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Critical analysis of victor frankenstein
Understanding frankenstein novel
What do you think drove Victor Frankenstein’s obsession
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Victor Frankenstein was eager to learn and discover new things. Ever since early childhood he had a strong desire to further his knowledge. Self-taught knowledge in science lead him to want to become well known like the great scientists that he had studied. This longing to become one of the greats lead him to the creation of “the monster” that he believed would earn him fame and glory.
In the beginning of the novel Frankenstein explains that he is heavily studying natural philosophers to achieve the same goals as they once had, “..raising of ghosts or devils..”(26). Frankenstein also refers to himself as a “disciple” of the philosophers. Ultimately Frankenstein is wanting to do exactly as they had in their time. The philosophers’ main goals was not to transcend death for human race but, to revive people from the dead to see if it was possible.
Frankenstein also says “..but glory would attend the discovery”(26), revealing that if he were to fulfill the goal of transcending death, he has done what so many others could not do. Frankenstein also makes it a point that he was not interested in what wealth he would gain “Wealth was an inferior object..”(26), as the philosophers were, just the glory he would receive from bring the dead back to life.
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Self-satisfaction was all that Victor was trying to achieve when starting this project, he mentions the benefit everyone will have from transcendence but also says most importantly the glory he will receive. Victor Frankenstein did not test the consequences of bringing the dead back to life, also proving that he created the monster for fame and glory.
Frankenstein never took the time to see if the monster would be able to live among the human race. It was unleashed on to the world not knowing anything about itself or the world it was now alive to see. If victor was indeed trying to help he would have looked passed the monsters demeanor and taught it skills such as reading, writing, and communication skills to prove to the human race that it was truly a way to transcend death. The countenance of the monster could be over looked by the human race if it had manners and was a gentle creature, actually helping the human
race. Lastly, Frankenstein did not speak of the monster to anyone. He spent six years not communicating with his family in order to accomplish his goal of learning more about the secrets of the earth and the creation of the monster. If his experiment was to benefit the entire human race, isolation and solitude would not let people know of his trials. Actually telling the human race that there could be a cure for death, something feared by most, would have proved he was trying to help everyone. Also he could have helped hiself and family by bringing William and Justine, but he again did not try to help anyone besides himself. If Victor Frankenstein was only working to help the human race and not for self-satisfaction he would have made many different decisions regarding the way he went about creating the monster. Frankenstein achieved his goal of transcending death but soon abandon the idea of helping others after realizing the glory he would receive from this accomplishment.
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...
As Frankenstein is enroute to his pursuit of gaining more knowledge, he states, “I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed” (Shelley 41). Frankenstein’s decision in allowing his intellectual ambitions to overpower everything else in his life leads him to be blinded to the dangers of creating life. He isolates himself from his society when creating the monster, letting himself be immersed in his creation while being driven by his passions, allowing nobody to be near him. The fact that he allows this creation of a monster to consume his total being reveals how blinded he is to the immorality of stepping outside the boundaries of science and defying nature. His goal in striving to achieve what wants to in placing man over nature makes him lose his sense of self as all he is focused on is the final product of his creation. He starts to realize his own faults as after he has created the monster, he becomes very ill and states, “The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him” (48). His impulsive decision to make the monster leads him to abhorring it as it does not turn out to be what he has expected. Because he chooses to isolate himself in creating the
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:
In contrast, Frankenstein’s passion is science. He goes to study at Ingolstadt and begins taking several courses. He begins to study death and decay and in this he uncovered the secret to life. As Shelley states, “After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (51). And so he did bring life to an inanimate object.
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the concept of "discovery" is paradoxical: initial discovery is joyful and innocent, but ends in misery and corruption. The ambitions of both Walton and Frankenstein (to explore new lands and to cast scientific light on the unknown, respectively) are formed with the noblest of intentions but a fatal disregard for the sanctity of natural boundaries. Though the idea of discovery remains idealized, human fallibility utterly corrupts all pursuit of that ideal. The corruption of discovery parallels the corruption inherent in every human life, in that a child begins as a pure and faultless creature, full of wonder, but hardens into a self-absorbed, grasping, overly ambitious adult. Only by novel's end does Walton recognize that he must abandon his own ambition (the mapping of previously uncharted land), out of concern for the precious lives of his crew.
Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, follows the story of Victor Frankenstein, his self-driven seclusion from society due to his fixations on life and death only stimulating his madness: “I paused, examining and analyzing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life… I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect… that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (Shelley 38). Frankenstein always had a passion for gaining knowledge. His feelings and actions were based on reasoning, which deeply contrasted against his more romantic-thinking family. In his years leading up to going to university, he found a new passion for alchemy. While attending the University of Ingolstadt, he became entranced with the studies of alchemy along with natural philosophy and modern sciences. This ardor would eventually be his downfall after his fixation on life and death in relation to science led to the construction of an eight-foot behemoth. Frankenstein exemplifies the effects of
Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley in 1818, that is revolved around a under privileged scientist named Victor Frankenstein who manages to create a unnatural human-like being. The story was written when Shelley was in her late teen age years, and was published when she was just twenty years old. Frankenstein is filled with several different elements of the Gothic and Romantic Movement of British literature, and is considered to be one of the earliest forms of science fiction. Frankenstein is a very complicated and complex story that challenges different ethics and morals on the apparent theme of dangerous knowledge. With the mysterious experiment that Dr. Victor Frankenstein conducted, Shelly causes her reader to ultimately ask themselves what price is too high to pay to gain knowledge. It is evident that Shelly allows the reader to sort of “wonder” about the reaction they would take when dealing with a situation such as the one implemented throughout the book.
