Trace the similarities between Victor and the monster. Consider their relationships with nature, desires for family, and any other important parallels you find. Do Victor and the monster become more similar as the novel goes on? How does their relationship with each other develop?
Throughout the course of the novel, Shelley creates subtle ways to show the similarities between the monster and his creator. While they are not physically alike, their minds function in similar patterns. At first, this is very difficult to see. However, once the narrative perspective shifts and the story is told through the monsters perspective, the reader may find it apparent that the monster is much more similar to the creator and humans in general. The relationship
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between the Victor and the monster is very strained and distant, yet they can still be seen as two very similar creatures through various personality traits and their enigmatic qualities. In times of plight or suffering, both the monster and Victor turn to one thing to bring them a sense of security and calm them down - the outdoors.
Nature is a phenomenon that intrigues both of them. Their respective relationships with nature is driven by the genuine fascination as they seem to find the little things to be compelling. This can be seen through Victors perspective when he states, “The modern masters promise very little... have indeed performed miracles... They have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers... with its own shadows.” (33) Victor is enchanted by nature and the possibilities of combining science and nature. This idea seems to have drawn him since he was a child and he becomes infatuated with merging the two in the creation that later becomes known as the monster. He becomes so absorbed into nature and his work towards creating a scientific form of nature that it consumes him to the point that he does not see any consequence or consider the following repercussions from his work. This is ironic in a sense because Victor, while always respecting nature, was tempted by science and attempted to challenge nature. The creature he creates is not of nature and is therefore unnatural and unearthly, yet Victor is oblivious of this. On the contrary, the monster is very kind and attempts to learn as much as possible.(idk if i should keep …show more content…
this) The monster also feels the same towards nature, as he also tends to admire nature and they both describe nature with such feelings of wonder and appreciation. Victor and the monster have an intense craving for knowledge, and as they grow older and wiser, they still look for new things to learn. “I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge” (30) Through most of his youth, Victor feels as though the philosophy of science and knowledge is a remarkable thing that is to be cherished and valued. The monster and Victor seem to be on a never ending search for wisdom, which is essential to their characters as it tells a great deal about who they are and what they aspire to be. Shelley emphasizes the need for progress and change within a person and is conveying it through the character development by the act of gaining it throughout the text. “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses... but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations.” (84) This advancement of knowledge is often found in many forms: for the monster, it was learning based on how to be human and adapt to the culture and various languages. For Victor, it was his yearning for knowledge within the scientific branch of education and his constant research to advance further in regards to science until he reaches a point that ruins him, which is ultimately when he creates life and the monster is born. As a result of Victor’s incessant attempts to create life, he created a monster which was not at all what he expected or wanted.
It is not so easily seen that the two share a human instinct that is the need for love. This parallel is drawn from Victor and the monster through their feelings of desperation in their search for love and how they feel greatly misunderstood. Victor has been provided with the opportunity for love, yet puts himself in an isolated state, which ultimately leads to his downfall. “I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone.” (32) Through Victor rejecting love and creating a self-imposed seclusion, he does not treat the creature with care once it is brought to life\. Victor had once known what it is like to be cared for, although the monster never once feels what it is like to be loved. “I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.” (129) Victors loneliness was put upon himself, similarly, the monster’s loneliness was also due to Victor through his neglect. The monster is craving that sense of security brought by a family who will show him love while Victor is leaving his. These two situations are contradictory, but it is what brings them to their
isolation. Victor and the monster have a powerful self hatred that drives them. It is through creating the monster that drives Victor himself to his own self hatred. Yet the monster grows a strong feeling of isolation and loneliness due to his neglect and lack of attention, along with his growing need for human interaction. This increases as he begins to feel alienated - not only due to the physical appearance of himself, which leaves his secluded and insecure - but also the abandonment of Victor “I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around, and I have no relation or friend upon earth.These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me, and know little of me. I am full of fears; for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.” (112) He tries to form connections with humans, who through their rejection of the monster, ultimately lead him to the idea that he will never find anyone to love him. During the process of creating the monster, Victor brought on a self-inflicted form of isolation as he secludes himself through his desperate attempts to create life. This does not end once the monster is created, because once Victor shows the monster what abandonment feels like, the monster takes in a plan for revenge. The monster leads the creature to take action, which could be his way of searching for attention, as he the sole reason for Victors loneliness once he murders the people Victor loved most. Once these family members are lost, Victor blames himself and this alone is worse than any form of revenge on Victor - the furthering of his seclusion. There are many parallels that can be drawn from the novel that show the similarities between Frankenstein and his creator that are not so easily seen until a deeper analysis. Yet, once these are deciphered, they can be interpreted as the traits that had filled the gap between Victor and the monster, revealing a side to the monster that makes him more human. Their relationship was always perceived as distant until
Victor's gradual descent towards the dark side of the human psyche is clearly portrayed through Shelley's writing. As stated in previous discussions, Victor's original motivation in pursuing a career in the science field was purely out of love for the world of science and a true passion for acquiring knowledge. However, as the novel continues, we witness his motives go from authentic to impure. As such, we delve into the dark side. His pursuit of knowledge and his creation of the monster are all on the purer or perhaps lighter side of the psyche. It isn't until he abandons him that we begin to see him cross over. His choices to abandon the creature, to let someone else to die for its crimes, to create it a companion only to kill her, to allow the ones he loved to die at its hand, and to still refuse to claim it in the end are all acts
In the novel, Victor is raised up by two happy parents in caring and indulgence. He receives a sister, an education, affection, and a wife from his family. However, unlike Victor, the Monster does not have any maternal or paternal figure to care and teach him values. When the Monster first escapes from Victor’s apartment and enters into the forest, he lives like an animal. He eats berries, drinks water from the streams when he gets thirsty, and sleeps in anywhere. These actions illustrate the Monster’s natural impulse for needs of food and shelters.
