Responsibilities Of A Creator In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Responsibilities of a creator In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein a central question is raised: How does a creator take responsibility towards the life they create? The question is based on Victor Frankenstein's treatment of his creation throughout the work. However, Shelley does not offer answers as to how one cares for a life. Shelley’s novel solely suggests what not to do when caring for a lifeform. Mary Shelley’s treatment of the question through Victor affects the reader’s understanding of the work by allowing the readers to know Victor’s thoughts and actions towards his creation and elicit feelings of sympathy regarding the creature based on the creature’s story. In the beginning of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein worked diligently

When the creature was given life, he was abandoned. He did not know of his creator or of the daily functions of the world around him. The creature was left to fend for himself. He gained knowledge every day by observing his environment and learning from his mistakes. The main lesson he learned was how mean man could be. Man abused the creature because he was a monster to them. Later on, the creature began to hate himself and his creator for the way he was made. “Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. . . Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” (Chapter 13). After Victor’s death, the creature reveals his feelings about his actions and how they affected Victor. “But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself” (Chapter 24).

Shelley does not suggest answers to this question. However, she explains what a creator should not do. Had Victor taken his responsibility as a creator to care for his creation, Victor would not have lost all of the people he loved and the creature would have been raised to know the difference between good and evil and would have understood his responsibilities regarding his creator. Therefore, Shelley’s approach to the question in her novel through Victor’s actions allows the reader to learn from the story about the consequences of not being a responsible