The novel follows Victor, an aspiring scientist as he first searches graveyards in search of materials to create a new being. Once animated, he imminently proves irresponsible to the reader and labels it as a monster, where the creation later sets out to seek companionship and affection from his creator. Shelley utilises techniques such as contrast, the theme of alienation shown by Victor and narrative perspective to cause the reader to feel negatively towards Victor as his selfish and isolated nature is revealed throughout the novel.
Shelley conveys the contrast between the personality traits of Victor and the “monster” to shape the reader’s response towards him. Victor is shown throughout the story that he has a lot support and love from
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those that care about him; where he describes the love from his mother’s “tender caresses and my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me, are my first recollections” (pg 35), however Victor prefers to be left alone where he can quietly pursue his studies, intern isolating himself and rejecting the affections shown by those that love him. This can be contrasted from the monster who has no one, he believes that in order to achieve happiness he requires a mate and unlike Victor, the monster is unable to aid his situation as a result of the effect that his physical appearance has on others, like Victor who describes his ‘child’ as a “catastrophe” (pg 58). Victor’s self-imposed alienation from society is continued when he locks himself away and “forces himself to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses” to study, this emphasis placed on Victor’s self-imposed isolation gives the impression to the reader that Victor is selfish, placing his desire for glory in finding the secret to the creation of life above all else, alienating those that love and care about him. Chapter 5 presents a crucial moment in the novel as it is the turning point where the reader begins to dislike Victor and begin showing sympathy for the creation he abandons. Shelley’s use of pathetic fallacy on the ‘birth’ of the monster creates sympathy, where the creation is seen by readers as an innocent, benevolent being with childlike movements during its birth process “it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs” (pg 58). The reader is response to Victor grows sourer when he shows his disgust for his ‘newborn child’ and leaves his laboratory out of “breathless horror and disgust” (pg 58). This act shows to the reader that he is selfish for neglecting his creation and ostracising him for his appearance. Shelley utilises the theme of Alienation present in her text Frankenstein to show Victor’s selfishness and his preference to isolation.
Victor is shown in the beginning of the novel to be a man of science, where he holds his pursuit of glory above all else, including his family and loved ones. He pursues this glory by attempting to find the ‘elixir of life’; electricity, and spends the majority of his early life creating the monster in the university. By doing so he isolates himself from society, where all of his time and effort is devoted to the desire of knowledge “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn” (pg 39). His pursuit of isolation is continued when he leaves his family to study in a different town, this drastic distance being created between him and his loved ones does not seem to affect him. Victor shows his selfishness towards Clerval; his one true friend where his friendship is based on Victor’s terms, this can be seen as he does not confide to Clerval about his troubles with the experiment. Victor chooses to base his laboratory “in a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house” (pg 52), this shows his self-imposed alienation which he has chosen due to the fact of his experiments. Victor’s biggest account of selfishness is where he uses the buried corpses from a nearby church graveyard as a resource of materials for his creation “Darkness had no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm”. This barbaric act shows Victors immorality as he is grave robbing for the sake of his own personal
gain. Conclusion: Shelley has effectively shaped the readers view of Victor by the use of primarily contrast and alienation throughout Frankenstein. Victor strong passion of the pursuit of his studies and disregard for loved ones and family has forced him to life a life of isolation and selfishness.
First, Before the monster is created Victor says that he hopes this creation would bless him as his creator, and that the creature would be excellent nature and would be beautiful. After the creature is created Shelley creates sympathy for him by Victor’s description of him in a unique yet horrific way, “he’s ‘gigantic,” “deformed,” “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” this makes the creature abhorrent to typical humans. When thinking of the descriptions together, Shelley has created a vivid, unnatural image of the monster in the mind’s eyes. The language Shelley uses is powerful and emotive “shall I create another like yourself, whose joints wickedness
Shelley 94). Victor’s various thoughts of rage and hatred that had at first deprive him of utterance, but he recovers only to overwhelm the creature with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt, as he recalled creature’s misdoings to his loved ones. However, Victor pauses to “conceive,” to “feel,” and to “reason” with monster (M. Shelley 94). As Victor follows his creation, he notices the “air [to be full] of exultation” and “the rain” beginning “to descend,” showcasing Victor’s consent to change his view. (M. Shelley 98). Chapter 10 is exemplary of the Romantic Period where story becomes an allegory for real emotions and struggles. Victor’s
Isolation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, has several themes imbedded in the text. One major theme is of isolation. Many of the characters experience some time of isolation. The decisions and actions of some of these characters are the root cause of their isolation. They make choices that isolate themselves from everyone else.
Victor had created the creature with the vision from his dreams of a strong, tall perfect being with no flaws. His years of study with the unnatural and science had come to this final conclusion and masterful idea that he was determined to finish. To his surprise, he had created the opposite, “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. 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) Victor is saddened by what he thinks of as a failure. He leaves his own apartment to go sleep in his court yard outside following his creation. He begins to isolate himself from the creature because of his fear of the creature’s outward appearance. He loses all hope for the creature without even learning anything about him. The fact that Shelley begins to refer to the being that Victor created as a “creature” shows Victor’s ignorance and lack of acceptance. It is Victor’s prejudice that blinds him of the creature’s true potential due to the unwanted preconception that follows the creature as he finds meaning in
...s creation as a way of revenge and payback for all the distress he brought to the creature. The creature, beginning as the most innocent, is alienated by his creator and every individual who witnesses his presence. Finally, Victor isolates himself from his beloved ones in order to fulfill his ambitions. All these misfortunes are caused by the lack of moral decision making. Unfortunately, these decisions ruined the life of many people involved in Victor’s life. All these events are the proof of what people’s actions can result into when isolation is a major theme in one’s life.