To begin, the monster longed for human connection so badly, he even begged Victor to create his wife: “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as my right which you must not refuse to concede,” (174). In this quote, the monster asks Victor to make him a companion, which Victor blatantly denies. This eventually leads to
This is why he needs vengeance toward the monster so desperately. The monster is one of the first people or things that does not do as he says. He makes the monster to prove to the people who doubted his alchemy, and abilities. The monster running wild proves that he is incapable of getting his revenge on the teachers who doubted him. The monster also kills his family so that Victor is alone like the monster.
This particular lyric pointed out the need humans seek for love and attention. Society feels like enable to be happy there needs to be affection given to a person. The monster is the same way; he craves for some kind of affection. Whether the affect were to come from Victor his creator, or the cottagers he sees as his friends. This crave for attention, love, affection, anything becomes stronger throughout the book. When the monster said to Victor, “My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create.” He starts to understand this would be the only way he will be...
Mary Shelley shows how both Victor and the monster create sympathy for one another. They are both victims, but they are also wrongdoers. They bring a great burden of suffering to each other lives, causes hatred to be created for the characters.
...e seeking help and strength to take care of problems in their lives. Victor Frankenstein is a man with a loving and caring family. Family and friends are an important part of his life. He has his whole life in front of him, when creates his monster. He creates the monster in the likeness of man with same need of love and affection as man. Although, this is his creation, he lets the monster down and does not care for him. The monster begins to feel neglected and lonely and wants desperately to have a human relationship. The monster turns angry and revengeful because he is so sad and abandoned. He wants Victor to feel the way that he does, all alone. The monster succeeds and Victor ends up losing all the important in his life and his own life. In the end, the monster dies and the need for human relationship becomes the destruction for both the monster and Victor.
The creature later went on a journey looking for his creator, he wanted partner to be with him since he was the only one of his kind plus the people hated him. He wanted a partner whom he could live with and not feel alone in this world. When they first encounter themselves victor was amazed by his creation but once again victor did not wanted to see.” Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence, which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants
“.he declares 'everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery” (Bond). The monster is angry with Victor. He wants Victor to build him a companion, or he will kill everyone that Victor loves. After Victor rejects the idea, the monster wants Victor to feel the loneliness and isolation that the monster has felt all his life. “.if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you, my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred” (Shelley, 204).
Furthermore, after his creation breathes its first breath, Victor already despises it, which leads to his health’s deterioration and hatred of his previous love. His love quickly changes to despise when he says, “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (53). His statement shows how his heart does a complete 1800 and stops loving the monster the moment it lives. When Victor’s “…heart palpitated in the sickness of fear…” (54), it proves how his monster tormented his creator without having to be near him. Which also leads to the teaching of the lesson “think before you act”.
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.
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).
After Victor destroys his work on the female monster meant to ease the monster's solitude, the monster is overcome with suffering and sadness. These feelings affected his state of mind and caused him to do wrong things. He did not deserve to see his one and only mate be destroyed.
Shelley provides numerical examples in which we see that the creature learns to hate Victor. Victor and the creature did not get along because Victor sees the creature as “the other” therefore the creature begins to view himself as such and begins to hate. The creature was born into the world and he was thankful for that and his creator. Victor sees the creature as an ugly monster. Therefore, the monster is the other in Victors eyes and feels superior to him.
Victor has a lack of respect for the natural world that leads him on the path to becoming a monster. In creating the monster Victor is trying to change the natural world. He is trying to play the role of god by creating life.