Theme Of Empathy In Frankenstein

Frankenstein: Victor Frankenstein’s Empathy Is the loss of empathy to be justified by the sins of humanity against you? Both Victor Frankenstein and his creature are tormented by humanity and become criminals; but does this necessarily mean that both were unable to retain their humanity. By the end of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein has lost most of his humanity. This is uniquely shown by comparing him to his own creation, his monster. The unnatural creature conceived in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has enormous amounts of empathy, whereas his creator, Victor Frankenstein, has very little and therefore has lost touch with his humanity. By the end of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wanted the reader to discover that it was not Frankenstein’s

She was able to accomplish this fully by highlighting the absence of a single trait in Frankenstein; he has no empathy. Empathy, the ability to feel with another creature, is an integral part of what makes us human, what separates us from inanimate objects and animals. It is possible for a person to register another creature’s emotions without truly being empathetic. True empathy requires an individual to merge identities and act upon both their own and the others’ emotions. It is the lack of empathy that fuels human brutality. If an offender were truly able to read and identify with a victim’s emotions it would become impossible for the offender to act against that being.

Victor at times claims to have held compassion for his monster, but was never able to act on it. After the monster had pleaded with Frankenstein to make him a companion. Frankenstein, “compassionated him and sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when [he] looked upon him, when [he] saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, [his] heart

“Revenge alone endowed [him] with strength and composure; it modeled [his] feelings, and allowed [him] to be calculating and calm” (145). Victor gained new purpose and even on his deathbed holds to the principle that he is justified in desiring the death of his enemy. Moment before his death he turns to Captain Robert Walton and says, “I feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable” (156). He even begins to lose the small amount of compassion he had for the creature’s struggle. When visiting his family’s graves he cries that, “they were dead, and I lived; their murder also lived” (145). Previously in the novel he blamed himself for the deaths of Mathew, Justine, and Henry, claiming to be their murderer and lamenting on the evil he had set forth into the world. Victor now places the weight of these deaths solely on the monster’s shoulders and believes it is his god given burden to cleanse the world of this evil. He had been “assured that the shades of [his] murdered friends heard and approved [his] devotion… rage choked [him]”(146). The death of the monster would not even weigh on his conscience since it is god’s