Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Character of Victor in Frankenstein
Frankenstein and the modern prometheus essay
The struggles victor frankenstein
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Character of Victor in Frankenstein
A book in which a character’s childhood negatively effects their future is “Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein is based around the life of Victor, who is overindulged as a child and who later creates a “monster”. He disowns the monster, who then goes on to kill several of Victor’s friends and family out of hate for Victor who left him. Victor then tries to create a friend for the monster so as to calm him, but rebels midway and then proceeds to chase the monster in attempt to put an end to him.
In this essay I will be looking at Victor Frankenstein and the monster, and considering what Mary Shelley may be trying to tell us about parenting, child development and education through experiences.
As a
…show more content…
Unless supervised, the autodidact is in danger of learning things from a very narrow field, for instance, Frankenstein’s knowledge seems to be solely based on science, without any education in morals, the arts, or social skills that would have helped him to develop and become a more socially compassionate person.
The creature’s “childhood” is condensed into just a few months. His first experience of Victor, his parent and maker, is one of rejection, and this sets the pattern for his life. We are told that, on being “born” the creature made his way to Victor’s bedside,
“He held up the curtain of the bed, and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear, one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me.” In all probability, the creature was stretching out, like a child does to their mother, but his ugly appearance only frightened Frankenstein into running away.
With no-one to love him or care for him, the creature spends his first days in a forest near Ingolstadt. Through his narrative, we learn that, at first he was like an abandoned baby, alone, and in his own
…show more content…
He never manages to interact positively with others or find friendship, and we can see his self esteem sink lower and lower, the more he is rejected, and becomes lonelier and more alienated from society. It is at this that eventually changes him from a kind, affectionate, and reasonable being, to a bitter murderer. He tells Frankenstein,
“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph, remember that and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder, if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in an interchange of kindness, and, instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his
Frankenstein, speaking of himself as a young man in his father’s home, points out that he is unlike Elizabeth, who would rather follow “the aerial creations of the poets”. Instead he pursues knowledge of the “world” though investigation. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the meaning of the word “world” is for Frankenstein, very much biased or limited. He thirsts for knowledge of the tangible world and if he perceives an idea to be as yet unrealised in the material world, he then attempts to work on the idea in order to give it, as it were, a worldly existence. Hence, he creates the creature that he rejects because its worldly form did not reflect the glory and magnificence of his original idea. Thrown, unaided and ignorant, into the world, the creature begins his own journey into the discovery of the strange and hidden meanings encoded in human language and society. In this essay, I will discuss how the creature can be regarded as a foil to Frankenstein through an examination of the schooling, formal and informal, that both of them go through. In some ways, the creature’s gain in knowledge can be seen to parallel Frankenstein’s, such as, when the creature begins to learn from books. Yet, in other ways, their experiences differ greatly, and one of the factors that contribute to these differences is a structured and systematic method of learning, based on philosophical tenets, that is available to Frankenstein but not to the creature.
“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I was, have made me what I am” (Shelley 92). Frankenstein’s Creature presents these lines as it transitions from a being that merely observes its surroundings to something that gains knowledge from the occurrences around it. The Creature learns about humanity from “the perfect forms of [his] cottagers” (90). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein offers compelling insights into the everlasting nature versus nurture argument. Her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “Treat a person ill, and he will become wicked.” Shelley believes that the nurture of someone, or something, in the Creature’s case, forms them into who they become and what actions they take. While this is true for Frankenstein’s Creature, the same cannot be said about Victor Frankenstein.
In a world full of novelty, guidance is essential to whether a being’s character progresses positively or negatively in society. Parents have a fundamental role in the development of their children. A parent’s devotion or negligence towards their child will foster a feeling of trust or mistrust in the latter. This feeling of mistrust due to the lack of guidance from a parental figure is represented in the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. The creature created by Frankenstein was shown hatred and disgust from the very beginning, which led to its indignant feelings toward his creator and his kind.
In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein the protagonist Victor Frankenstein creates a monster. The monster in the novel is deprived of a normal life due to his appearance. Like the creature, some serial killers today are killers due to the same rejection. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warns that a childhood of abuse and neglect will often result in evil actions.
