The Role Of Science And Creation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

The pop culture version of the novel Frankenstein depicts Victor Frankenstein’s need for science and creation, a need that results in him creating a monster. An ingenious and inventive scientist, Victor mastered everything he learned from his professors. Unfortunately, he ultimately created something he regrets and pays for until the day he dies. Victor Frankenstein takes his interest in science and creation to an unhealthy and extreme level, and plays God. In playing this God figure over his creation, he creates this being with no intentions of giving it love or happiness. He is selfish and creates it for himself, and he brings the unliving to life out of old used parts.

Victor creates it for himself out of selfishness. His interest in science was sparked when he saw lightning that night, and he never looked back. He does not think twice about the consequences anyone would or could suffer. He creates this being exactly how he wants to create him. “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. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room…unable to compose my mind to sleep (Shelley

58-59). It shows proof of how Victor felt about what he created. Victor knew exactly what he was doing, and he proceeded anyway. He had nothing in mind but his desire for creation and the credibility he wanted so badly to give himself once it was completed. How did he expect anyone else to accept him when he, the creator of this wretched being, did not? He did not care about how this poor creation would get judged with every glance taken upon him or the personality he would possess.
The monster felt his unwantedness but told his creator the tale of how he became to be what he was. The “monster” was clearly created with some human qualities because he tried to conform. He tried to learn all he could from the cottage people he talked about. He learned how to recognize feelings and his senses. He learned their language and learned what the words meant by watching their actions. Victor did nothing for him but set him up for failure. He bore him into the world and left him with nothing. “The Creature begins to demonstrate the consequences of not getting the acceptance and embarks on a different route: to conflict pain on others, particularly Victor. When the Creature was rejected by an innocent child, he was enraged and opted to the satisfaction of seeking revenge against Victor which he later explains” (Erika G. Simon). “I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him” (Shelley 144). By Victor’s selfish decisions, his family suffers.
Victor creates this monster with no intentions of giving it love or happiness. He’s not a monster at all. He has real human feelings. In the process of telling his creator about his journey, since he was abandoned, he says “‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred” (Shelley 92-93). He is so interested in creating it, but once he is done he is disgusted. The monster goes through endless experiences of hate, and never receives love or acceptance. Victor made the creature exactly how he wanted to, and from the way he looked he was already an outcast. This doesn’t include how he was treated by human beings. Everyone treated the creature like garbage and shunned him, but then act surprised and horrified when his reaction is hate towards man. “He is rejected or abandoned by everyone he encounters and leads a life of despair and loneliness” (Erika G. Simon). In his story he is rejected by his creator, the cottage family, and almost every human interaction he has. It’s clear that there are different opinions within the frame story about whether the creation is a victim or really a monster, but all they seem to focus on is how he kills a child. The killings continue, but in reality it is Victor’s fault that the second killing happened at all. Victor provides no love for his creation, but instead leads him into a life of self hatred.
Victor brings the unliving to life out of old broken parts of various things, including the broken heart he guides him to. Meaning, he truly didn’t care too much for him even before he was created. He depicts him as a horrible fiend that only causes harm, but his creator is the reason for all of that. “Looking beyond the outer appearance of the monster, it seems evident that what he began as was not a monster. Instead it was the extreme misconceptions of humans, resulting in extreme isolation of the creature, that caused him to become a monster” (Josh Traynelis, Emory University). Although the monster was created out of old used parts, he still possesses human characteristics. His outer making should not have determined the way he was treated. The constant feeling that no one loves you and everyone sees you as a “thing” would have a detrimental effect, especially when the hate comes from the a creator.
The only thing that his human interactions paid attention to was how he looked. “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” (Shelley 35). At first, his creator calls him beautiful, but he was more so complimenting himself and his work. He thought his work was beautiful, but not the creation itself. When Victor has more time to think about it, he in turn calls him horrendous and rushes out of the room. When he realized how unattractive his creation looked, he wanted nothing to do with it. God was not happy with what he had done. Victor is not the only one who turns away the monster because of his looks. During the monsters talk with Mr. De Lacey the monster isn’t pushed away because he is blind. The rest of the family is not so content. “Agatha fainted; and Safie, unable to attend her best friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung: in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick” (Shelley 96-97). Robert Walton even states “never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face” (Shelley 163). No one, “monster” or not, deserves to be violated mentally or physically because of how they look. He is justified in taking it out on his God and the people who did nothing but make him suffer.
Victor Frankenstein takes his interest in science and creation to an unhealthy and extreme level, and plays God.

Since the book was written, people have remained believing the misconception that the creation is actually a monster, when in reality Victor Frankenstein is the monster. This poor being is created by his God, and is left out on his own with nothing, and is let decompose mentally and physically. He gives this creature no compassion, creates him out of an interest in science, and uses old parts to create him. All these things result in this soul being hurt and shunned for his whole life. Resulting in the way he takes out his pain on man. Victor Frankenstein is the monster, not the black lipped, yellow skinned

soul.