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Recommended: a critique of the novel Frankenstein
Plot of the novel Victor hides from the creature in a remote part of
the world which is below 0°C and was found by a group of crusaders
seeking to destroy the monster.
Part 1 – Lesson 1
Life and times of Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was born on 30th August 1797, Somers Town, in London. Her
parents were called William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. She had a
depressing childhood because her mother died when she was 10 days old
and was raised by her father and much resented step-mother. When Mary
is sixteen, she meets a young poet called Percy Bysshe Shelley (future
husband). For several times, they ran away to Continental Europe along
with her step-sister. Shelley was already married when they ran away.
Later on, in 1816, they go abroad again and spend time with Lord Byron
and his friend Polidori in Geneva. Byron then suggests that they all
should write a ghost story. Mary wrote ‘Frankenstein’. Her book was
based upon her husband because he too, was a philosopher. Shelley was
reflected as a character of ‘Victor Frankenstein’. The story is first
set in Iceland where Victor recalls the events in his life of creating
the creature. Victor was a philosopher and studied Medical Science in
Ingolstadt.
The term ‘death’ largely affected Mary’s novel based upon past events
that has happened in her life. Mary then had ‘waking’ nightmares which
led her to write ‘Frankenstein’, which took her two years to publish.
Percy’s wife drowns herself later that year when the book was
published. Mary was married to Percy in December 1816. The monster in
‘Frankenstein’ is somewhat based upon Mary because she was an
abandoned child (like the monster). Also, Mary was surrounded by death
later on in life because Percy dr...
... middle of paper ...
...want to be near to them
rather than at a distance. Even though others portray him as a monster
we know he is still a being with feelings with needs for love and
affection like he sees around him.
The creature is physically repulsive because of his facial features
such as his yellow skin and straight black lips. The creature is angry
because it was ‘rejected’ by Victor and everyone else when he
approaches them. The creature is angry because he is despised by every
human being he encounters; although, by the fact that the creature is
‘fascinated’ by humans. The creature is vengeful because he had an
urge to kill Elizabeth because he wanted a mate but Victor refused to
create him one so he decides to kill his wife instead. The creature is
murderous because he has hurt many innocent people due to the fact
that he has been rejected by everyone he approaches.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley introduces the change from good to evil with the attention that guardians give a child. William Crisman, in his critique of Mary Shelley’s work, identifies the “sibling rivalry” between Victor and the rest of his family. Crisman remarks that Victor feels as if he is the most important person in his parents’ lives, since he was Alphonse’s and Caroline’s only child. The Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth and Victor sarcastically remarks that he has a happy childhood. This prompts Victor starts to read essays about alchemy and study natural science. Anne Mellor, another critic of Frankenstein, proposes that Frankenstein’s creature was born a good person and society’s reaction to him caused him to turn evil. Victor’s makes the creature in his own perception of beauty, and his perception of beauty was made during a time in his life when he had secluded himself from his family and friends. He perceived the monster as “Beautiful!”, but Victor unknowingly expressed the evil in himself, caused by secluding himself from everybody, onto the creature (60). In this way, the creature is Victor’s evil mirrored onto a body. The expression of Victor onto the monster makes the townspeople repulsed by the creature. The theory of the “alter ego” coincides with Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry (Mellor). Mary Shelley conveys that through Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry, Victor isolates himself from society. Mellor describes the isolation during his creation of his creature leads to him giving the creature false beauty that causes Victor to abandon him and society to reject him.
