cause conflict between the creator and the created as Victor is repeatedly insulting the monster.
It is said that the monster’s ‘hideous looks’ represents Victor’s abnormal personality. The theme of isolation also represents doubling between Victor and the monster. Although Victor appears to be surrounded by a loving family, he ‘shuns the face of man’ and decides to become isolated from his family and the world and is trapped in a bubble of science and galvanism. Similarly, isolation is shown through the monster. He is rejected by the De Laceys and Frankenstein and ponders the question: ‘Am I not alone, miserably alone?’.
What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred but I was unable to solve them.” Readers may also find it easy to sympathise with The Monster as Shelley is very critical of Frankenstein. For example, in Chapter 15 when the Monster is talking about Frankenstein’s journal that documented his creation, the Monster says ““Everything is related in them which bares reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible.
Victor waves his fist around and threatens to attack the monster, but is able to avoid Victor with his speed. The monster claimed to be a virtuous creature, until the actions of humans made him miserable. “All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” (Vol. II Chapter II, Page 117).
Frankenstein’s abandonment of the Creature arguably leads to many of the events that later occur in Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Only too late does Frankenstein realise it was his duty to care for his creation when instead he had fled and left it to survive alone in the world. This neglect of his duty showed Frankenstein to be weak and the creature later uses this weakness to seek his revenge. The Creature always lacked a parental figure to help and teach him. He only realises this though when he observes the De Lacey family.
Victor discovered the secret of life and creates an intelligent but abnormal monster. Victor keeps his creation of the monster a secret, feeling increasingly guilty and ashamed as he realizes how helpless he is to prevent the monster from ruining his life and the lives of others. The monster is an eight-foot-tall, hideously ugly creation of Victor Frankenstein. Intelligent and sensitive, the monster attempts to integrate himself into human social patterns, but all who see him avoid him. His feeling of abandonment compels him to seek revenge against his creator.
Both the creature and Victor revenge on each other. Though separate beings, the creature and Victor share a relationship of complicated dimensions: that of nobility born of suffering, that of creator/created, and that of enforced loneliness. The Creature and Victor’s creator-created relationship, the creature’s nobleness and loneliness forms their relationship. Victor’s responsibility of the creature becomes significant when the creature begins to wreak havoc. At first, Victor sees the creature as an amazing breakthrough created by defiance nature, but soon after the creature’s creation, he realizes how truly awful the creature is and rejects him.
In Frankenstein, “The Monster” is Frankenstein's creation. The creature possesses all of the qualities that humans suppress, or should suppress, as children: villainy, murderous thoughts, revenge, etc. Some people would have thought that Frankenstein wanted to replace his dead mother. Instead of doing what every other man does, marry someone like his mother, Frankenstein rejected Elizabeth, who was physically like his mother and had a history like that of his mother. 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.