Comparing Victor And The Monster In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who studies the dark sciences, creates an eight-foot tall, hideous monster. Victor does not think about the horrible effects that this monster will soon create for everyone and everything who crosses its path. Mary Shelley does a fantastic job of throwing in plenty of symbols and similarities between characters throughout the story. The two characters who share the most similarities are Victor and the monster.

When the novel starts off, Victor is found all alone in the ice covered land. He is frantically searching for the monster. This is the first true clue of how lonely and isolated Victor Frankenstein really is. In the book, Victor is portrayed as a crazy, lonely, isolated

scientist and it only gets worse as the storyline progresses. Victor is also amazingly intelligent and very bright when it comes to science. He is intelligent in part due to the way his parents raised him. “The innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me.” (Frankenstein, 1.6) In the beginning of the novel, Robert Walton talks about finding the light. The light basically symbolizes intelligence and success. Victor naturally has this light inside of him which is the main reason he creates the monster. However, he created the monster with the idea of creating life. He planned on it being a huge success for his life and unfortunately he did not think the whole process through. He did not intend to create an evil creature full of hatred and vengeance. What Victor also does not think about is how much the monster truly compares to him.
Both Victor and the monster live a miserable life in isolation. However, the monster did not always have hatred and revenge in his head. When he first opened his eyes, the monster had no clue what to even think of his surroundings and his situation. He did not know what hatred or happiness even felt like. The events throughout his life in the story are what caused him to become evil, isolated, and out to kill.
“Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. `Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. `Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.” (Frankenstein, 15.8)
When all of the people of the town see him for the first time they go crazy.

They are terrified of him and they all flee. The monster cannot comprehend why the people are so mean to him. Even though they all hate him, he still has a good heart at first. When the monster runs away from Victor’s laboratory is when the isolation stage of his life begins. At this point, he is finally starting to realize that everyone he comes in contact with hates him and is scared of him. This causes the monster to go into serious depression and his whole mindset begins to drastically change. The monster stays outside of a house with a family of four and watches their every move. He learns how to talk and read just by watching through their window. He wants to fit in and be just like them but he knows that any time he shows his face to any human being that they will say horrible things to him. He just decides to stay alone in the forest and live his life alone.

At the end of the story when Elizabeth gets murdered, Victor becomes deeply depressed and basically feels like he has nothing to live for. This is when he goes through the ice to search for the monster. The monster and Victor are alike in so many different ways, but isolation is what they have in common the most. In my opinion, Mary Shelley wanted everyone who reads this book to understand how much they resemble each

other.
In this novel, revenge is another personality characteristic Victor and the monster share. This is something that takes over both Victor and the monster’s minds. When the monster gets made fun of countless times, his mindset starts to change for the worst. For example, the monster sees a little girl drowning in a river and he tries to save her. When people saw him making his way toward the little girl, they started cursing him and throwing rocks and even shooting a gun at him. The monster takes this situation to heart and goes from a kind-hearted creature to an evil beast with a vengeance towards all human beings. Even after all of the hateful, horrible things people have said to him he wants to go after Victor. The irony of this all is that Victor thinks the monster actually wants to kill him. But what the monster really and truly wants to do is kill someone who is close to Victor’s heart and that he cannot live without. This person is Elizabeth. Victor never thinks that the monster will go after her. He thinks the monster wants him and only him.
When the monster finally follows through with his plan of revenge and kills Elizabeth, it dawns on Victor that the monster was not after him.

Victor is heartbroken and goes into a state of mind that basically causes him to go crazy. This is when Victor’s whole mindset changes. He instantly has nothing on his mind but getting revenge on the monster. If you flash back to the first of the story to Robert Walton’s letters, Victor is found searching for the monster in the middle of an ice-covered no man’s land. This is one of the biggest signs of how far Victor will go to get revenge on the Monster for taking the life of Victor’s beloved

Elizabeth.
Another blatantly obvious similarity between Victor and the evil monster that he created is the urge that each of them have to learn more. “I was easily led by the sympathy which he evinced to use the language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise.” (Frankenstein Letter, 4.21)
This is the first clue that "sacrifice" might not be all its cracked up to be. This noble pursuit is easier to understand when you see things from the perspective of both the monster and Victor. Both characters are portrayed as humans who have a harsh outside while having a softer heart.
The whole novel is based on the idea that Victor studies the dark sciences and anatomy to create life from his own two hands. The shows even more detail on just how eager he is to learn new things and gain more knowledge about the sciences. He is eaten up with it. In the movie, Victor is, in a way, overwhelmed when he first creates the monster. He doesn’t know what to think or really even how to communicate with it.
The monster might even be more obsessed with learning new things than Victor. When the monster first opens his eyes, he does not even know how to walk two steps across a room. He also can’t talk or understand why things happen. When he first interacts with Victor in the movie, he is harmless, clumsy, and has not once ounce of evil on his mind. When he comes into contact with the townspeople it takes him a few times to finally understand that when they curse at him, throw things at him, and hit him that they are meaning it in a harmful way. He has to learn all of this. When he sits outside of the family’s house and watches the way that they live, he learns how to read and talk. The monster finally starts to realize that if he learns how to do things and act like human beings do then he could be more powerful than anyone who crosses his path. “Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.” (Frankenstein, 20.1) Even if you aren’t Frankenstein's biggest fan, a person has to admit that, from his perspective, this is a major sacrifice. Both Frankenstein and the monster feel this sacrifice is necessary and worth it.
In all, the similarities between Victor Frankenstein and the monster are endless. They both live life in isolation, they both have revenge weighing heavily on their minds, they both are basically addicted to learning more and more each day they open their eyes and the share the same heart in that they are willing to sacrifice something important to get what they want. Victor Frankenstein and the monster are both compassionate and sacrificing. They both learn that the world isn’t the same. People are apathetic, hateful and mistrusting. “This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.” (Frankenstein, 16.20)
Mary Shelley did a fantastic job of making the similarities between the two clear throughout the story. She also did great at showing how much they resemble each other as the story goes on. Victor Frankenstein and the monster show that two completely different people can be the same at heart. Whether created by God or a scientist, Shelly shows that a human is a human. We all celebrate and hurt in the same ways. We all are desperate for acceptance and for the chance to be good.