Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Ethical problems in frankenstein
Ethical problems in frankenstein
What is the science in frankenstein
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Ethical problems in frankenstein
In the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, she tells the story about Victor Frankenstein who creates a creature a lot like a human being, and then abandons the creature. Victor and the creature he created are both on a quest for knowledge. However, Victor does not take responsibility for his creature, as a result it turns into a monster, as does he.
When Victor is a young child he is already enjoying and wanting to learn about science and how things work. As Victor gets older and has his own lab, he creates a creature that he obsesses over for two years. When the creature awakens and reaches out to Victor, Victor runs abandoning the creature. Victor leaves his lab and goes back to his very loving family in Geneva. Victor did not talk to his family much during his two years creating the creature, but his family still welcomed him back with open arms. A girl named Elizabeth is adopted by Victor’s parents for Victor to marry when they get old enough. Victor
…show more content…
is loved very deeply by Elizabeth and intends to marry her. Victor is loved and loves. Victor becomes isolated by keeping secrets about the creature and not being able to tell anyone. Victor’s family and dearest friends get murdered one by one causing Victor to become more afraid and depressed. On Victor’s wedding night with Elizabeth, the creature murders Elizabeth making Victor want revenge on the creature. Unlike Victor, the creature is abandoned the moment he comes to life with no one to love him. The creature is alone with no companion. The creature receives hatred. People that see him are scared and see him as a monster. The creature does not understand at first until he sees his reflection in water. “At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.” (108). The creature realizes how hideous he is and becomes isolated. The creature does not have a home to go to or enough food to feel full. He doesn’t have a warm place to sleep or anyone to talk to. The creature wants love and affection but does not get a chance to receive any. Like Victor, the creature becomes more smart and intelligent. The creature becomes more intelligent by watching people in a cottage that he lives next to. The creature studies the cottagers on how they speak, read, and how they live everyday life. The creature wants to keep learning and keep obtaining more knowledge. The creature does not get any of the good things in life and he does not understand why. He sees the cottagers with happiness, love, education, and food and this is what he wants his creator to give to him. “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge.” (130). The creature becomes revengeful on Victor and starts killing Victor’s family and closest friends one by one. The creature never gets accepted into society and Victor does not grant the creature his wishes to be accepted and loved by man-kind. The creature still ends up alone. Victor and the creature have many similarities.
Victor is in search for more knowledge by creating the creature and the creature is in search for more knowledge by learning the ways of man-kind. Victor abandons the creature leaving him with nothing. Victor does not give the creature what he needs. The creature sees that Victor has everything and starts taking it away little by little by killing Victor’s family and his closest friends. This makes Victor become revengeful. Victor does not take responsibility for the creature. He doesn’t give the creature what he needs and this makes the creature revengeful because all he wants is to be loved, accepted, and have someone to love and Victor does not give it to him. In result of Victor not giving the creature what he needs, the creature does kill and becomes a monster. Although, the real monster in this novel is Victor because he is the one that abandons the creature again and again and only wishes him dead. Victor never sees the love and compassion that creature
has.
Victor animated the creature from dead body parts, effecting his creature’s appearance when he came alive. He couldn’t even look at his creation, and thought that it was malodorous, without thinking how unwanted and helpless the creature feels. With little hope for the creature because of his unappealing appearance, Victor does not bothering to wait and see if he has a good interior or not. As a result of Victor not taking responsibility, the monster decides to take revenge. The monster is repeatedly denied love and deals with the loneliness the only way that he can, revenge, killing Victor’s loved ones making him lonely just like
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...
Definition: A character with traits that indicate complexity. Traits that might create unexpected depth. These traits that might contradict and create conflict. It might create unexpected action.
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...
...only being to belong to this "new species." He started off looking for compassion and love, and when that was denied, even by his own creator, he, along with his whole species, became devoted to the barbaric life of a murderer and criminal. This new species was very impressionable and was forced to take on the role that the creator, Victor, assigned to it, which was that of a fiend and monster. Only due to Victor’s idea of the creature, do any of these terms have relevance on the creature. Victor transformed this loving, benevolent creature into a monster and beast through his disregard and rejection of this new species’ life.
In any novel the author is free to create and shape their characters in whatever way they see fit. In Frankenstein, Shelley does an excellent job of shaping her characters, be it however minute their part in the story, so that the reader gets a clear picture of Shelley's creations. It seems that each character in Shelley's Frankenstein is created by Shelley to give the reader a certain impression of the character. By doing this Shelley creates the characters the way she wants us to see them. She tells us certain things about them and gives them certain traits so that they will fit into the story the way she wants them to. In particular I will examine the characters of the monster, Elizabeth, and old man De Lacey.
In the creation scene, Frankenstein constantly dehumanises his creation by calling him “the creature”, “it” and “this catastrophe”. The creature was never named throughout the book; this mirrors the first child of Mary Shelley who died shortly after its birth and was never named. Because Victor created the creature he should have been a parent to it but instead he rejects his creation by running away as the creature comes to life and he runs away again when the creature tries to establish contact by reaching out to him. He has rejected his child.
