The Doppelganger motif plays an important role in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A Doppelganger is a ghostly double which haunts the bodily counterpart. Basically, it is a counterpart of a living person or sometimes referred to as an alter ego. The relationship between Victor and the unnamed creature in the story represents this motif. It is very difficult to decipher who represents good and who represents evil, the creator or the created. It is very typical to assume that the monster represents the evil side, yet is it Victor Frankenstein who creates it and steps aside from the responsibility. Victor’s actions characterized with cowardice lead to the death of his young brother, and later his wife Elizabeth. As a result of Victor’s selfish and evil nature, the creature haunts him endlessly. The monster becomes the external embodiment of Frankenstein’s increasingly conflicted personality. The creature’s grotesque physical appearance displays the image of the purely intellectual and heartless Victor Frankenstein, who is the opposite of the young man who begins his studies with hope and desire to contribute to the improvement of humanity. Shelley’s goal by combining the two opposites is to clearly depict the concept of monstrousness to her readers.
Victor and the creature he creates function as doubles. However, they differ in their physical appearances. Also, while Victor grows up in a loving family environment, the creature grows up alone, immediately abandoned by his creator. Victor’s classical education differs from the creature’s self-education. Besides the obvious differences between Victor and the monster, their dual natures unite to function as one. Both Victor and the creature share the love of nature, and both see themselves ...
... middle of paper ...
...r, Victor and the creature’s dual natures come to be similar and end up functioning as one. Firstly, Victor and later, the monster transform into real monster due to their isolations from society. Victor and his creature are vividly portrayed as two opposites constantly chasing each other. They mirror each other in different ways: the creature’s grotesque is an embodiment of Victor’s conflicted nature, while Victor’s humane bodily appearance is a display of the internal nature of the monster. By pairing these very different characters, Mary Shelley brings to surface the concept of real “monstrousness”; the two opposites are one single being. They represent Shelley’s real daemon. Shelley’s message is clear: pursue knowledge and aspire, by all means, to the greatest extent that you can; but do not climb so high or far as to lose sight of yourself. It will be your end.
First, Before the monster is created Victor says that he hopes this creation would bless him as his creator, and that the creature would be excellent nature and would be beautiful. After the creature is created Shelley creates sympathy for him by Victor’s description of him in a unique yet horrific way, “he’s ‘gigantic,” “deformed,” “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” this makes the creature abhorrent to typical humans. When thinking of the descriptions together, Shelley has created a vivid, unnatural image of the monster in the mind’s eyes. The language Shelley uses is powerful and emotive “shall I create another like yourself, whose joints wickedness
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.
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and the creature he has given life to can be explained by applying psychoanalytic criticism. This explanation will look specifically at Victor’s Oedipal complex, the developmental issues of the creature, and the id/ego/superego dynamics between Victor and the creature.
Shelley 94). Victor’s various thoughts of rage and hatred that had at first deprive him of utterance, but he recovers only to overwhelm the creature with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt, as he recalled creature’s misdoings to his loved ones. However, Victor pauses to “conceive,” to “feel,” and to “reason” with monster (M. Shelley 94). As Victor follows his creation, he notices the “air [to be full] of exultation” and “the rain” beginning “to descend,” showcasing Victor’s consent to change his view. (M. Shelley 98). Chapter 10 is exemplary of the Romantic Period where story becomes an allegory for real emotions and struggles. Victor’s
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, illustrates the Romantic idea of the sublime naturalworld as an emotional experience for the characters of the novel. Within the text, Shelleyutilizes an allusion to the John Milton’s biblical story, Paradise Lost, to make a parallel betweenthe characters. Within the passage, the monster compares himself, as well as his creator, Victor,to the characters Adam and Satan. He comes to realize that he is more similar to Satan;ultimately, leading him to his reign of terror and the revenge he wishes to impose on Victor. Themonster realizes that he is similar to Adam in Paradise Lost in that they both do not want to bealone. The monster also realizes that there is good in the world that is deeply contrasted with
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...
