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Literary analysis of mary shelley frankenstein
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In the novel Frankenstein, the author, Mary Shelley writes about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who brings to life a human- like creature. Viewing this book through a psychoanalytic lens uncovers the many layers that make up this text and the characters. The psychoanalytic theory deals with a person’s underlying desire, most famously, the oedipal complex. The oedipal complex is the belief that all people possess the desire to partake in affectionate relations with a parent of the opposite sex. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victors conscious and subconscious to suggest that Victor possesses the oedipal complex, and that he feels intense guilt for the monster that he has brought to life. Frankenstein shows the oedipal complex in many ways; one of which is his union with Elizabeth. Elizabeth Lavenza is an orphan …show more content…
Frankenstein gets sicker- eventually dying from the disease. Through Mrs. Frankenstein dying, Elizabeth takes the place as the mother in the household, thus becoming the mother in Frankenstein’s eyes. Mrs. Frankenstein’s last wish is for Victor and Elizabeth to eventually get married. Frankenstein cannot come to terms with the union and decides that he needs some time to think about it, this shows that he is not ready to move on and accept his mother’s death, thus having to love another. Frankenstein uses Elizabeth as a substitute for his mother; Mrs. Frankenstein and Elizabeth share a similar past; they were both orphan children in a small village, saved by a loving wealthy man/family. Elizabeth is a mirror image of Mrs. Frankenstein which is why Frankenstein is drawn to her. After creating the monster, Frankenstein has a dream: “I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a
Elizabeth Lavenza (later Elizabeth Frankenstein) is one of the main characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. She is a beautiful young girl; fragile and perfect in the eyes of all. Her father was a nobleman from Milan, while her mother was of German descent. Before she was adopted by the wealthy Frankenstein family, she lived with a poor family. After Alphonose and Caroline Frankenstein adopt Elizabeth, they lovingly raise her alongside their biological son, Victor Frankenstein, in hopes that the two will eventually get married. When Victor goes off to Ingolstadt college, Elizabeth writes letters to him that later become a crucial part of the story. It weaves together every piece of the story, holding together each individual
Frankenstein revolves around the relationships between its characters. Aside from Safie and Felix, the romantic male-female relationships are tinged with an incestual element. Also, the males idealize femininity and take the women's adoration of them for granted. Victor's parents, Alfonse and Caroline, have an age disparity that echoes father and daughter; he rescues her from poverty by coming, "...like a protective spirit to the poor girl" and then after their marriage "strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener...with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind" (32).
A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques. Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love. To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”. Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility. Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s inevitable evilness. Victor was not predestined to failure, nor was his creation innately depraved. Rather, it was Victor’s poor “parenting” of his progeny that lead to his creation’s thirst for vindication of his unjust life, in turn leading to the ruin of Victor’s life.
Frankenstein said that he had been an only child and during a expedition with his parents, his mother found a peasant and his wife with five hungry babies. The peasant’s children were dark-skinned, except for one little girl. Frankenstein’s mother decided to adopt the little girl. Victor and his adopted sister, Elizabeth, came to love one another, even though they were very different in temperament and nature. Elizabeth "busied herself with following the aerial creations of poets," while Frankenstein preferred scientific knowledge "it was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn ... the physical secrets of the world." After the death of his mother when he was seventeen, Frankenstein departed for the University of Inglostadt. Frankenstein grew intensely interested in the phenomena of the human body and he explored the processes of death and decay, and became infatuated with the idea of creating human life itself.
As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that, combined with insufficient parenting, Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence, but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most distinguished of the republic,”(Shelley 17), Victor’s parents saw him as their “plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless Creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me,”(19). “The Social Order vs. the Wretch: Mary Shelley's Contradictory-Mindedness in Frankenstein Sylvia Bowerbank.” Bowerbank, "The Social Order vs. the Wretch", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/bower.html.
Analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Analyzing a book can be a killer. Especially when it contains tons of subtle little messages and hints that are not picked up unless one really dissects the material. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prime example.
Victor mental health is fluid throughout the novel and there are many times when you question is mental sanity. There are many cases throughout the novel where Shelley reveals his unstable mental health. Shelley gives the readers a window to look through of mental illness during the romantic period. Victor recognizes that his mental health was being affected by the experiment. He discusses with Walton how becoming engrossed in your work can affect your mental health. Victor warns Walton that “if the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind” (Shelley 47). He was saying that his work did not
Brachneos. “Frankenstein – a Literature Essay on Social Context Comments.” Writinghood . N.p., 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. .