Victor and the creature both seek revenge against one another and by doing so this creates the destruction within the novel. Soon after William’s death, Justine is executed. In response to this, Victor becomes increasingly depressed. Victor reflects on the past events that led up to William and Justine’s deaths:
Victor’s relationship with the creature is one that is negatively affected by Victor’s anticipation. This is because Victor expects his creation to look beautiful. The reader can see this by examining the creature’s features. Victor gave his creation pearl white teeth and flowing black hair. However, upon first sight, Victor describes his monster as ugly using words like “horrid” and “hideous” and then he runs away from it. The reader can see how disappointed Victor is at the result of his work. “I had worked hard for nearly two years… [B]ut now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley, 50). Shelley reveals to the reader the disappointment of Victor and how long he was looking forward to the birth of his creation, telling the reader that he got his hopes up. However, Victor fears the face of his creation and abandons it, negatively affecting their personal relationship. Because of this, the creature goes on a path of his own and later vows to take revenge on the human species. He kills some of Victor’s friends and family members. This not only affects his relationship with Victor, but Victor’s relationship with his friends and family. Victor’s anticipation of the creation of his creature negatively affects their personal relationship with each
The Character of Victor Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Look at the significance of chapter five to the novel as a whole.
Victor begins his life as a relatively privileged child with very little experience of hardship which sets him up to be somewhat of an unrelatable character as most of what could have been detailed as a hardship was left out of the overall summary of his childhood, so either it was irrelevant or forgotten. When the reader is putting perspective on Victor’s encounters with the Creature, they usually use details from how the narrator (if first person like Frankenstein) reacted to form their own opinion about the situation. Victor, being as emotional as he is, makes this tough as there are possibilities for over dramatization, adding in the speculation that the situations that Victor encounters are maybe not as bad as they were made to be. This in essence, “sets up” Victor to be the “bad guy” of the story with his actions being comparable to that of an abusive parent and their child. The main relatable point to draw for the reader is not necessarily about Victor himself but rather the relationship between him and the Creature. This causes the reader to view all of Victor’s actions/feelings towards the Creature in this way when the relationship is clearly under different circumstances and therefore appears to dehumanize Victor as a result. This prevents Victor from being seen as normal to the reader so we view his actions different to those of a normal person in the same circumstance. This convinces the reader that Victor is more of just a pawn who fits in the role of driving the story forward and almost functioning as a “part-time
I believe that Victor and the creature are both right about what they want and yet monstrous in their reactions. Victor is right about what he wants; one reason is because he is very committed to his work and in creating life for his creature. On the other hand he is evil because he abandoned the creature and left him on his own: "I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited" (Shelley 57). Shelley shows Victor's monstrous reaction to the creature in the way that he abandoned the creature to his own luck and he shows no responsibility for him.
Upon seeing the Creature, people would scream and run away, causing the Creature to believe that the world hated him. The Creature became angry at Victor for making him look terrifying and deserting him when he was first created. Because of the Creature’s pent-up anger, when he came upon a boy who happened to be Victor’s younger brother, William, the Creature killed him “‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy- to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’ ‘The child still struggled, and loaded me with other epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.’” (142-143). By killing the first of Victor’s loved ones, the Creature discovered that he had power over Victor. He told Victor he would leave him alone if he made him a wife “‘I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create.’” (144). Victor agreed, but fearing a race of Creatures, Victor destroyed his second project. Because Victor had taken the only hope out of the Creature’s life, the Creature killed Victor’s best friend, Henry, and wife Elizabeth. At this point in the novel, Victor is a horrible mentor for the Creature. He left the Creature when he first created it, and
Through chapters fifteen and sixteen the Creature was so upset by his denial by the Cottage, he decides to swear revenge on all humans. This creates a huge problem for Victor because now whoever the Creature kills is on him because he created him. This leads to the death of Victor’s brother William and best friend Henry. If Victor was to raise the Creature on his own this could've been prevented. Now dealing with the depressing death of his friends Victor thinks about putting an end to the Creature. This isn’t the best thing since Victor wants to now destroy his Creature. The Creature makes a deal with Victor stating if Victor creates a companion for him, he will stop killing and leave him alone. Victor will now be in a sticky situation where he may have to create another creature or have the monster keep
In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Victor Frankenstein a student that attended the University of Ingolstadt has an obsession about creating life, after Victors mother died he was extremely upset, and he wanted to find a way to bring life back from the dead and ultimately plays god. Throughout the novel Victor was terrified of the creature physicals appearance and regrets that he ever created the creature. Throughout the book the creature has done some humane and some non-humane things, but at the end of the story the creature felt remorse for everything he has done when victor dies. The creature is considered a human being based of his intelligent and emotions. The monster is able to think and learn from others. He knows what he is