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Frankenstein ethical analysis
Frankenstein ethical analysis
Frankenstein ethical analysis
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In the novel “Frankenstein”, Victor Frankenstein and his creature are hypocritical and guilty for their own actions, but their appearances distinguish them apart. Victor has always had interest in the fields of knowledge with the purpose of one day being able to transform inanimate objects into life. He thinks his dream will benefit his peers, eventually wanting to become God, causing an ordeal. Victor decides to create the monster out of dead bodies he dug out from a cemetery, and the creature becomes his responsibility. There is only one problem, Victor forgets the creature has power in his hands to provoke Victor to feel miserable, and the creature takes advantage of his knowledge. Taking advantage of what he knows, causes Victor to feel stressed throughout the novel , but he does not make a move to change this situation. …show more content…
Victor Frankenstein and his creature are more similar when it comes to personalities but different as how people view them individually.
The creature resembles Victor, “but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.” Although the monster’s personalities are similar to his, people don’t judge Victor because of his human appearance. The creature is judged because no one looks like him. The creature is a realistic version of Victor, revealing his true identity. Both of them have similar personalities, because of course, Victor wanted his creation similar to him. At the beginning of the novel, they both react to problems the same way. They both have the same perspective of death. “My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments, I shall not curse my maker.” They both understand that life is sacred, but the creature specifically knows that he shall not condemn his
creator. Victor was seeking for more knowledge, but the monster only wanted attention, a companion he could talk to. Victor was focused on the things you can easily buy, but the creature was focused on feelings, on things that come from the heart. He wanted a companion to talk to and who to face reality with. “I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers…” The creature was a sentimental human being, and Victor wasn’t remorseful. He had only had feelings for Elizabeth and his family, but overall his focus was only on him. Ironically, the creature cared about others even if they despised him. Even though the creature killed Victor’s loved ones, I believe the bigger monster in the novel Frankenstein, is Victor Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein was selfish, and only cared on the effect problems would cause, not his surroundings. The creature on the other hand, only wanted love and humankind to understand that he wasn’t a monster just because of his facial appearance. After the creature was made, Victor didn’t keep in mind that his creation was now his responsibility. He was so focused on become like God, that the creature with all the anger he had, killed Elizabeth, Justine, and his younger brother William. The creature killed William after the young boy mentioned he was a “Frankenstein! You belong to my enemy- to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge. The creature’s desire to punish Victor for all he has done provoked William’s death. William would have become the creature’s companion, for as they were both unfearful of their surroundings, but anger and revenge led to the creature’s decision. Therefore, I believe Victor Frankenstein is the bigger monster in the novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley.
In Shelley?s Frankenstein, Victor brings a monster to life, only to abandon it out of fear and horror. ? gThe beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart? (Shelley, 35). The reader must question the ethics of Victor. After all, he did bring this creature upon himself.
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 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 ...
In Frankenstein, Victor’s monster suffers much loneliness and pain at the hands of every human he meets, as he tries to be human like them. First, he is abandoned by his creator, the one person that should have accepted, helped, and guided him through the confusing world he found himself in. Next, he is shunned wherever he goes, often attacked and injured. Still, throughout these trials, the creature remains hopeful that he can eventually be accepted, and entertains virtuous and moral thoughts. However, when the creature takes another crushing blow, as a family he had thought to be very noble and honorable abandons him as well, his hopes are dashed. The monster then takes revenge on Victor, killing many of his loved ones, and on the humans who have hurt him. While exacting his revenge, the monster often feels guilty for his actions and tries to be better, but is then angered and provoked into committing more wrongdoings, feeling self-pity all the while. Finally, after Victor’s death, the monster returns to mourn the death of his creator, a death he directly caused, and speaks about his misery and shame. During his soliloquy, the monster shows that he has become a human being because he suffers from an inner conflict, in his case, between guilt and a need for sympathy and pity, as all humans do.
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.
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
The monster does not resemble Victor physically; instead, they share the same personalities. For example, Victor and the monster are both loving beings. Both of them want to help others and want what is best for others. Victor and the monster try to help the people that surround them. Victor tries to console his family at their losses, and the monster assists the people living in the cottage by performing helpful tasks. However, Victor and the monster do not reflect loving people. The evil that evolves in Victor’s heart is also present in the monster.