From the beginning of time in history, women have always been portrayed as and seen as the submissive sex. Women especially during the time period of the 1800s were characterized as passive, disposable, and serving an utilitarian function. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a prime example displaying the depiction of women. The women in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Shelley’s incorporation of suffering and death of her female characters portrays that in the 1800’s it was acceptable. The women in the novel are treated as property and have minimal rights in comparison to the male characters. The feminist critic would find that in Frankenstein the women characters are treated like second class citizens. The three brutal murders of the innocent women are gothic elements which illustrates that women are inferior in the novel. Mary Shelley, through her novel Frankenstein, was able to give the reader a good sense of women’s role as the submissive sex, through the characters experiences of horrific events including but not limited to brutal murder and degradation, which is illuminated by her personal life experiences and time period of romanticism.
The most prevalent theme in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is that of obsession. Throughout the novel there are constant reminders of the struggles that Victor Frankenstein and his monster have endured. Many of their problems are brought upon by themselves by an obsessive drive for knowledge, secrecy, fear, and ultimately revenge.
To begin with, Victor describes how his mother, Caroline Beaufort, met his father, Alphonse Frankenstein after Caroline’s father died in poverty. Victor describes his father meeting his mother by stating, “He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend, he conducted to Geneva, and placed her under the protection of a relation” (Shelley 28). Caroline’s between her and Victor’s father, she has no choice but to marry Victor’s father. If Caroline did not marry Victor’s father, then she will still be a woman in poverty with no food and money to supp...
In the excerpt "Frankenstein", Mary Shelley writes about a creature that has been abandoned by its creator, and anyone that gets a glimpse of him, fears him. The creature has moved into a hut in the woods where he can be hidden. Next to the creature's hut there is a cottage occupied by people. The creature is able to observe them and learn from their lifestyle. He will start to develop feelings and a sense of understanding over time. This excerpt is written in the first person from the point of view of the creature. In this essay, I will be talking about the importance of the point of view in this excerpt, what I (the reader) learned about the creature through his words, observations, and actions, and how I relate to him as a character.
Throughout the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, an abundance of amorousness was put on display for the reader to mentally grasp onto. Victor, the main character, demonstrated most of the affection overall, but it was not a normal emotion- it was more of an obsession or infatuation. He was captivated by the love of his life, Elizabeth Lavenza, who was also his adopted sister or whom he would call his ‘cousin’. He was likewise fascinated with his juvenility companion, Henry Clerval, who became his caretaker for a portion of the novel and assisted with Victor’s assiduous tasks. As well as Henry and Elizabeth, Victor was preoccupied and possessed by what he had produced, a destructive monster. All of the most important people in Frankenstein’s
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” Mary Shelley said after writing ‘Frankenstein’. She focused her mind on writing and used the left hemisphere of her brain, the creative side, which many people of the 1800s would not dare to do. The reason for this fear of using one of the many parts of our brains for a career or hobby was due to the fact that anyone who used this part were looked at as rather “crazy” which we now refer to as mentally ill. Mental illness was not always treated as an illness and was treated as a choice these people made and were, more or less, committing a crime, socially and legally. Frankenstein can be analyzed and certain
The change that Victor experiences throughout the novel Frankenstein is epitomized by his wife Elizabeth’s death. By this point in the novel Victor Frankenstein has lost every one of his family and friends that are close to him. After experiencing so much grief, loss, and guilt Victor begins to change. By only using the chapter which Elizabeths dies, it can be proved that the accumulation of other deaths and her death lead to the dehumanization of Frankensteins mental and physical states as well as his obsession with the monster. This dehumanization and change in Victor matters because it shows the growing connection between Victor and the monster he is chasing. The dehumanization that Victor experiences, is described in a specific way, using the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “ to deprive of human character or attributes.” (OED) In this essay dehumanized will be used not only with the OED definition, but also to show Victor’s attributes becoming not only less human but more and more like the monsters. The death of Elizabeth specifically exposes the full dehumanization of Frankenstein, seen though his mental state, physical appearance, and obsession with the monster, which leads to a greater similarities between Victor and the monster, this is ironic because Victor is hunting the very monster he is becoming.