Today, writer's categorizing their pieces of work can choose from a multitude of genres. From horror to action-adventure to fantasy, the possibilities are endless. But the core of all genres revolves around two choices: comedy or tragedy. The fundamental difference between these two styles is the main character’s conclusion or resolution. In comedy, the main character typically achieves his or her goal and lives “happily ever after.” In tragedy, however, the main character does not achieve their goal and meets their downfall or demise. The main character of tragedies is dubbed the tragic hero. According to the great philosopher Aristotle, a tragic hero must accomplish five tasks: descend from a noble family, possess a tragic flaw, undergo …show more content…
a reversal of fortune, experience a critical discovery of knowledge, and cause a release of emotion in the audience. One of the most common examples of a tragic hero is a character from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein named Victor Frankenstein.
In the novel, Victor is an introverted scientist who achieves the unachievable; Victor creates a monster out of various dead body parts. Both Victor and the monster soon realize the monster’s appearance is undesirable, and Victor refuses to create a mate for him. The monster then seeks revenge on Victor by killing Victor’s friends and family. Victor spends the rest of his life trying to stop the Monster from hurting more innocent victims, but his efforts fall short when he passes away before seeing the Monster die. Frankenstein’s Victor Frankenstein is a tragic hero because he represents all five of the actions that Aristotle calls for in his definition of a tragic hero through his actions, choices, and …show more content…
desires. In the start of the novel, Mary Shelley provides necessary background information about the main character and his familial situation.
Victor is “by birth a Genevese, and [his] family is one of the most distinguished of that republic.” (Shelley !!!!) Mary Shelley quickly fulfills Aristotle’s requirement of a noble background by stating Victor descends from a noble family in Geneva. As the novel continues, Victor begins his work on his creation and also reveals his tragic flaw, the second requirement of a tragic hero. Victor’s tragic flaw is hubris or excessive pride. His purpose in creating the monster is to create “a new species [that] would bless [him] as [their] Creator and source... [they] would owe their being to [him].” (Shelley !!!!!) Victor craves a god-like power, creating and destroying people as he pleases. His choice of playing God leads him to create a monster that pushes him to the edge of sanity and ultimately his death because he spends the end of his life chasing the monster across the globe. As Victor’s work of art was animated, “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart.” The monster was hideous, and Victor did not want him to participate in worldly matters. At this moment, Victor’s life takes a turn for the worse, and he experiences the third requirement of a tragic hero: a reversal of fortune. Victor was a promising scientist, a passionate lover, and a loyal friend and family member. But when the Monster
becomes angry at him for not building him a mate, Victor’s closest friends and family. Victor’s life switches from successful and enjoyable to depressing and lonely all because of his creation, the Monster. After the death of the “first happless victims to [his] unhallowed arts”, Victor realizes creating the monster was a devastating choice caused by his excessive pride. This moment of realization increases Victor’s awareness of his excessive pride, thus fulfilling the fourth requirement of Aristotle’s tragic hero. The novel concludes with Victor passing away before he can stop the Monster from hurting more innocent people. When readers learn Victor will never be able to defeat the monster, and his journey did not reach the result he had intended, they feel a sense of sympathy for Victor. The readers supported Victor on his expedition; the readers feel incomplete when Victor passes away because the ideal result is not achieved. They did not see Victor defeat the monster and live a happy life in the end. The creation of sympathy within the readers is defined as a catharsis, the fifth and final requirement of a tragic hero. Victor is now a legitimate tragic hero since he satisfies all five of the needs of Aristotle. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein easily outlines Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. In the opening, Victor is described as a noble descendant of a distinguished family in Geneva. After becoming extremely secluded and introverted, Victor’s interest in science and his hubris shape his tragic flaw of extreme control and playing God. This flaw then pushes Victor to create the hideous, vengeful monster who soon kills Victor’s innocent companions; Victor’s good fortune expires and enters into a world of suffering. Victor soon realizes his mistake of making the monster and attempts to find justice, but falls ill before resolving the damage the monster had caused. The audience is left in a sympathetic state and feel pity for Victor. All of these actions sewn together into one story create the ideal illustration of Aristotle’s tragic hero.
Victor Frankenstein may be the leading character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but a hero he is not. He is self-centered and loveless, and there is nothing heroic about him. There is a scene in Chapter twenty-four where Captain Walton is confronted by his crew to turn southwards and return home should the ice break apart and allow them the way. Frankenstein rouses himself and finds the strength to argue to the Captain that they should continue northwards, or suffer returning home "with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows." He quite obviously has alterior motives and if he were not the eloquent, manipulative creature he so egotistically accuses his creature of being, he might not have moved the Captain and the men so much that they are blind to the true source of his passion. Unfortunately for Frankenstein, the crew, (however "moved") stand firm in their position. Yet the things he says in his motivational speech are prime examples of the extent to which Frankenstein is blind to his own faults and yet will jump at the chance to harangue others. He is so self-centered that his lack of interaction and love for others after his experiment has been completed, would barely qualify him as a person, if the difference between being human and being a person lies in the ability to have relationships with others.
Shelley characterizes Victor in a way that he acts on his impulses and not with rationality. As a result, Victor does not take the time to teach or talk to his creation. This action leads to his downfall as his loved one’s are killed by the Creature taking revenge on Victor for leaving him to fend for himself. Victor’s actions have consequences, hence why all his loved one’s are murdered because of his instinct to leave out of fear and safety. Shelley proves that our id demands immediate gratification of needs and thus, is in control of our actions.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor and the monster go through a journey filled with love, betrayal, and ambition. However, there are key differences between the two of them. Victor leads a good life, but has an inner spark within him that leads him to rebel against the normal world and seek glory. The monster starts off with derelict beginnings and simply wishes for the basic needs that every human gets to experience such as love, affection, and friendship. Eventually, they both face problems, and as a result, devise evil plans, and yet their motivations and rationale cause the reader to have more sympathy for the monster than Frankenstein.
