More handpicked essays just for you.
Moral responsibility in frankenstein
Frankenstein the responsibility that the creator did not take
Moral responsibility in frankenstein
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Rough Draft Assigning blame is easy, but to determine who is truly responsible for the effects of their actions, is not so easy. Victor and his creation are equally responsible for the terror and grief that spread through their community. Frankenstein never considered how such a creature with a horrifying appearance would be able to exist with humans. He didn't take responsibility for his creature; instead Frankenstein abandoned, neglected, and abused his creature. He never realized that the lack of parental love and guidance would lead the creature to a murderous path. Victor Frankenstein tried to discover "the cause of generation and life," and "became . . . capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter" (Shelley 45). Days and nights Victor was occupied with his experiment. He forgot about his family and could not see anything beyond his experiment. Victor said that he had "lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit" (45). He had "worked nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body" (45). During these two years Victor became selfish and had no contact with his parents, Elizabeth and William, who were …show more content…
He allows his anger at what Victor has done to him to overtake his ability to reason and leads him to murder as a form of revenge, and the need to be accepted. The monster just wants his creator to love him and accept him the way he is, not the way he looks. At this point, he wants to be loved or accepted by anybody. He doesn’t understand why he keeps getting repudiated by everyone that he meets. “I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them (Shelley
When a crime is committed, the blame is usually placed on the criminal. This is because a crime cannot take place without a criminal. However, a lawbreaker generally has reasons for his misdeed. For a crime to occur, a criminal must have incentive. Consequently, the causes of a wrongdoer’s motivation are also responsible for the offence. In addition, crimes can be avoided if the proper precautionary measures are taken. Therefore, anyone who could have stopped a crime from happening is partially accountable for it. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a creature created by Victor Frankenstein kills several of Victor’s loved ones. These murders could be blamed on the creature, but he is not solely responsible for them. The root cause of the murders is Victor’s secrecy. His concealment causes his obsession, a lack of preventative measures against the creature, and his fear of appearing to be mad.
As Frankenstein explains, he declares that he deliberately neglects to communicate with his creation, based on its shockingly hideous appearance. Had Frankenstein taken the time to communicate and care for his creation, with all the knowledge that he possesses of the responsibility of a good parent, the creation would have never developed the sense of vindication and reprisal that lead him to murdering Victor's loved one's. The creation would henceforth account Frankenstein for all his sufferings succeeding his birth.
As a tragic hero, Victor’s tragedies begin with his overly obsessive thirst for knowledge. Throughout his life, Victor has always been looking for new things to learn in the areas of science and philosophy. He goes so far with his knowledge that he ends up creating a living creature. Victor has extremely high expectations for his creation but is highly disappointed with the outcome. He says, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 35). Frankenstein neglects the creature because of his horrifying looks, which spark the beginning of numerous conflicts and tragedies. At this point, the creature becomes a monster because of Victor’s neglect and irresponsibility. The monster is forced to learn to survive on his own, without anyone or anything to guide him along the way. Plus, the monster’s ugly looks cause society to turn against him, ad...
Upon first discovering how to make life, Victor is overwhelmed with excitement and pride, feeling as though he has unlocked the greatest power on earth. His imagination is “too much exalted” by this newfound ability, and thus determines there is no “animal as complex and wonderful as man” for him to attempt as his first creation (Shelley 43). Frankenstein does not contemplate how he will react to or interact with the human he gives life to, or that he has created an extremely twisted parent-child relationship by creating a human from dead bodies. His general lack of concern regarding the consequences of his remarkable yet dangerous power is the root of the rest of the conflict between him and his monster throughout the rest of the novel, and it exemplifies Shelley’s underlying theme that science should not be pushed past morally and psychologically safe boundaries.
As a romantic, archetype and gothic novel, Victor is responsible for the monsters actions because Victor abandons his creation meaning the creature is dejected and ends up hideous and fiendish. It is unfair to create someone into this world and then just abandon it and not teach it how to survive. The quote from the creature “Why did you make such a hideous creature like me just to leave me in disgust” demonstrates how much agony the creature is in. He is neglected because of his creator. The monster says “The hateful day when I received life! I accurse my creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” Victor is wholly at fault for his actions, image and evil.