Victor had created the creature with the vision from his dreams of a strong, tall perfect being with no flaws. His years of study with the unnatural and science had come to this final conclusion and masterful idea that he was determined to finish. To his surprise, he had created the opposite, “For this I had 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.” (Shelley 35) Victor is saddened by what he thinks of as a failure. He leaves his own apartment to go sleep in his court yard outside following his creation. He begins to isolate himself from the creature because of his fear of the creature’s outward appearance. He loses all hope for the creature without even learning anything about him. The fact that Shelley begins to refer to the being that Victor created as a “creature” shows Victor’s ignorance and lack of acceptance. It is Victor’s prejudice that blinds him of the creature’s true potential due to the unwanted preconception that follows the creature as he finds meaning in
A doppelganger is “a look-alike or double of a living person, sometimes portrayed as a paranormal phenomenon, and is usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck” (Wikipedia). It is used by writers to force a character or society to see themselves from an outside point of view. In “Monstrous Image: The Fantasy Antagonist”, R.E. Foust explains Sigmund Freud’s “Uncanny” or “doubling, dividing, and interchanging of the self” (Foust). The doppelganger concept is then applied to the Creature and to Victor Frankenstein. The creature sees himself in Victor, and vice versa.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein and the monster that he creates are very similar. For example, Victor creates the monster to be like himself. Another similarity is that the anger of both Victor and the monster is brought about by society. One more parallel between Victor and the monster is that they both became recluses. These traits that Victor and the monster possess show that they are very similar.
The monster of the novel is often misattributed with the name, “Frankenstein.” However, Victor Frankenstein can ultimately be considered the true monster of this tale. His obsession would lead to the corruption of his soul and the creation of two monsters—one himself, and the other, the creature. In attempting to take on the role of God, nature would become a monster to Victor and destroy his life. These elements of monstrosity in Frankenstein drive the meaning of its story.
“The doctor [Victor Frankenstein] and his monster represent of one another and their relationship mirrors that of the head and the heart, or the intellect and the emotion. In this context, the monster’s actions have been viewed as manifestations of the doctor’s—and Shelley’s—repressed desires” (Bomarito and Whitaker). The motif of doppelgänger is established when Victor created the creature. As Victor is alone and obsessed with science, he resorts to creating a “being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionally large” (Shelley 38). Whenever the creature comes to life, Victor is frightened and flees from the creature, even though he does not realize, that he has subsequently created a double of himself.
Victor Frankenstein, the creator of a demon that wreaked havoc upon the Frankenstein family and they’re dear friends without remorse in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is the tragic hero of this tale. Through the introduction of the story we see Victor strive towards a cause with his gift in science, however, the method in which he tried to attain his goal was disturbingly immoral and ultimately led to his downfall. Although Mary Shelley initial introduces us to tale of the creature with this attitude of pity and sense of innocence from the audience perspective, the creature later on reverses his archetype throughout the rest of the novel revealing the true nature of the creature and who the real hero of the novel is, Victor. From beginning to end, Victor follows the path of a tragic hero outlined by Aristotle and is why he is the true hero in the novel.
At first glance, the monster in Frankenstein is a symbol of evil, whose only desire is to ruin lives. He has been called "A creature that wreaks havoc by destroying innocent lives often without remorse. He can be viewed as the antagonist, the element Victor must overcome to restore balance and tranquility to the world." But after the novel is looked at on different levels, one becomes aware that the creature wasn't responsible for his actions, and was just a victim of circumstance. The real villain of Frankenstein isn't the creature, but rather his creator, Victor.
The creature Victor created also has complex dreams and nightmares that reveal his true identity. When the creature leaves Victors, he soon finds a remote place to live because he realizes that he can’t be accepted in human society. He lives in small place where he discovers that he can see into his neighbor’s cottage through a crack in the wall. He decides to observe the family in the cottage which teaches him many things. However, observing the cottagers causes the monster to suffer because he realized how lonely he is. The creation becomes conflicted with his social identity because he can’t have any social interactions, so he begins to dream about the ways he could be accepted into society or even communicate with his neighbors. The monsters fascination and ambition is shown when he desires to learn how to speak, read, and write so he could fulfill his dream of communicating with his lovely neighbors and build a relationship with them. He is so desperate for companionship and affection he learns how to speak their language with much intelligence. Also the creature dreams and hopes that Victor will accept him just like how Felix accepted Safie even after all their hardships. The monster also hopes that Victor will realize how mean and unjust it was for him to abandon his own creation. At this point, the creature could be seen as very lonely, desperate, and heartbroken just by analyzing
The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the story of a flawed man named Victor Frankenstein who discovers the secret of life and creates the Creature. The Creature physically looks different from most humans and therefore faces many hardships. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a novel about how judgements based on appearance lead to consequences, similar to William Godwin 's belief that society ruins a person. This idea is expressed throughout the book when people are frightened by the Creature, the Creature is angry at the world, and the Creature feels lonely.