Shelley suggests that children naturally look up to their parents. Frankenstein followed his father (a scientist) and now the creature follows Frankenstein when wishes to create for his own needs. This is another point by Shelley, that a strong parental figure is important when bringing up children.
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...
...ears with respect to childbearing and the care and upbringing of children. Complicated pregnancies and childbirth, miscarriages and death plagued her own youth and early adulthood. Of the four children she bore, only one survived to adulthood. She also experienced a miscarriage that nearly killed her. The issues of pregnancy and child development were pivotal issues in Mary Shelley’s own life, and her novel is a conveyance of her own feelings and philosophy about bearing and raising children
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. Victor’s life starts with great potential. He comes from a decently wealthy family whose lack of love towards each other never existed. He is given everything he needs for a great future, and his academics seem to be convalescing.
Through the use of extended metaphors, Frankenstein’s creature is compared to as a newborn baby. When he first woke up, he stated that he felt, “a strange multiplicity of sensations seized [him], and
Victor Frankenstein experiences a great childhood life in Switzerland, Victor Frankenstein experiences a perfect childhood in Switzerland; surrounded by a loving family and accompanied by his cousin Elizabeth. Victor is interested in all of the books he reads about science. After the death of his mother, his first murderous experience was when he attended the University of Germany where he applied his newfound knowledge and created a human being, (the monster) of enormous size and strength. When his creation is made and awakes Frankenstein, is so horrified by his creation that he falls into an illness, lasting for months. While he is sick, the creature leads himself into the woods and purposely does what his brainpower tells him to do. Frankenstein returns home when learning that his brother had been murdered and Justine a friend Frankenstein is falsely executed. Having been hated, refused, and feared by every human being he meets, so he decides he wants to change. He asks Frankenstein to create him a female buddy but he never wantsto exchange bread with humanity ...
Victor was born into an upper class family, and experienced a pleasant childhood. ...during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. (Shelley, Frankenstein, P. 33). However, the Frankenstein's were mainly concerned with physical appearance. Victor's father married Caroline because of her exquisite beauty, and Elizabeth was adopted into the family, also because she was beautiful. Victor was also a product of idealistic education; the explicit goal of this form of education is to make a contribution to civilization. For Victor, the contribution would be the study of life sciences and the formation of the soul; however, he had no one on his side encouraging him and supporting his educational involvement. As a result of this childhood, Victor is left with no sense of inner beauty. His disillusionment with parenthood, especially mothering after he lost his mother to scarlet fever, led to post-partum depression and neglect. He experienced the burden of loneliness by living in a superficial society and did not have the character to cope with it. For Victor, parenting had become an issue ...
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
Countless situations created in life will always have some consequence, whether the outcome is a positive outcome or a negative outcome. During the novel, Frankenstein, there are many incidents portrayed through the characters that have both a positive outcome and a negative outcome, no matter the type of situation. The majorities of the situations that are conveyed in this novel almost always have a negative outcome because of the way the effects damage and hurt the innocence of the other characters in the story. In this novel many of the negative outcomes are a consequence of a hideous monster, known as Frankenstein’s monster, which was created by the hands of Victor Frankenstein.
Many people know that Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was part of a family of famed Romantic era writers. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was one of the first leaders of the feminist movement, her father, William Godwin, was a famous social philosopher, and her husband, Percy Shelley, was one of the leading Romantic poets of the time ("Frankenstein: Mary Shelley Biography."). What most people do not know, however, is that Mary Shelley dealt with issues of abandonment her whole life and fear of giving birth (Duncan, Greg. "Frankenstein: The Historical Context."). When she wrote Frankenstein, she revealed her hidden fears and desires through the story of Victor Frankenstein’s creation, putting him symbolically in her place (Murfin, Ross. "Psychoanalytic Criticism and Frankenstein.”). Her purpose, though possibly unconsciously, in writing the novel was to resolve both her feelings of abandonment by her parents, and fears of her own childbirth.
In this essay I am going to answer ‘how and why does Mary Shelley make the reader sympathise with the character of the monster in her novel Frankenstein’.