Betty Ramirez Mr. Unger English 4P 12 March 2012 Frankenstein Enormous, frightening, unintelligent, and green? These thoughts are automatically in one’s mind about a creature supposedly named “Frankenstein.” These assumptions are wrong, in fact, the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley describes a creature created by Victor Frankenstein. The fictional story seems to convey the creature as a monster. Victor does unfathomable things in order to create this so called monster. Just as many other people in the novel, Victor “judges a book by its cover.” He is in a sense evil, heartless and a complete coward.
Merry Shelly’s Frankenstein explores secrecy and the outcome of an individual who wrestles with the options of revealing the truth or withholding it. Victor Frankenstein is victim of a double sided sword; his secret becomes a leech that is hazardous to his well being. As readers follow through the endless hell put out of Victor's life they learn the nature of his secret, its consequences, and how it contributes to the message Shelly is trying to convey, the belief that secrecy can be destructive by corrupting life and love. Frankenstein begins a quest of creating a human being from scratch. He does not reveal his plan or actions.
“(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.
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
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.
I will analyze the author's title and expain the relationship between the title and the novel. I will also discuss the effect of the title on the reader. -The name "Frankenstein" is often used to refer to the monster itself. Frankenstein is a well established title because it gives a hint of the theme. In the novel, the monster is identified by words such as "creature," "monster", "fiend", "wretch", "vile insect","being", and "it", but speaking to Dr. Frankenstein, the monster refers to himself as "the Adam of your labors", and elsewhere as someone who "would have" been "your Adam", but is instead your "fallen angel."
All of these characters have an ambition for intelligence, which they deal with in different ways. Victor wanted to make a creation of life from lifeless matter, and he sought to do so no matter what. Frankenstein then begins to study hard and becomes a victim of desolation, leaving him detached from his family and friends to accomplish this outrageous goal of creating life. Through his curiosity he creates a creature, who at first was a beautiful thought, but turned into his very own nightmare. For Victor, his creation, the creature, was his dangerous knowledge, leading to a series of haunting events for him.
David Guhl Mrs. Volz British Lit. 5 September 2012 Who is the real monster? There is child abuse going on all around the world, and the kids have done nothing to deserve it. In Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein, The Monster is like an abused child because Victor puts his creation through intense pain that the Monster did not deserve. Victor had no reason to put his creation though such pain he just did it through pure selfishness.
Frankenstein and the Creature shared an uncontrollable need for vengeance. After the Creature murdered Elizabeth and Clerval, Dr. Frankenstein devoted his life to finding the Creature. He tracked him across the continent; he sacrificed himself by going through fatigue and the bitter cold which was all driven to simply get revenge on the Creature for his actions. Dr. Frankenstein even says, “revenge— a deep and deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had endured” (Shelly 169). The Creature all the same was driven by vengeance during his time of existence.
Mary Shelley uses many language devices to portray conflict in the novel Frankenstein. In chapter 5, Mary Shelley uses alliteration to convey to the reader the emotional conflict the monster is forced to face. Victor finally finishes his creation and observes its appearance: “I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster who I created”. This suggests to the reader that Victor is not pleased with his creation as he calls him a “monster”; the word “monster” makes the reader visualize a horrendous, spine-chilling, eerie creation creating a dark ambience. Furthermore, the author uses feelings to describe the monster.