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Critical analysis of victor frankenstein
Frankenstein as a novel
Critical analysis of victor frankenstein
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Someone once said, “No one can hate more than someone who used to love you”. In other words, hate comes from love. We hate the ones we once use to love, and that same love can be shifted towards hate due rejections of acceptance. Some say that hate is natural and other says it is taught. Though out the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we see the same love and hate relationship between the creature and victor. Shelley provides numerical examples in which we see that the creature learns to hate because of Victor. Victor and the creature did not get along because Victor sees the creature as “The other” therefore the creature begins to view himself as such and begins to hate.
The creature was born into the world and he was thankful for that
Even when Victor rejects him, the monster still seeks love from society and performs unselfish acts. He seeks the love from others. Longing for company, the monster stays in the cottage without revealing him and watches the family that lives there. By watching them he learned how to speak and read. The monster tried to understand the meaning of “beauty”. He somewhat understood why people he had interacted with had treated him ill and he realized that it was because they were frighten by his hideous appearance. “The absolute other cannot be selfed, that the monster has properties which will not be constrained by proper measure”(Spivak). This goes back to the idea of “other”, now the monster himself understand that he 's different from human, that he doesn 't have the properties as human do so he must be interior to them. Furthermore we see that by watching the family in the cottage, the monster soon starts to love the family. He liked the way they had affection and love they had for each other. “The gentle manners and beauty of cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joy”(Shelly100). This shows that the monster was very loving and caring towards the family as would a innocent
In the novel, Victor is raised up by two happy parents in caring and indulgence. He receives a sister, an education, affection, and a wife from his family. However, unlike Victor, the Monster does not have any maternal or paternal figure to care and teach him values. When the Monster first escapes from Victor’s apartment and enters into the forest, he lives like an animal. He eats berries, drinks water from the streams when he gets thirsty, and sleeps in anywhere. These actions illustrate the Monster’s natural impulse for needs of food and shelters.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley introduces the change from good to evil with the attention that guardians give a child. William Crisman, in his critique of Mary Shelley’s work, identifies the “sibling rivalry” between Victor and the rest of his family. Crisman remarks that Victor feels as if he is the most important person in his parents’ lives, since he was Alphonse’s and Caroline’s only child. The Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth and Victor sarcastically remarks that he has a happy childhood. This prompts Victor starts to read essays about alchemy and study natural science. Anne Mellor, another critic of Frankenstein, proposes that Frankenstein’s creature was born a good person and society’s reaction to him caused him to turn evil. Victor’s makes the creature in his own perception of beauty, and his perception of beauty was made during a time in his life when he had secluded himself from his family and friends. He perceived the monster as “Beautiful!”, but Victor unknowingly expressed the evil in himself, caused by secluding himself from everybody, onto the creature (60). In this way, the creature is Victor’s evil mirrored onto a body. The expression of Victor onto the monster makes the townspeople repulsed by the creature. The theory of the “alter ego” coincides with Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry (Mellor). Mary Shelley conveys that through Crisman’s idea of sibling rivalry, Victor isolates himself from society. Mellor describes the isolation during his creation of his creature leads to him giving the creature false beauty that causes Victor to abandon him and society to reject him.
This particular lyric pointed out the need humans seek for love and attention. Society feels like enable to be happy there needs to be affection given to a person. The monster is the same way; he craves for some kind of affection. Whether the affect were to come from Victor his creator, or the cottagers he sees as his friends. This crave for attention, love, affection, anything becomes stronger throughout the book. When the monster said to Victor, “My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create.” He starts to understand this would be the only way he will be...
On page 81 of the novel, the monster is thinking to himself as he said, “My thoughts became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures.” (Shelley 81). It is distinct in the quotation how the monster sees his humanistic abilities—he has feelings and he has motives. He is beginning to understand the relationships the human population has with one another, and he would like to be able to experience a humanistic relationship with someone who is similar to him.
Can you imagine losing all of your loved ones to an evil beast? Or being abandoned by everyone you came in contact with? Mary Shelley portrays numerous emotions in Frankenstein. Sympathy and hatred are two that are constantly shown throughout novel. Mary Shelley enlists sympathy and hatred towards Victor and the monster by presenting them in different viewpoints. The views of sympathy and hatred towards the main characters change as the narration changes in the novel Frankenstein.
...e seeking help and strength to take care of problems in their lives. Victor Frankenstein is a man with a loving and caring family. Family and friends are an important part of his life. He has his whole life in front of him, when creates his monster. He creates the monster in the likeness of man with same need of love and affection as man. Although, this is his creation, he lets the monster down and does not care for him. The monster begins to feel neglected and lonely and wants desperately to have a human relationship. The monster turns angry and revengeful because he is so sad and abandoned. He wants Victor to feel the way that he does, all alone. The monster succeeds and Victor ends up losing all the important in his life and his own life. In the end, the monster dies and the need for human relationship becomes the destruction for both the monster and Victor.
In Frankenstein, Victor’s monster suffers much loneliness and pain at the hands of every human he meets, as he tries to be human like them. First, he is abandoned by his creator, the one person that should have accepted, helped, and guided him through the confusing world he found himself in. Next, he is shunned wherever he goes, often attacked and injured. Still, throughout these trials, the creature remains hopeful that he can eventually be accepted, and entertains virtuous and moral thoughts. However, when the creature takes another crushing blow, as a family he had thought to be very noble and honorable abandons him as well, his hopes are dashed. The monster then takes revenge on Victor, killing many of his loved ones, and on the humans who have hurt him. While exacting his revenge, the monster often feels guilty for his actions and tries to be better, but is then angered and provoked into committing more wrongdoings, feeling self-pity all the while. Finally, after Victor’s death, the monster returns to mourn the death of his creator, a death he directly caused, and speaks about his misery and shame. During his soliloquy, the monster shows that he has become a human being because he suffers from an inner conflict, in his case, between guilt and a need for sympathy and pity, as all humans do.
