Depression In Frankenstein Research Paper

Around the world, people battle with depression every day, causing them to feel alone, afraid and even suicidal. Although depression is a very serious and severe matter, many writers have enforced the issues of depression by writing about it as a main theme or topic in their stories. In her novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights symptoms of depression and its effect on Victor in order to understand his actions of creating the monster, his swaying mood swings and his irritability.

Throughout the novel, Victor develops mood swings that affect his judgment and outlook on life. The source of these mood swings can be connected to the grief that he feels after certain events in the story for example, the death of his brother, William. Victor

These strong signs of irritability could be symptoms of depression according to an article by Harvard Health, irritability, agitation and anger are often signs of depression in teens and young adults.

Although Victor had a nurturing and caring mother with a strict, disciplinary yet still affectionate father, Victor suffers from loneliness because of his social awkwardness. As an outcome, Victor has a hard time finding friends and even connecting with people. This made him dive even deeper into his work and made him determined to do something creative and positive with his brilliance and tools. Because of his lack of companionship, Victor decides to reanimate a human carcass, thus the monster is created. With his newfound companion, Victor teaches the monster how to control its feelings such as kindness and anger. While doing so, Victor also teaches the monster how to read and speak clearly. However, this only makes Victor regret his decision to create the monster more as he continues to see characteristics of himself in the monster. With this regret grew hatred and grief as Victor started to neglect the repulsive creature making the monster despise Victor. Because of this, the monster murders William,