Internal Struggles In Frankenstein

1963 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Solitude in One Hundred Years of Solitude

In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein we see not only the internal struggles of both Victor Frankenstein and the Creature he has created, but also the solitude within themselves while dealing with them. Solitude has negative effects on an individual with internal struggles, however proper support and guidance will alleviate it. Victor is first struggling with his morals vs. his ambition to do what has not been done before. However, after creating the Creature he is now faced with a good vs. bad internal struggle. His following decisions lead him to further misery. The Creature enters into the world without any guidance or support, since he is abandoned by his creator almost instantly. “Studies examining the mental health symptomatology of orphaned and nonorphaned children found that orphans were more likely to experience …show more content…

“I [Victor] was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution” (Shelley 95). Once the Creature has told his tale they begin to discuss the creation of a companion for him. That Creature states “[m]y vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded” (Shelley 130). Victor agrees and decides to help him by creating a companion for him, however he is unsure if this is the right thing to do. In the end, Victor doesn’t go through with the promising of creating a companion for the creature. In this sense he is no longer showing the Creature compassion because he won’t give him a companion, furthermore refuses to be one himself to the Creature. This creates more internal conflicts for both Victor and the Creature, which leads to more misery as they suffer in

Show More
Related

  • Passion And Responsibility In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights on the experiences her characters undergo through the internal war of passion and responsibility. Victor Frankenstein lets his eagerness of knowledge and creating life get so out of hand that he fails to realize what the outcome of such a creature would affect humankind. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, highlights on how Frankenstein’s passion of knowledge is what ultimately causes the decline of his health and the death of him and his loved ones.

    Read More

  • Feminism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    For centauries, women have been forced to live life in the outskirts of a male dominated society. During the 1800’s, the opportunities for women were extremely limited and Mary Shelly does an excellent job in portraying this in her gothic novel, Frankenstein. Furthermore, in this novel, Mary Shelly shows how society considers women to be possessions rather than independent human beings. In addition, the female characters rely heavily on men for support and survival, thus proving their inability to do it on their own. Lastly, the female characters in this novel are in many ways victimized by the male characters. In conclusion, in Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the female characters always fulfill the limited and archetypical roles that are set for them by society.

    Read More

  • Essay on Romanticism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    930 Words  | 2 Pages

    self-centered. His life is the mirror of a Greed Tragedy. In his case, the flaw

    Read More

  • The Road to Despair: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    The obsessed search for knowledge, fame and fortune can often undervalue one’s life and become the main focus of their existence. In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, she proves that obsession is a dangerous aspect of the human behavior, which always results in a negative outcome, this is mainly portrayed through the protagonist of the story Dr. Victor Frankenstein, because of Dr. Frankenstein’s obsessive personality he fails to recognize the affects of his scientific experiments which eventually lead to his and his family’s death.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Romanticism In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Romanticism, is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850” (Wikipedia).

    Read More

  • Analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1717 Words  | 4 Pages

    Analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Analyzing a book can be a killer. Especially when it contains tons of subtle little messages and hints that are not picked up unless one really dissects the material. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prime example.

    Read More

  • The Struggle For Power In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    927 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frankenstein shows many examples of how easily too much power leads to destruction. Victor Frankenstein and his creature struggle for power the most. Frankenstein realized the consequences of playing God when the monster he creates demands to gain dominance over him by committing acts of hate and murder. Frankenstein’s loved ones. Nature does not allow Frankenstein, or his creation to live an easy life after throwing off natural cycle of life from it’s course. Mary Shelley uses the theme of desire for power throughout the novel to demonstrate how too much power can often bring about consequences that affect several people.

    Read More

  • Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - Narratives of Seduction

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    The following essay is concerned with the frame structure in Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein and its’ functions as it is suggested by Beth Newman`s "Narratives of seduction and the seduction of narratives".  To start with, the novel Frankenstein is a symmetrically built frame narrative with a story at its center. This is not always the case with frame structured novels, as there are examples without a proper center (e.g. Heart of Darkness). The elaborate system of frames indicates that this center reveals some kind of a mystery. However, it would be wrong to asume that the center alone contains the meaning of the novel. On the contrary, the meaning of the novel is brought about by the relation between the different stories at the center and the frames around it.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein - Victor is the Villain not Victim

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    When Victor flees the creature, he becomes lonely and unhappy. He rejects his own works. If he stayed and taught him the creature would at least have a chance of happiness. When the monster flees to the cottagers he learns about human nature. He quotes “I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair. My protector had departed and broken the only link that held me to th...

