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Every human is born with ambition, but not every human has morals and foresight. Those people’s ambitions are usually wicked and cruel. As humans, we want to achieve goals and enhance ourselves, but sometimes our goals hinder us instead. In Mary Shelley’s modern drama Frankenstein, we see ambitions slowly destroy Victor’s life because of his lack of foresight and morality. Without foresight and morality, ambitions could hurt everyone.
In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is consistently reckless without worrying about the consequences, who he hurts or if what he is doing is wrong. Victor is so ambitious about resurrecting a corpse; he does not consider any consequences. When Elizabeth and Henry visit Victor, Victor denies them and tells them he has to work on his experiments. Elizabeth and Henry are hurt that Victor is choosing science above going out with them. Victor's ambitions are his number one priority in life, and he will focus on them before anything else. When Victor and Fritz first start up the machine, Fritz shuts everything down because he realizes that what they are doing is immoral. Victor threatens Fritz and does not listen to Fritz’s
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arguments about the consequences. This encounter with Fritz is the beginning of Victors down fall. He is already hurting his friends to make sure that the reanimation will be possible. Victor is frequently lacking foresight in what his ambitions will cause, which inevitably hurts himself. Victor’s ignorance and wild ambitiousness catches up to him in Act 2.
Victor ignored the creature and pretended that he did not exist. Eventually the creature matured and wanted to search out his maker. The creature becomes angered when it realized that his maker has abandoned him and does not want him. In pursuit of Victor the creature kills Victor’s brother, William. Victor loses all ambition and hope he had about the resurrection of the creature, but the creature gains ambition. He wants to make Victor love and accept him. The creature sets his mind on the goal of acceptance and will do anything to achieve it. In Act 2 of Frankenstein the creature kills the gamekeeper, William and Fritz to show Victor that he is important. The creature is proving that ambition without morals and foresight hurts those closest to
us. In Act 3 the creature becomes more and more ambitious. He wants Victor to love and accept him so badly he kills everything that is important to Victor, Henry and Elizabeth. On Victor's wedding night the creature murders Victor's best man and bride. The creature has now achieved the goal of isolating Victor from all love except his. The creature was hoping by doing so Victor would love him, but the creature lacked foresight, and instead of loving him, Victor retaliated. After Henry and Elizabeth were murdered, Victor developed a new ambition, to kill the creature at all costs. He chases the creature half way around the world to kill him. Victor dies a painful death because of his obsessions of killing the creature. Victor’s ambitions were what killed him, and all he loved. In Mary Shelley's modern drama, Frankenstein we see ambition slowly destroy Victor's life because of his lack of foresight and morality. Ambitions are a natural part of life that help humans and better them, but ambitions lacking good intentions can be hurtful and destructive to all.
The monster tells Frankenstein of the wretchedness of the world and how it was not meant for a being such as himself. At the end of his insightful tale the creature demands a companion of the same hideous features but of the opposite gender to become his. Victor only has the choice to make the monster or suffer a lifetime of horror his creation would bring upon him. Which the creator ultimately agrees to make the female monster to save the lives of his family but gains a conscious that fills with guilt of all the destruction he has created and creating. When the monster comes to collect the female he tears her apart and the monster vows to destroy all Victor holds dear. The monster’s emotional sense is consumed with rage against Victor, murdering Frankenstein’s best friend. Though when the monster’s framing ways do not work to lead to Victor being executed, he then murders Frankenstein’s wife on their wedding night. This tragedy is the last for Victor’s father who becomes ill with grief and quickly passes within a few days, leaving Victor with nothing but his own regret. Shelley doesn’t give the audience the monsters side of the story but hints that the remainder of his journey consisted of being a shadow to that of his creator. It is at the graves of the Frankenstein family when the creature makes an appearance in the solemn and
In Frankenstein, everyone treats Victor’s creation like a monster, including Frankenstein himself. This leads to the creation accepting that title and going on a murder spree. His creation says “When I reflect on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation” (69). Victor’s creation shows that he did not ask to be created, and his existence is miserable.
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...
Although some critics say that the monster Victor has created is to blame for the destruction and violence that follow the experiment, it is Victor who is the responsible party. First, Victor, being the scientist, should have known how to do research on the subject a lot more than he had done. He obviously has not thought of the consequences that may result from it such as the monster going crazy, how the monster reacts to people and things, and especially the time it will take him to turn the monster into the perfect normal human being. This is obviously something that would take a really long time and a lot of patience which Victor lacks. All Victor really wants is to be the first to bring life to a dead person and therefore be famous. The greed got to his head and that is all he could think about, while isolating himself from his friends and family. In the play of Frankenstein, when Victor comes home and sets up his lab in the house, he is very paranoid about people coming in there and finding out what he is doing. At the end of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor says:
Although the Creature later went on to commit crimes, he was not instinctively bad. Victor’s Creature was brought into this world with a child-like innocence. He was abandoned at birth and left to learn about life on his own. After first seeing his creation, Victor “escaped and rushed downstairs.” (Frankenstein, 59) A Creator has the duty to teach his Creature about life, as well as to love and nurture him. However, Victor did not do any of these; he did not take responsibility for his creature. One of the first things that the creature speaks of is that he was a “poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, (he) sat ...
The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something worthwhile for mankind. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to determine what makes a human being choose the way he/she behaves. Mary Shelley (1797-1851) published a novel in 1818 to voice her opinions about determining personality and the consequences and repercussions of alienation. Shelley uses the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make her point. Rousseau proposed the idea that man is essentially "good" in the beginning of life, but civilization and education can corrupt and warp a human mind and soul. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (hereafter referred to as Frankenstein), Victor Frankenstein’s creature with human characteristics shows us that people are born with loving, caring, and moral feelings, but the creature demonstrates how the influence of society can change one’s outlook of others and life itself by his reactions to adversity at “birth”, and his actions after being alienated and rejected by humans several times.
