In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley discusses the idea of responsibility for one’s actions and how power can lead to anguish. In the book, she portrays through the tragic character of Victor that the quest for power can lead to the suffering of oneself and others through the disregard of responsibility.
In the novel, Victor’s quest for power leads to the suffering of himself through his disregard of responsibility. This is seen after Victor creates the monster and states, “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep… I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the
…show more content…
This is shown in the novel after William is murdered and Justine is put on trial for being the murderer, “Justine also was a girl of merit, and possessed qualities which promised to render her life happy: now all was to be obliterated in an ignominious grave; and I the cause” (page 73). Because of Victor’s negligence in dealing with the monster, one result was that the creature killed his brother and his friend was blamed. The disregard of responsibility produced false accusations about Justine and led to her imprisonment and eventually death. It is evident that Victor was an instrument in the suffering of others, specifically Justine, because without his search for knowledge and power and the creating of the demon, Justine would have not been thrown in prison and would have remained alive and prosperous. Another example of the suffering of others is seen when the monster speaks to Frankenstein and says “‘Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent, my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? they spurn and hate me’” (page 89). Victor created the monster for the purpose of power and glory, but in the end, even the creature suffered because of Victor’s lack of guidance to him. This especially demonstrates the tragic
As a romantic, archetype and gothic novel, Victor is responsible for the monsters actions because Victor abandons his creation meaning the creature is dejected and ends up hideous and fiendish. It is unfair to create someone into this world and then just abandon it and not teach it how to survive. The quote from the creature “Why did you make such a hideous creature like me just to leave me in disgust” demonstrates how much agony the creature is in. He is neglected because of his creator. The monster says “The hateful day when I received life! I accurse my creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” Victor is wholly at fault for his actions, image and evil.
Taking responsibility is “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management” (dictionary.com). When you decide to take the responsibility of something or someone then do it to your greatest ability and do not leave any stones unturned. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley determines the role of responsibility for the welfare, acts, the deaths and the lives of others. Taking responsibility means being accountable for your actions, accepting the mistakes and taking the ownership of the mistakes that come along with one’s actions. Taking responsibility does not mean that all the actions will go as planned but accepting the consequences even if they do not go
Although humans have the tendency to set idealistic goals to better future generations, often the results can prove disastrous, even deadly. The tale of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, focuses on the outcome of one man's idealistic motives and desires of dabbling with nature, which result in the creation of horrific creature. Victor Frankenstein was not doomed to failure from his initial desire to overstep the natural bounds of human knowledge. Rather, it was his poor parenting of his progeny that lead to his creation's thirst for the vindication of his unjust life. In his idealism, Victor is blinded, and so the creation accuses him for delivering him into a world where he could not ever be entirely received by the people who inhabit it. Not only failing to foresee his faulty idealism, nearing the end of the tale, he embarks upon a final journey, consciously choosing to pursue his creation in vengeance, while admitting he himself that it may result in his own doom. The creation of an unloved being and the quest for the elixir of life holds Victor Frankenstein more accountable for his own death than the creation himself.
Victor’s lack of compassion and sympathy towards the monster causes him to become angry instead of guilty. His cruelness to his creation made the monster kill and hurt the people he did but “when [he] reflected on [the monster’s] crimes and malice, [Victor’s] hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation,”(Shelley 325). Without compassion Victor thinks that the only way to stop the monster is to get revenge on him, instead of just giving him the empathy and kindness that monster craved. Victor realizes that "if he were vanquished, [he] should be a free man...balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue [him] until death. ”(Shelley 731).
Critic Northrop Frye says, “Tragic heroes tower as the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, the great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning”. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein greatly exhibits the theme of the consequence of knowledge and irresponsibility among others through its tragic hero, Victor Frankenstein. Northrop Frye’s quote is certainly true when looking at Frankenstein’s situation. Victor is a victim of his divine lightning, and ultimately causes much trouble for himself; however, Victor also serves as the tragic hero in the lives of the monster, his family, and his friends.