    Read More

  • The Morally Ambiguity In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1901 Words  | 4 Pages

    The creature’s moral ambiguity characteristic was a vile ingredient to the construction of this novel Frankenstein because it made the reader 's sympathies with him even after the audience knows he had committed murder because the readers had seen the truth this creature had to face. That he had tried everything within his power to peacefully live with them, to interact, communicate, and befriend them “these thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language”, that even though he was seen as a monster because of the looks he was created with, something he had no control over, he still had hope to be seen as equals, ”My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and execration;” this hope of his was utterly crushed, and can only set him up for utter disappointment(12.18). Because in the end he only received hates, scorns, violence, and prejudice from his good will. So in the end of the story, Mary Shelley’s forces the readers to see within the creature’s heart and for

    Read More

  • Victor Frankenstein’s Isolation

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    An idea becomes a vision, the vision develops a plan, and this plan becomes an ambition. Unfortunately for Victor Frankenstein, his ambitions and accomplishments drowned him in sorrow from the result of many unfortunate events. These events caused Victors family and his creation to suffer. Rejection and isolation are two of the most vital themes in which many dreadful consequences derive from. Victor isolates himself from his family, friends, and meant-to-be wife. His ambitions are what isolate him and brought to life a creature whose suffering was unfairly conveyed into his life. The creature is isolated by everyone including his creator. He had no choice, unlike Victor. Finally, as the story starts to change, the creature begins to take control of the situation. It is now Victor being isolated by the creature as a form of revenge. All the events and misfortunes encountered in Frankenstein have been linked to one another as a chain of actions and reactions. Of course the first action and link in the chain is started by Victor Frankenstein.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein By Mary Shelley: Character Analysis

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, geography separates the characters Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein, but many commonalities unite them. Divided by an immense amount of land, Frankenstein and Walton grew up having no knowledge of each other’s existence; however, despite living most of their lives separated, they developed similar personality traits and intellectual interests. When the two men meet, these similarities create a connection between. This connection causes the characters to feel sympathy for their respective struggles and achieve “the highest ideal of social interaction”(Bloom 126). The author connects Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton through their inclination to stay connected with their family, desire to

    Read More

  • Romanticism in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    2058 Words  | 5 Pages

    Mary Shelley, with her brilliant tale of mankind's obsession with two opposing forces: creation and science, continues to draw readers with Frankenstein's many meanings and effect on society. Frankenstein has had a major influence across literature and pop culture and was one of the major contributors to a completely new genre of horror. Frankenstein is most famous for being arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel. In Frankenstein, some of the main concepts behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be found. Mary Shelley was a colleague of many Romantic poets such as her husband Percy Shelley, and their friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, even though the themes within Frankenstein are darker than their brighter subjects and poems. Still, she was very influenced by Romantics and the Romantic Period, and readers can find many examples of Romanticism in this book. Some people actually argue that Frankenstein “initiates a rethinking of romantic rhetoric”1, or is a more cultured novel than the writings of other Romantics. Shelley questions and interacts with the classic Romantic tropes, causing this rethink of a novel that goes deeper into societal history than it appears. For example, the introduction of Gothic ideas to Frankenstein challenges the typical stereotyped assumptions of Romanticism, giving new meaning and context to the novel. Mary Shelley challenges Romanticism by highlighting certain aspects of the movement while questioning and interacting with the Romantic movement through her writing.

    Read More

  • Feminist Criticism In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mary Shelley, the author of the novel Frankenstein grew up in the early 1800’s with her father, a radical philosopher that believed in the equality of the sexes, and her mother, a vindicator of women’s rights. Shelley followed the footsteps of her parents and became a strong feminist advocate, and supporter of gender equality. The development of her novel granted her with the opportunity to express her feminist ideologies in a subtle, and realistic way, unlike any other authors during her time period. Thus, in the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley incorporates her feminist beliefs with the purpose of portraying the realities of a woman’s life during the early 1800’s.

    Read More

  • The Critical Evaluation Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    Author Mary Shelley was born August 30th, 1797 to philosopher and writer William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary’s mother passed away early in Shelley’s life and wasn’t a prominent figure. Her father remarried another woman named Mary Jane Clairmont. Shelley and her stepmother rarely got along so a female role model was not something Shelley received in her early years. Clairmont refused to send Shelley to be educated at a school but has no hesitation when sending her own daughter. Even without a formal education Shelley would still attempt to seek knowledge through books and would often daydream to escape the everyday struggles of her life at home. She also took up writing as an activity in which to express herself and admitted

    Read More

More about Internal Struggles In Frankenstein

Open Document