Victor Frankenstein is a complex character that we have come to learn more about while reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He is a man that seems to have this fervent desire to do what suits him best without regard to what others may think. Victor’s brother William has been murdered and a childhood friend is to pay the price of his death. After sighting what is assumed as the creature created by Victor, Victor is panged with guilt that these events are his fault. If he is correct, then he would be justified in feeling this way because Victor is selfish, stubborn, and lacks compassion for others around him. Victors actions all lead up to the demise of William and Justine.
The creature takes the souls of the ones Victor loves the most. Victors main purpose in life is to protect his loved ones and family, once they had been taken, all optimism is lost. His soul purpose now is to destroy the one being who took it all away from him. Loving nature and all his surroundings, Victor Frankenstein, is a young, eager man earlier on in his life. Eager for knowledge and understanding difficult topics. Near the ending of the book, Victor even states, “if you had known me as I once was, you would not recognize me in this state of degration”(229).Victor wants to bring back the life of a human, and so he does. The creature, however is far from what he expected. Victor believes the monster is an evil, wretched creature. Slowly ones Victor loves dearly, die before him. All of these horrifying deaths were because of Victor, done by his own two hands. And so he says, “I murdered [them]. William, Justine, and Henry—they all died by my hands”(201). Victor knows if he hadn't created such a monster, none of this would be happening. His life would be filled with joy, he would appreciate nature and the things that surround him. With all his loved ones gone, he begins to feel lonely. Victor said he would die trying before letting the monster win. “[I] prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die and leave my adversary in being”(219). Victor wanted to die, but didn't
He toils endlessly in alchemy, spending years alone, tinkering. However, once the Creature is brought to life, Frankenstein is no longer proud of his creation. In fact, he’s appalled by what he’s made and as a result, Frankenstein lives in a perpetual state of unease as the Creature kills those that he loves and terrorizes him. Victor has realized the consequences of playing god. There is irony in Frankenstein’s development, as realized in Victor’s desire to destroy his creation. Frankenstein had spent so much effort to be above human, but his efforts caused him immediate regret and a lifetime of suffering. Victor, if he had known the consequences of what he’s done, would have likely not been driven by his desire to become better than
Victor finds his monster absolutely repulsive, and even nauseating. This seen in the following quotation, “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.” (Shelley 36) Dr. Frankenstein has never seen anything so horrible and soon falls ill both from the sight of it and the realization that his monster is now out in the world and it could be doing anything. This shows how his drive for knowledge to be able to create life is damaging his health both mentally and physically. Furthermore, when the monster escapes from Victor’s laboratory it stangles Victor’s brother, William Frankenstein, to death. Victor must now bear the guilt knowing that he is responsible for the death because he created the monster and allowed it to escape. He must also keep the beast a secret from everyone else for fear the he would be held responsible for his brother’s death or they will believe he has gone insane, both of which results in Vict...
In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the main theme revolves around the internal and external consequences of being isolated from others. Being isolated from the world could result in a character losing his/her mental state and eventually causing harm to themselves or others. Because both Victor Frankenstein and the creature are isolated from family and society, they experienced depression, prejudice, and revenge.
Victor plays the role of God and creates his “Adam” but unlike the Adam from the bible, the creature is not designed in a perfect image or guarded by the care of his creator. The creature compares himself to Satan when he says “I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; …like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me” (228). The creature was forsaken his first days of living and learned about the society of humans through observation and reading. God introduced Adam to the world with everything provided and guided him his early days of life. He saw Adams loneliness and granted him a mate. The creature asks Frankenstein for a companion as a last chance to become happy and good hearted. Victor destroys his hope and brings more tragedy among him by doing so. God creates all things good, Victor took his Job as a creator and his creation became malignant because unlike God he was ashamed of his creation. From that point on the creatures’ heart becomes cold and makes sure to destroy his creator. When Victor dies the creature repents for the damage that he has done and would live with continuing pain till his death. “…My agony was still superior to thine; for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them forever” (380).
Victor Frankenstein's determination to constitute a race causes him to create a deformed creature, which he immediately rejects. In the first place, Victor, who is strong willed, spends both night and day working on his creation, his initial concern is to create a race in which he may be their leader. He also uses parts that are bigger in size so that he may finish faster. When he finishes his reaction is completely different from what he had expected. For instance, when he is done with his creation he becomes so appalled by its appearance that he "rushed out of the room" (42). When Victor awakens the next morning he finds the creature at his bedside and at that moment he leaves. When he returns he finds an empty house with no creature in sight, which brings him a feeling of relief. Victor describes the creature as a "demonical corpse" (43) to which he has given life. Furthermore, Victor, sometime later, sees the creature at a distance and never once decides to approach it. Instead Victor always rushes in the opposing direction. For example, while Victor is on his journey home he crosses the lake to Plainpalais and sees...
Frankenstein’s Mistakes Victor Frankenstein was the creator of the monster in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. He was an ambitious man who had high hopes and dreams. Even as a child, he was very intelligent, studying the sciences and scientists of the past. But, as ambition caused the downfall of Julius Caesar, it caused the downfall of Victor Frankenstein. As the creator of his monster, he had responsibilities as a mother towards her child.
Mary Shelley in her book Frankenstein addresses numerous themes relevant to the current trends in society during that period. However, the novel has received criticism from numerous authors. This paper discusses Walter Scott’s critical analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in his Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Review of Frankenstein (1818).