He stopped writing and gets caught up in his creation and it makes everyone at home wonder and worry about him leaving Elizabeth to pick up the pieces. Six years pass and the family decided to take a walk well tragic strikes again in the Frankenstein family, William Victors little brother was murdered. Elizabeth blames herself for William’s death also, William wanted to wear a valuable thing that belonged to his mother and so Elizabeth let him wear it and now he is dead she feels the murder was after that. After Williams death victor finally returns home after being gone for six
As a romantic novel Victor is responsible, because he abandoned his creation. As an archetype novel, Victor is the villain, because he was trying to play god. Finally, Victor as a Gothic novel, Victor is at fault, because, he and the creature are two different parts of the same person. If Frankenstein is looked at as a romantic novel, Victor, not the creature, is truly the villain. When Victor created the creature, he didn't take responsibility for it. He abandoned it, and left it to fend for itself. It is unfair to bring something into the world, and then not teach it how to survive. The creature was miserable, and just wanted a friend or someone to talk to. On page 115, the creature said, "Hateful day when I received life! Accursed the creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust." This line shows the agony the monster was in, because of how he looked when he was created which led to even Victor running away from him. If Victor didn't run, he could have taught the monster and made his life happy. After the creature scared the cottagers away he said, "I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter ...
The creature was disgusting and Victor did not know what to do. Meanwhile, the creature felt lonely, for he was the only one of his kind on the Earth. He wanted attention like everyone else, so this drove the monster mad. One could even argue that Victor is the monster himself, for creating this dangerous creature. Even though he looks normal on the outside, he is really the true monster because he is so obsessed with hating it, he fails to give it
“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity” (Einstein). In Mary Shelley's classic, gothic novel “Frankenstein”, she emphasizes how everyone has to take action for one’s consequences and do the right thing. Dr. Frankenstein made others suffer because he was horrified by his creation and did not want to own up to his actions nor did he want to be perceived as a madman. This in turn shows that responsibility for one’s actions is a duty even if those actions have negative consequences, one has to accept them and try to fix them.
One might suggest this is the very reason as to why he is so obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. Victor ends up attending the University at Ingolstadt. This is when he becomes passionate about his work. His studies at the university foster him into a desire to discover the secret of life. Victor strives to be god-like.
Victor’s drive to create life from has died compelled him to create an unnamed creature. The creature was eventually Victor’s demise, destroying almost every piece of joy Victor had once held close. Although the creature commits horrible acts against Victor and many innocent civilians, multiple signs point to the idea the creature is not the true monster of this novel. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores what makes one monstrous through the ideas desire for knowledge, neglect, and irresponsibility.
The battle of who to blame for a person’s actions is a struggled faced every day in the human society. Society effects every element of a human’s life from birth to death; one’s actions are all be determined by society’s role. Mary Shelly warns readers of the role society plays in their everyday lives and how one can be driven to do inhumane actions due to its role in her book Frankenstein. Where a creature is created and then rejected repeatedly by society causing him to lose any human traits he once had; thus, only causing turmoil for those unfortunate enough to cross his path. In her novel Frankenstein Mary Shelley is attempting to warn readers how society can widely effect ones up bringing; through the role of society rejecting the creatures
He starts out as a blank slate, much like everyone in the world. The hardships he faces shaped him into a true monster. He wanted to interact with people and make relationships, but time after time he was rejected and ostracised. This led him to want to hurt people and create misery for others, as is shown throughout the book as he torments Victor. The horror in this element of the book is that is shows that anyone can become a monster.
His family was really afraid of him. And right after he finished his goal, he decided to abandon him because he looks really ugly. The monster became homeless and his hatreds stacked everyday when he was away from his creator. The hate the monster received from people was horrible. He was Irritated about it.
Victor Frankenstein was the creator of the monster in the book. He was an ambitious man who had high hopes and dreams for himself, but this characteristic was the cause of his downfall. He had a ruthless desire to obtain forbidden knowledge- a knowledge that only God was worthy of having. This lead him to lock himself in his laboratory, disregarding his family, friends, and health. His one purpose was to create life. In his quest to create a human being and bestow the power of life, Victor eventually did create a creature, but this lead to a situation