Victor's Responsibility In Frankenstein

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Maturity and Accepting Responsibility; Can Victor Admit to the Creation of the Creature? Throughout history society has shown that it is hard to accept responsibility for actions taken by individuals or by society as a whole, for example, the way America likes to cover its harsh backstory involving slavery or Germany and how it supported Adolf Hitler. But it has also been seen that to embrace these mistakes to demonstrate that society is truly mature. In the story Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, Victor is relentlessly unwilling to accept fault for the death of his family by the creature and therefore does not show that he is truly mature. This is shown by his desire to push the creature away, his unwillingness to tell his family about it, and …show more content…

When Justine is put on trial for murdering William, Frankenstein dose not tell his family that it is the creature, but allows them to be the “first hapless victims to my hallowed arts” (Shelly 71). This shows that he does not care about the damage that could be done to his family by not telling them. Also, by not telling them, it leads to the deaths of two of his family members. Later when Frankenstein finally finds the creature again, it mocks at him saying “I grasped his throat (William’s), and in a moment he laid dead at my feet.” (Shelly 122) This confirms his suspicions of the creature killing William and shows how much the creature hates Victor. It also shows that if he would have told his family about the creation of the creature William may have survived along with Justine. Also Victor tells Elizabeth he has a “tale of misery and terror” that he will tell her “the day after our marriage” (Shelly 167) This was a start for Victor towards telling his family by telling his soon to be wife about the creature. However, it was to little to late as it did not stop her from dying by the creature’s hands. By refusing to tell his family about the monster he further endangers the lives of his family and takes blame off of himself for creating the being that has killed his family

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