Rather, it is others who alienate it because of its grotesque appearance. The monster is quite literally ‘born’ into perpetual isolation beginning with Victor’s abandonment of it. He denies it domestic safety when he flees to his bedchamber. Victor disregards the monster’s utterance of “inarticulate sounds while a grin wrinkled his cheeks,” then escapes its outstretched hand “seemingly to detain [him]” [Shelley 49]. Examining the monster’s body language as though an impressionable infant, its actions can be read as a child-like plea for its father though the absence of speech not yet learned. Instead, its unattractive appearance causes Victor to run, leaving the creature alone with no information about himself or his surroundings. Therefore, Victor’s abandonment is a crucial justification of the monster’s negative experiences with society and nature and actions in desiring community. The monster’s alienation from family is the missing first school of human nature, and the first lesson where he learns he does not belong. The creature leaves into the wilderness to learn about the world and himself on it own, only to understand his interactions are
...od; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous" (Shelley 66). In the novel, Victor has two chances to provide this happiness for the creation. In both cases, all the creation desires was a companion, be it Victor or a new creation. And, in both cases, Victor is influenced by his initial reaction of disgust at the sight of his original creation. This reaction originates from a preconception, a fear caused by the human nature to prejudge based on past experience. This prejudice is indeed the source of the pain and torment in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. If a "monster" exists in the novel, it is this aspect of human nature.
Since the monster has grown and has developed the concepts of life and why people reject him, all he wants is to be accepted and loved. He wants a companion because he is lonely in his isolation from the society. “He explains that since Victor deserted him he has been without companionship; all who see him run away in terror” (“Overview”). The monster understands that he is a hideous monster but he still wants to feel loved and accepted by society. He wants a companion to share his life with and be happy with. He is not given that opportunity because of his appearance. The monster will always be isolated from the world because no one can give him companionship. “If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them an hundred and an hundred fold; for that one creature 's sake, I would make peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realized” (Shelley, 105). The monster has been isolated all of his life and all he wants is to have a companion. Isolation has made the monster feel alone and like an outcast. The isolation of the monster has the negative effect of making him lonely and in need of a companion. The monster finds Victor and demands that he build another monster for the monster to be a companion with, or an “Eve”. After Victor says yes and then changes his mind and says no, the monster casts revenge of Victor. “...he declares 'everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery” (Bond). The monster is angry at Victor. He wants Victor to build him a companion or he will kill everyone that Victor loves. After Victor rejects the idea, the monster wants Victor to feel the loneliness and isolation that the monster has felt all his life. “...if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you, my
The classic Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has many themes within it. These themes are both obvious and inconspicuous. These themes involve family and isolation; ambition and fallibility; secrecy; revenge; prejudice; lost innocence; and knowledge, wisdom, and discernment.
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein centers around a creator who rejects his own creation. The plot thickens as Victor Frankenstein turns his back on his creation out of fear and regret. The monster is cast out alone to figure out the world and as a result of a life with no love, he turns evil. Shelley seems to urge the reader to try a relate with this monster and avoid just seeing him as an evil being beyond repentance. There is no doubt that the monster is in fact evil; however, the monster’s evilness stems from rejection from his creator.
Imagine being brought into the world to be completely thrown away by whoever created you, for being born. Now, this is the perspective of the Monster that Frankenstein created. The Monster was immediately hated as soon as he came to life. His own creator found him to be repulsive: “ 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.” Pg 59 PP 3. This hatred caused the monster to feel awful and run away in despair. Victor Frankenstein felt that he was justified to give up on his creation because it was ugly. This is completely unfair to the Monster because it has not done anything wrong, yet Victor Frankenstein feels he has the right to immediately turn his back on his creation. This is something that is frowned upon in society, but is sometimes the case. If this betrayal had not have happened, the Monsters nature could have been completely different. The Monster merely acted out because he was so greatly betrayed. In all honesty, the monster had good intentions in his heart, and he had a great soul. This great soul became diminished by the instant rejection as soon as he came to life. Now the Monster tried to keep it's spirits high but then things just seemed to get worse for him. Once the Monster
The monster does not resemble Victor physically; instead, they share the same personalities. For example, Victor and the monster are both loving beings. Both of them want to help others and want what is best for others. Victor and the monster try to help the people that surround them. Victor tries to console his family at their losses, and the monster assists the people living in the cottage by performing helpful tasks. However, Victor and the monster do not reflect loving people. The evil that evolves in Victor’s heart is also present in the monster.
The Romantic Movement in England, and subsequently in America, occurred in the late 18th to the early 19th centuries. In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley conforms to many literary trends that were used by the romantics. One literary trend of the romantic era is for the story to be set in a very remote or foreign place. Possibly, the purpose of having a story set in a foreign place was to create a realm that is entirely different from the known world of the reader. After all, for a monster in an apartment in the middle of London would hardly have been believable. Above all, the Romantic writer's objective was to create new and/or different worlds so that their readers would concentrate wholly on unusual themes and ideas. In the novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, the main character, has to deal with the death of his mother during a time in his life when he is ready to set out for college. The death of Victor's mother has negative consequences on his life. When Victor leaves to attend college he no longer has his mother with him and is cut off of almost all relations with females. This misfortune led to the creation of his monster.