Frankenstein defied human boundaries when he created the monster and because of this not only his life, but the lives of others have also shifted, this has caused their lives to spiral into an unjustified conclusion. Curiosity was the main cause of him learning how to create such a thing, his lack of caring for the thing that he created led to his undoing. His motivation for creating life, comes from the fact that he lost someone dear to him. Although Victor was young when his mother died, it had serious effects on the way he viewed life and maybe even himself. Once you take on the father role you have to stick to it, otherwise creating life
Victor Frankenstein: The Real Monster. & nbsp; Science is a broad field that covers many aspects of everyday life and existence. Some areas of science include the study of the universe, the environment, dinosaurs, animals, and insects. Another popular science is the study of people and how they function. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Dr. Victor Frankenstein is an inspiring scientist who studies the dead. He wants to be the first person to give life to a dead human being. He spends all of his Frankenstein is to blame for the tragedy, not the monster he has created, because he is the mastermind behind the whole operation, and he is supposed to have everything under control, working properly as a good scientist should. & nbsp; Although some critics say that the monster Victor has created is to blame for the destruction and violence that followed the experiment, it is Victor who is the responsible party. First, Victor, being the scientist, should have known how to do research on the subject a lot more than he had done. He obviously has not thought of the consequences that may result from it such as the monster going crazy, how the monster reacts to people and things, and especially the time it will take him to turn the monster into the perfect normal human being.  something that would take a really long time and a lot of patience which Victor lacks. All Victor really wants is to be the first to bring life to a dead person and therefore be famous. The greed got to his head and that is all he could think about, while isolating himself from his friends and family. In the play of Frankenstein, when Victor comes home and sets up his lab in the house, he is very paranoid about people coming in there and & nbsp; I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I deprived myself of rest and health. 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. (156) & nbsp; Victor is saying that he has isolated himself for two years and in the end, he is not at all happy because of the bad outcome. He also adds, "Winter, spring and summer passed.so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation" (156). By spending most of his time inside on his experiment, never going out, but mostly worrying about his success, he has got himself crazier. This has made him lose sight of his surroundings and judgment & nbsp; Moreover, the monster should not be held responsible for killing Victor's family members and friends as shown in the book and movie, because it is Victor who has brought a dead creature back to life. He expects the monster to know everything when he wakes up cool, calm, and collected. But when the monster is awakened, he does not know anything. He sees a world different from what he is used to, which makes him get nervous and scared, so he&nb has removed him from dead. With the dawning of life, the monster has to learn about his new environment. In the play of Frankenstein, the monster starts to gradually get used to things. The problems he encounters are with Victor's assistant, Peter Krempe, Victor's friend, Henry, and other family members, including Elizabeth, and these are reactions to how these people treat him. These reactions are clearly shown in the movie of Young Frankenstein, where Victor tries to teach the monster how to live like to show off the monster to an audience in a dance routine of sorts. But then people start to scream, panic and throw things at the monster, so he reacts by attacking them to defend himself. In this case, it is clear that Victor tries to push the monster too hard because he wants to be famous.
After learning about the life of Mary Shelley, I have grown to appreciate the novel, Frankenstein, even more since the first time I read it. She led a life nearly, as tragic as the monster she created through her writing. Mary seems to pull some of her own life experiences in Victor’s background, as in both mothers died during or after childbirth. Learning about Mary’s personal losses, I have gained a better appreciation of her as an author and a woman of the 17th century. She had association with some the most influential minds of that
Mary Shelley's narrative, Frankenstein is the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creation. 'It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils…by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.(52)'; This was the time and the place in which the creature came to life. Victor Frankenstein thought that his creation was a hideous monster, but his ignorance blinded him from the truth. In veracity, Victor Frankenstein was the real monster this was evident from his selfishness, from his cruelty and rejection of his creation, and because he indirectly caused the deaths of his own family and friends.
creature is not to blame - it is the creator. For this reason, we feel
Since I spent last weekend in Vancouver attending the funeral of a beloved aunt who died on Good Friday, you could say that I've been pondering a lot about death and dying lately. It didn't help either that I chose to bring my copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with me to read on the plane rides there and back, seeing as this story deals with the creation of a new form of life and the deaths that result from it. Being in this rather morbid frame of mind, I decided for this commentary just to take a closer examination of life and death as contained within the kind of gothic narrative of this early science-fiction horror story. It's almost like a Yin-Yang pairing between the two: Victor controls the ability to create Life (an ability that is usually looked on as being feminine) through his scientific and medical knowledge, and the Creature controls the ability to create Death (an ability usually looked on as being masculine) through his incredible strength and physical abilities. But although the Yin-Yang of Taoist thought brings harmony to the universe, this pairing of light and dark brings nothing but destruction to those it touches.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or; The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, is a product of its time. Written in a world of social, political, scientific and economic upheaval it highlights human desire to uncover the scientific secrets of our universe, yet also confirms the importance of emotions and individual relationships that define us as human, in contrast to the monstrous. Here we question what is meant by the terms ‘human’ and ‘monstrous’ as defined by the novel. Yet to fully understand how Frankenstein defines these terms we must look to the etymology of them. The novel however, defines the terms through its main characters, through the themes of language, nature versus nurture, forbidden knowledge, and the doppelganger motif. Shelley also shows us, in Frankenstein, that although juxtaposing terms, the monstrous being everything human is not, they are also intertwined, in that you can not have one without the other. There is also an overwhelming desire to know the monstrous, if only temporarily and this calls into question the influence the monstrous has on the human definition.