Knowledge is an abstract yet powerful idea that seeks to immerse its victims in the pursuit of unattainable information. Victor wishes to discover more than any person before him has, and in return discards all moral and ethical obligations he previously held. In doing so, Victor inevitably wishes to obtain absolute control of the fate of his surroundings, leaving the barrier between life and death an opaque abstraction. After creating the monster and performing his numerous experiments, Frankenstein takes no responsibility for the being of life he has actually created and dehumanizes the monster as a “success”. While the creation of the monster in itself was an atrocity, the ultimate proof of Victor’s irresponsibility can be seen with how he dealt with the monster after its unnatural
..., played God, abandoned his creation, and then hid any relation to the creature. Victor is quite at fault for the murders that take place in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. True, the monster does know right from wrong, the difference is he was not brought up by his parents that way. How to live life is something that is learned and imprinted through experience and guidance. The monster was never fully given the chance to live because upon the day he arrived he was instantly rejected. Victor created the monster physically and emotionally within himself and in turn died by it.
Dr. Frankenstein’s responsibility originated from the creation of a creature, who he was supposed to nurture and care for it. Instead, he ran from it because “breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart,” (Shelley 59). This original retreat, a result of Victor’s abhorrence of his creation, was only augmented after the unsupervised creature started to kill Victor’s family and friends. Now, Victor chooses to run away from his creation because “...the strange nature of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if [he] were so far credited as to persuade my relatives to commence it. And then of what use would be pursuit?” (Shelley 85). As one can observe, Frankenstein is at first avoiding his responsibility for a more selfish reason. Once his mistake starts to be involved in crime, he avoids the responsibility of telling the police, or really anything, about the creature so that nobody will get in the creature’s destructive path. In a way, Victor grows much more concerned with others than himself, as he does not want people to waste their resources on fighting something that is so hard to take down. He would rather take
I believe that Victor and the creature are both right about what they want and yet monstrous in their reactions. Victor is right about what he wants; one reason is because he is very committed to his work and in creating life for his creature. On the other hand he is evil because he abandoned the creature and left him on his own: "I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited" (Shelley 57). Shelley shows Victor's monstrous reaction to the creature in the way that he abandoned the creature to his own luck and he shows no responsibility for him.
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the monster, share so many fundamental qualities that they may as well be the same being. Both Victor and the monster are goal-oriented and tend to work towards one goal until it is accomplished. Early in the novel, Victor is thoroughly consumed with the pursuit of knowledge. In his childhood, Victor reads work after work by old alchemists and philosophers, despite many an affirmation that those works are obsolete. Victor finds himself inspired by these works to further his education in university and ultimately create his monster. Likewise, the monster, after his creation, does his best to learn all he can about the world he finds himself in. The monster finds shelter
How he tried to hide behind his own flaws and in doing so turned the creature he made into a monster resembling his own self. He lacked the responsibility to care for his creature, the responsibility to stop the creature, and to figure out how to make what was ruined better. But even though he was realizing this for himself, he still chose to run away from his creature and problems. “Frankenstein is not a tale about a mad scientist who loses an out-of-control creature upon the world. It's a parable about a researcher who fails to take due responsibility for nurturing the moral capacities of his creation” (Bailey). Humanity slowly started to enter his brain, but his monstrous ways fought back to push it out. Causing him to be alone through his last leg of life and die with his life in vain. Through all his deserved pain and suffering he at least finally understood that he was wrong in calling his creature a monster, that the true monster was himself. It was his own fault that a large number of his loved ones were dead, and in the process he also damaged what could have been the greatest discovery of that time. Even with the little glimmer of redemption he earned by understanding where he went wrong, it still was far too late to change the fate that was ahead of him. With Victor dead and gone there were still ends to tie up with the creature, the “reader of the novel is left to ponder if
In Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”, one major irony that is depicted in the story is perception. For an example she shows how the creature is perceived as a monster, but Victor rivals the creature for that label. The creature is always in pain due to being isolated and alienated by humans. He also feels alone and wants to reach out to his creator. Due to him feeling isolated, he seek out to get a connection with another family called the DeLacey family. “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 forever.” I’ll explain how the monster and Victor Frankenstein are similar, different, and how it ties in with different books.
The vivid similarities between the two tragic characters are driven by their isolation from the secluded world, which refuses to accept those who are different into society, by hatred, and most importantly by the absence of motherly figures in both Victor’s and the Creature’s lives. As Victor had stated, “I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.” (Shelley 40) as he described that he lost all touch with the world due to his work. Both figures seem to strongly despise one another yet strangely enough, they both also despise themselves for their wrong and disastrous actions. Family ties and vengefulness are truly one of the most significant aspects affecting the resemblance of both Victor and the Creature. At a young age, Victor was left without his mother after her death and as a result, he never got to experience the true feelings of a mother’s warm touch and love. “She died calmly...it is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose every existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard.” (Shelley, 29) Just like Victor, in his own time, the Creature never got to experience not only the love of a mother but the love of a father as well. These driven characters thrive for the same goals, feed of similar pain, and feel the same