Victor Frankenstein finds himself exploring the world of science against his fathers wishes but he has an impulse to go forward in his education through university. During this time any form of science was little in knowledge especially the chemistry which was Victors area if study. Victor pursues to go farther than the normal human limits of society. “Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Chapter 4). He soon finds the answer he was looking for, the answer of life. He becomes obsessed with creating a human being. With his knowledge he believes it should be a perfe...
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, explores the monstrous and destructive affects of obsession, guilt, fate, and man’s attempt to control nature. Victor Frankenstein, the novel’s protagonist and antihero, attempts to transcend the barriers of scientific knowledge and application in creating a life. His determination in bringing to life a dead body consequently renders him ill, both mentally and physically. His endeavors alone consume all his time and effort until he becomes fixated on his success. The reason for his success is perhaps to be considered the greatest scientist ever known, but in his obsessive toil, he loses sight of the ethical motivation of science. His production would ultimately grieve him throughout his life, and the consequences of his undertaking would prove disastrous and deadly. Frankenstein illustrates the creation of a monster both literally and figuratively, and sheds light on the dangers of man’s desire to play God.
Victor Frankenstein is originally a happy character that loves to learn and read a large variety of books. He was a fiery individual who sought to understand all knowledge; regardless of how practical the information was. Evidence of this is when his father tells him not to worry about fictional writers like Cornelius Agrippa. Yet, Frankenstein states, “But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple” (21). Frankenstein embodies the movement in science to understand everything, and that is not necessarily a good thing (Storment 2). Frankenstein only understands that this train of thought is bad when he reaches the pinnacle of knowledge and produces the creature. The fruits of Frankenstein’s labor end up costing him the lives of his friends and family, as well as his own sanity. The feeling of guilt thrives in Frankenstein because he knows his work was the direct cause of the chaos in his life. In Frankenstein’s case, his goal of total enlightenment led to his pitiful demise. Frankenstein’s creature was not originally a monster. He is born with good intentions and is a gentle- although atrocious looking- being until he learns of the sins of the human race. The ultimate factor in the creature’s progression from harmless to
He was sleep deprived and his health was taking a huge toll on his body. In the book 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 “ ( Shelly 21). In the book Frankenstein did fulfill his responsibility of completing his goal of bringing the dead back to life but after his project he was completely horrified and scared. He says , “ Mingled with this horror , I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space where now become a hell to me; and the chance was so rapid , the overthrow was complete!” (shelly 21). A creator's responsibility is to care for the creation and to nurture whether it is alive or not. They should take pride and proud of their hard work, in which Frankenstein did not do this but became disgusted and called a hell he is living
Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein is a novel narrated by Robert Walton about Victor Frankenstein and the Monster that he creates. Frankenstein grew up surrounding himself with what he loved most, science. He attended Ingolstadt University where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy, but being involved in academics was not enough for him. Frankenstein wanted to discover things, but did not think about the potential outcomes that could come with this decision. Frankenstein was astonished by the human frame and all living creatures, so he built the Monster out of various human and animal parts (Shelley, 52). At the time Frankenstein thought this creation was a great discovery, but as time went on the Monster turned out to be terrifying to anyone he came in contact with. So, taking his anger out on Frankenstein, the Monster causes chaos in a lot of people’s lives and the continuing battle goes on between the Monster and Frankenstein. Throughout this novel, it is hard to perceive who is pursuing whom as well as who ends up worse off until the book comes to a close.
Mary Shelley was a nineteenth century English author who wrote many works including novels, short stories, and essays. Shelley’s most popular work of literature was the novel Frankenstein which she published in 1818 at the young age of twenty-one years old. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has a multitude of themes. A very common theme in the novel are the reasons behind why one may choose to pursue knowledge and the effects that one may face due to this pursuit.
Frankenstein has been interested in natural science since childhood and has described himself to “always have been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature”(Shelley 25), which foreshadows his future aspiration to create life, and
The novel Frankenstein is about a man named Victor Frankenstein who wanted to tamper with life and death by "exploring unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation." (Frankenstein, pg.40). He acquired the knowledge of science when he attended the university of Ingolstadt, and once the knowledge of science was gained, Frankenstein went to his secret laboratory to create a creature with gigantic stature. At first, Frankenstein had doubts about creating a human being; however, with "the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, [he] was encouraged to hope [his] present attempts would at least lay the foundation of future success." (Frankenstein, pg.47) Once Frankenstein created his human being, his dream was vanished because he had accomplished his dream. His dream of creating a human being soon turned into a nightmare.