In 1818 Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brings a creature to life. The creature kills William, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth. Victor had promised to make a female creature for the creature, but he did not fulfill his promise. This makes the creature enraged. The creature runs away and Victor follows him. Victor gets on a boat with Walton. Victor dies and the creature comes and is very sad that his creator has died. The creature says that he must end his suffering and he jumps into the ocean. In the novel Frankenstein, Shelley uses the theme of nature to show how it is like the characters of the story and how it affects the characters.
“In the beginning GOD created the Heavens and the Earth”; thus, their power is limitless even in scenery. Mary Shelley’s 1816 gothic science fiction novel, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, introduces us to a young intellectually inquisitive man, Victor Frankenstein, who walks a thin line between scientific exploration and blasphemous conduct while attempting to bring glory to his name by creating a new species as if it were human. The setting in this novel highlights much significance: the unnatural occurrences of man have caused them to seek refuge in nature’s pure beauty implying the restorative powers of nature in the face of unnatural events.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is an old classic that has been enjoyed by many generations. Despite the fact that the novel was written over a hundred years ago, it is not only beautifully written but also enthralling and well composed. At the young age of eighteen, Mary Shelly raises questions about education and knowledge to which are answered through the well written characters in the novel. The Monster, who is a creation of another character, is highlighted as an individual who goes through an intellectual change.
Explore the ways Mary Shelley presents the character of the monster in Frankenstein We are prepared for the arrival of the monster in many different ways, before he is created we know the monster is going to be a repulsive figure of a human being, but the reader is still intrigued into reading further, and because of Shelley's descriptive language we already feel disgust towards victors creation, and in doing so, we our-selves become just as callous as those people in the book that neglect Frankenstein's monster. Also because the monster was created by Victor using parts dug up from graves and morgues, and we associate graveyards with horror and death, there is immediately something sinister about the monster and to a point, Victor. The reader can already see the problems with creating artificial life in this way, and in the beginning of the novel, the reader is almost willing victor not to pursue his quest for knowledge, but victor is blinded by his own arrogance to stop and think carefully about what he is about to do. This is when Victor the man becomes separated from Frankenstein the scientist. "I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted" Victor despises death, and his mind is occupied incessantly with it, and after the demise of his mother, victor cannot escape it, and subconsciously he dedicates his life towards combating the process.
Education is a tool to advance an individual and a society; however, education can become a means to gain power when knowledge is used to exercise control over another. In Frankenstein, knowledge becomes the downfall of both Victor Frankenstein and the Monster. The novel explores the consequent power struggle between Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the dichotomy of good and evil, and the contrast between intellectual and physical power. Finding themselves in mirroring journeys, Victor Frankenstein and the Monster are locked in a struggle for dominance. Through these two characters, Mary Shelley explores the consequences of an egotistical mindset and of using knowledge to exercise power over others.
In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein secretly creates a monster without considering the consequences. After the creation of the monster and throughout Victor’s life he and the monster suffer constantly. Because Victor keeps his monster a secret from his family, friends and society, he is alone and miserable. The monster is also alone and miserable because he is shunned by society due to his grotesque appearance.
Victor Frankenstein spent months in his laboratory constructing a monstrous figure from discarded human remains. When the crack of lightening on this particular night deemed Victor a father, he proudly accepted his fate. Victor dreamed of producing an offspring but Elizabeth’s infertility posed a problem for biological children. His desire to be a father could have been satisfied through adoption or a surrogate, but Victor’s interest in the creation of life lead him to take matters into his own hands. The months of Victor’s hard work had finally come to a head when the creature calmly sat up from the operating table and stared, with deep-yellow eyes, into the optics of his creator.