Although humans have the tendency to set idealistic goals to better future generations, often the results can prove disastrous, even deadly. The tale of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, focuses on the outcome of one man's idealistic motives and desires of dabbling with nature, which result in the creation of horrific creature. Victor Frankenstein was not doomed to failure from his initial desire to overstep the natural bounds of human knowledge. Rather, it was his poor parenting of his progeny that lead to his creation's thirst for the vindication of his unjust life. In his idealism, Victor is blinded, and so the creation accuses him for delivering him into a world where he could not ever be entirely received by the people who inhabit it. Not only failing to foresee his faulty idealism, nearing the end of the tale, he embarks upon a final journey, consciously choosing to pursue his creation in vengeance, while admitting he himself that it may result in his own doom. The creation of an unloved being and the quest for the elixir of life holds Victor Frankenstein more accountable for his own death than the creation himself.
Victor’s lack of compassion and sympathy towards the monster causes him to become angry instead of guilty. His cruelness to his creation made the monster kill and hurt the people he did but “when [he] reflected on [the monster’s] crimes and malice, [Victor’s] hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation,”(Shelley 325). Without compassion Victor thinks that the only way to stop the monster is to get revenge on him, instead of just giving him the empathy and kindness that monster craved. Victor realizes that "if he were vanquished, [he] should be a free man...balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue [him] until death. ”(Shelley 731).
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...
Both characters from the novels Prometheus and Victor Frankenstein were similar because they were both intelligent. Victor loved science, he sued to go on journeys to seek more information about life and death, because at home he had nobody to teach him.” My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge. (Victor Frankenstein quotes on education). And he even studied abroad to see more knowledge on his favorite subject. This created major conflicts with his professor at the university but also admiration among professors and peers.
After Frankenstein discovered the source of human life, he became wholly absorbed in his experimental creation of a human being. Victor's unlimited ambition, his desire to succeed in his efforts to create life, led him to find devastation and misery. "...now that I have finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished..." (Shelley 51). Victor's ambition blinded him to see the real dangers of his project. This is because ambition is like a madness, which blinds one self to see the dangers of his actions. The monster after realizing what a horror he was demanded that victor create him a partner. "I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this was like torture..." (Shelley 169). Victor's raw ambition, his search for glory, has left him. His eyes have been opened to see his horrible actions, and what have and could become of his creations. As a result, Victor has realized that he is creating a monster, which could lead to the downfall of mankind. His choice is simple, save his own life or save man.
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.
The theme in a piece of literature is the main idea or insight on characters. Most pieces of literature do not limit itself to one but many other themes all collected into one. This is just like in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This horrifying story was produced in 1818 and has several themes that she portrays throughout. The theme of dangerous knowledge is unmistakably seen theme in Frankenstein. In Frankenstein we see this theme through three of the main characters, Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton and the creature. We can see how their desire for knowledge can take them places and show them eventually what they are looking for. Sooner or later it will take them to dangerous and unwanted places. The desire for knowledge can eventually lead one to its grave. Victor Frankenstein’s scientific endeavor, Robert Walton’s search for the North Pole, and the creature’s kind heart but scary features creates this theme of dangerous knowledge.
Victor Frankenstein serves as an instrument of suffering of others and contributes to the tragic vision as a whole in this novel. He hurts those surrounding him by his selfish character and his own creation plots against his master due to the lack of happiness and love. The audience should learn from Frankenstein’s tragic life and character to always remain humble. We should never try to take superiority that is not granted to us because like victor we shall suffer and perish. He had the opportunity to make a difference in his life and take responsibility as a creator but his selfishness caused him to die alone just like what he had feared.
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...
At first, Victor believes himself superior to nature, and he builds a creature to prove his dominance. After gathering the information and materials needed to create life, Victor begins to fantasize about what he is about to do. He sees “life and death [as] ideal bounds, which [he] should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into [their] dark world. A new species would bless [him] as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to [him]” (Shelley 55). Life and death are natural things, but Victor thinks that he can “break through” them and create life. He alone would be the person to “pour a torrent of light into their dark world,” as if he was God, ruling over all of the world. This shows Victor’s lack of respect towards life and how he intends to overcome the boundaries set by nature. Unlike the Romantic who revered and honored nature, Victor wants to use it for his own gain. He expects “happy” and “excellent natures” to obey him, and he doesn’t dwell upon the consequences of his actions. His outlook changes after the Creature comes to life. As Victor stares into the watery, lifeless eyes of his creature, he finally realizes his mistake in trying to disrupt the natural order of the world. Scared by the outcome of his actions, Victor attempts to run away and find comfort in nature. He travels to the Arve Ravine, where “the
His aspirations and ultimate “failure” are what brand his character the romantic hero of the novel. An excerpt from the novel highlights Dr. Frankenstein’s conflict with the ambition of the romantic hero. The beginning of the passage is primarily introducing Victor’s ultimate goal of discovering a way to overcome the devastating and previously unstoppable force of death. He goes on to explain that he became obsessed with the concept of completing this goal: “.I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.” He notes that his desire for the attainment of this knowledge became so extreme that it overshadowed his concern for his own personal well-being: “My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement.”
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).