This shows that Victor chooses to be isolated. No one forces him to isolate himself for the world. When he is in Ingolstadt he builds a laboratory of his own “in a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase” (Shelley 45). He builds this lab in order to do scientific experiments on human life. In this lab he starts building his creature out of dead body parts from the cemetery. He says that the reason he chose isolation is because of the creature. This tells the reader that he will do anything to achieve his, even isolate himself from rest of the world. Only creating the creature does not isolate him, but trying to keep his creation and later trying to destroy it also isolates him again. After the creature comes to life Victor sees his own creation as an ugly monster. Victor abandons the creature right after it comes to life. He says, while describing the monster, “I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived” (Shelley
Although multiple perspectives can sometimes confuse a reader, Mary Shelley creates a deep connection between the visions of two characters. The creator Victor, who sees the creature as horrible and a killer. And to the Creature who sees the niceness in people and learns how to speak, though don’t be deceived since the creature wonders its identity and seeks answers. This connection creates the theme of fate vs. free will. The fate of Victor is predestined to contact his creation again, the creature expresses free will by understanding why someone would create him and finding
Victor’s curiosity for science causes him to disregard other aspects of his life in order to focus on his personal motives and desires. Not only is Victor fascinated with science, but he is also interested in working with the dead. Without even realizing the effects of his actions, Victor’s interest in science and his longing to create the monster ultimately ruins his life. Next, after observing the interactions between the cottagers, the monster began to develop his own feelings, especially towards Victor. Mary Shelley uses the themes of discovery and exploration throughout the novel to allow both Victor Frankenstein and the monster to fulfill their individual
Victor had wanted to create life from ‘dead things’ for the majority of his life. This wish further developed to creating a new species, which would result in the scientific community lavishly praising him. However, the results of him playing at God served only to cause the demise of himself and those close to him. This served as the reasoning behind Victor’s betrayal to the monster and expresses the theme that pursuing knowledge exclusively for fame and glory can never end positively.
Victor is most productive when he is alone, in solitude he wanted to “explore unknown powers” when he created the creature as mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is also when he is in solitude that he troubles his family. Victor’s creation strangles and kills his little brother William then leaves the locket that he had in Justine’s pocket leading to her being suspected by the police and ultimately executed in the end. Victor is then faced with immense guilt as he points out “I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe. This state of mind preyed upon my health, which perhaps never entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained” (Shelley, 61). He ends it with “solitude was my only consolation-deep dark, deathlike solitude” (Shelley, 61). The crucial point here is that as solitude destroys you it becomes your only solace at one point. Victor’s words highlight the fact that solitude has mentally changed, here we see how solitude creates guilt and mental distress. This guilt and distress gradually liquidate his sanity as the story progresses. After Victor worked in Ingolstadt and decided to not accede to any of the monsters desires Elizabeth sends him a letter asking “do you not love another?” and confesses to him that she loves him, As Victor comes back he and Elizabeth
In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley introduces the idea that willingly isolating oneself in order to achieve a desired goal leads to unintended situations or consequences that can be detrimental to not only oneself but society through Victor Frankenstein.
One of the most clear and compelling character parallels that Victor and the creature share is their loneliness and their isolation. When the creature observed De Lacey and his family in in a remote German village, he shadowed their behaviors and he began to master the basic ways of life; he learned of their emotions, their culture, and their history. Like a growing child, his mind was constantly saturated with new ideas, his thoughts twirling around the ways of human nature. Although heavily intrigued by their family and values, the creature ponders and says, “Increase knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was” (Shelley, page 133). Progressively, the creature transforms into a slave to everything he learns. Like a child metamorphosing into adolescence, he begins to stray from his innocence and purity, discarding his once-naive ways of thought. This torture he feels, helps him alert Victor, sending him subtle warnings of what his life might become if he follows a certain path. Alone, he says, “I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free, and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them” (15.5). Without
Victor’s thirst for knowledge was nowhere near the end. He deprived himself of everything normal in life because he was locked in a room creating something he did not even know was going to be the most undesirable creature. As the monster’s limbs and fingers started to have a wretched twitch, Victor reacts by saying, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?...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. (Shelley 35). Victor becomes so overtaken by his creation and all his power he has obtained. He is so disturbed and shocked by the fact that he has created something from the dead. Victor is frightened by the ugliness and unknown actions the monster will make, so he selfishly runs and leaves the monster to fend for
In Mary Shelly’s gothic novel Frankenstein, protagonist Victor and the Monster illustrate a conflict between humanity and monstrosity. The portrayal of this character reveals his transformation from man to monster. This exposes the ironic twist in this tale that the sinister being created by Frankenstein is himself. Victor Frankenstein evolves into the true monster in this novel by alienating himself, creating the monster, and showing irrational behavior.
Victor begins to describe his childhood in Geneva, with his friends Elizabeth Lavenza, a girl adopted by Victor’s mother and Victor’s meant to be bride, and Henry Clerval, a schoolmate of Victor’s. At 17, Victor begins studying natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Ingolstadt. There, he is becomes infatuated with secret of life and, after several years of research, becomes convinced that he has found it. Victor spends months in the secrecy of his apartment creating a creature out of old body parts which he brings to life. When he looks at the monster he has created the sight horrifies him, and he runs into the streets. Victor runs into Henry, who has come to study at the university, and he takes his friend back to his apartment. Though the monster is gone, Victor falls horribly ill.