The Role Of God In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Subjects such as Evolution vs. God have taken up a major part of the human history. This precise topic has opened up a whole new way of thinking even though no one can factually prove one is right and the other is wrong. Opinionated matters such as these can provide incentive to believe in what what suits the situation. For example, imagine a man can that won the lottery after a hard worked life. In this situation, the man would thank god for this fortune. An outsider might believe that it was just the matter of luck that won the man the lottery. It’s just a matter of perspective and it depending on many varying factors such as how and where we are raised. Another example of this can be seen by my self experience. I was born in India and almost everyone that lives there believes that there is a god.

Someone that is watching over us and will give us something back if we work hard.

This is how I grew up and after moving to America, I was introduced to a whole new world of thinking. This is one of the many themes that is stated in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein. In the story, the matter of god vs man comes up very often as the main character Victor Frankenstein takes the role of god to create a creature. This creature then evolves to become someone instead of something as it finds a purpose in life. This purpose is to kill his creator Frankenstein, as he was left to die after birth. The creation of the monster by Victor Frankenstein is shows as the monster being the innerself of Victor, the fact that Victor intended the monster to be an invention who then turned into a creation, and the monsters life as he is left alone after

birth.
The monster is eight feet tall, ugly and rejected by society. The monstrosity of himself does not come from him being ugly, but from the unnatural manner of his creation, which involves a mix of stolen body parts. The monster in this story is one of many mysterious/second definition things in this novel and, it is also the only one that is literally mysterious. Throughout the story, Shelley goes over many themes that have a second meanings attached. It is meant to be a basic horror story to some and a meaningful one to the others that can understand the meaning behind the story. Throughout the story, the readers can argue that Victor Frankenstein in the real monster. This can be observed as he is very ambitious about building the monster. He is also very secretive throughout the entire novel and this causes him to alienate himself from the entire world. This can also be observed by looking at the literal monster. He is very secretive about showing himself and alienated from the world. The monster learns little by little and his ambition grows stronger and stronger as to destroy his master. Victor looks ordinary on the outside be he sees himself inside the monster as he is consumed by the obsessive hatred of the beast. Victor is also a beast in the matter that, his obsession with creating and destroying the beast is not known by anyone until it is shared with Walton. He has kept this matter secret due to the fact of shame and guilt. Victor finally escapes the secrecy that destroyed his life as he shares everything with walton. Until the very end of the novel, the subconscious knows that victor is somehow to be blamed for creating this monster as he was not intended to be. Could we blame him for trying out an experiment? No. The fact of the matter is, Victor saw himself in the monster as he took the very core points of being one and applied it to himself.
The pressure to invent something new has been at the core of Victors legacy as he surges forward beyond the limits of human limitations. This very legacy starts when Victor's mother dies and he takes it upon himself to pursue his interest in science. He is then set on a path of learning knowledge and then later going beyond what the human mind can perceive. Using this dangerous knowledge, the monster was created causing Victor to grow an obsession to destroy it later in the novel. Looking at this is in an unnatural way, the audience can argue that Victor intended the monster he created to be an invention rather than a creation. In most people's eyes, a creation is one of a kind while and invention is something that can be built upon/ improved. Due to ignorance of Victor, the monster later turns into a creation. This can be seen as the monster starts to feel and has a presence in the world. The monster begins to see his heart light up as the weather turns to spring. The influence of nature on the mood of the characters is very evident throughout the novel. This shows just how human like something that was born unnaturally is. An experiment is suppose to be a test and the monster is not one. Even though it is ugly and does not “belong” in the world, he is created and has impacted Victor’s world in many horrible ways. This then goes back to the question of, How does the monster view himself in society? The answer is, as any other human would. The monster has a realization that he was brought into this world in an unnatural way. He thinks of himself as looking unnatural therefore hides himself from society. In chapter VIII of Volume II, The monster starts the chapter with “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in the instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?” (132/ Mary Shelley) This shows that the monster had no choice because he had no say in his creation. The monster in Chapter IX of Volume II asks Victor “You must create a female for me, whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.” (140, Shelley) Victor later starts to create this partner for the monster just to realize what he was doing is wrong and destroying it. The monster at this point, wishes to not have even been created and the only way he can find purpose in life is to destroy his creator. The monster's creation causes him to learn the ways of society before approaching the world and another question appears from this dilemma. What if the monster was not ugly? What if the monster looked like most other human beings. Would he have been abandoned by Victor? Would he be willing to go and talk to humans more often? The answer is, yes! If the monster didn’t look like the way he did, Victor would have carried out his plan as expected and experimented more on his creation and Victors legacy of bringing something new to the table would have been fulfilled.
The birth of the ugly monster drove Victor to hate it with a passion as the monster itself grew up the passion to destroy its creator. In volume II Chapter VIII, the monster states “When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery.” (132, Shelley) Before the monster knew what feelings were, it had to learn. The monster explains to victor the journey of discovering the sensations of light, dark, cold, thirst and hunger. The monster starts to explain his realization of the comfort created by a fire and burning himself to find out how dangerous it is. He explains his realization of adding wood to keep the fire going and cooking food to make eating easier. The monster then explains the realization of why people despise his and his journey to a lonesome life is a cottage. The monster also reaches beyond his self interest to learn from the family that owned the cottage. He explains his secrecy as the owners of the cottage had no idea they had a guest. Over a period of time, the monster observes the family to realize their unhappiness. The next night, rather than stealing their food, he gather up wood and leaves it for the owners so their hardships could be eased. The monster then explains to victor the strange sounds used by the humans to communicate. He then little by little, learns the language and learns the name of the owners of the cottage. One day, the monster catches a reflection of himself in a river. He stops and begins to think about his purpose in life. All winter, the monster learn more and more from the book of Adam and Eve to realize that he is not Adam, but someone that was unnaturally created. He finds one purpose in life which is to have an Eve or create his destroyer. This causes him to reach out to Victor, his creator and have a conversation where the monster is more literate than the humans he is surrounded by.
Many themes can be analyzed by Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein. One of the importance once is the matter of Victor Frankenstein taking the role of god to create a monster. Both of them find an obsession to destroy each other. The pressure to invent something new has been at the core of Victors legacy as he surges forward beyond the limits of human limitations. This very legacy starts when Victor's mother dies and he takes it upon himself to pursue his interest in science. He is then set on a path of learning knowledge and then later going beyond what the human mind can perceive. The monster he creates is eight feet tall, ugly and rejected by society. The monstrosity of himself does not come from him being ugly, but from the unnatural manner of his creation, which involves a mix of stolen body parts. In the monster states “When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery.” Before the monster knew what feelings were, it had to learn. The monster explains to victor the journey of discovering the sensations of light, dark, cold, thirst and hunger. The monster also “You must create a female for me, whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.” When the offer is rejected, the monster finds himself at the wedding of his creator and kills his wife. Prior to this, the monster had killed almost everyone in Victor's family. This causes victor to chase the monster where he finds Waldon and releases the monster inside him by stating his secrecy once in for all.