Victor experiences very little joy at all after the creation of the monster. He suffers from numerous bouts of depression, he most tolerate the deaths of his brother, best friend, and wife, all of which were murdered at the hands of the monster. His friend Justine is executed because of the death of William, for which she is falsely accused and convicted. His father also dies after the murder of Elizabeth, Victor's ill-fated bride. With so much death surrounding his life, how is it possible that Victor could still be cognizant of his actions when he decides to pursue the monster and end its violent fury? He can't. Victor's mind is so clouded by the sorrow and pain of his past that he is blinded to the fact that he is attempting to destroy a creature with far greater physical strength and speed than any mortal. Much of his conflict appears to be created by the monster, when in fact the torment comes from Victor's own hands because he himself created and gave life to the monster.
If Victor had stayed around and showed the monster the real world, he might have not have went on to perform violent actions. This portrays Victor as a selfish character and gives more of an insight on his personal life. As a child, Victor is only interested in furthering his own knowledge and not worried about anyone else. He spent much of his time “drawing the picture of [his] early days... when [he] would account to [himself] for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled [his] destiny” (Shelley 34), or otherwise a magnificent creation that would change his future. When constructing the Monster, he put all of his relatives in the back of his mind, and only focused on his own success and victory. This further explains the theme of being selfless and only doing certain things that will benefit
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.
How important is the theme of justice in Frankenstein. Refer closely to the creation scene and Justine's trial scene. Justice is defined as justice is the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity which can be interpreted as adhering to laws of both a natural and civilised level. In Frankenstein many of the fundamental laws of both humanity and the world we live in are broken. Creation in he Christian faith is a marvel that only one being or person has the right to control.
Victor Frankenstein serves as an instrument of suffering of others and contributes to the tragic vision as a whole in this novel. He hurts those surrounding him by his selfish character and his own creation plots against his master due to the lack of happiness and love. The audience should learn from Frankenstein’s tragic life and character to always remain humble. We should never try to take superiority that is not granted to us because like victor we shall suffer and perish. He had the opportunity to make a difference in his life and take responsibility as a creator but his selfishness caused him to die alone just like what he had feared.
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights on the experiences her characters undergo through the internal war of passion and responsibility. Victor Frankenstein lets his eagerness of knowledge and creating life get so out of hand that he fails to realize what the outcome of such a creature would affect humankind. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, highlights on how Frankenstein’s passion of knowledge is what ultimately causes the decline of his health and the death of him and his loved ones.
Since this monster killed Henry, Victor knew that his family was now in danger. The monster is very happy that Victor is having to suffer because, Victor is now feeling the loneliness that he feels all the time. Though the monster’s character is not evil, the pain he feels is what he wants his creator to feel. His revenge only increases throughout the book because he is only longing for a fellow companion that Victor can only give him, but yet he is choosing not to create it. The anger that is within the monster is only growing and this is increasing the possibilities of him hurting more people.
He possibly could have located the monster, with the help of others, in a timely fashion, thus averting the many calamities that followed. However, Victor chose to abandon his monster and not inform anyone of its creation, and ignore it for months (Shelly 56). When Victor finally sees the monster again, it is after the monster has killed his youngest brother, william. When an innocent woman is blamed for this crime, and Victor could testify and save her life, he takes no action, saying that he would be thought crazy for his tale (Shelly 66).This in and of itself is an insanely selfish thing to do, with minimal effort Victor could have saved another person's life but because it could jeopardize his own reputation, he chooses not to. Even after two people have perished due to his thoughtlessness, Victor still does not inform anyone of the monster which he has created and still allows it to run loose. Later in the novel, after Victor destroys the companion the monster asked him to build, the monster strangles Victor's innocent friend Henry (Shelley 166). Victor’s actions caused a number of deaths and endangered many people. Henry, Elizabeth, William, and Justine all had nothing to do with the creation and subsequent abandonment of the monster, and yet due to Victors irresponsibility, they paid the ultimate price. Williams death is a turning point in the novel, as it shows victor for the first time that his actions actually do have consequences “Nothing in the human shape could have destroyed that fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it”, and yet he chooses to continue to make irresponsible choices that continue to endanger more people (Shelley
The instant Victor gives life to his monster, he feels a tremendous fit of loathing towards 'his child'. When the monster awakes, so does Victor, he suddenly realises what he has done, and that he has not fully thought his actions through and consequently rejects his creation, instantly damming it, to a life of misery, Victor must have known thi... ... middle of paper ... ... er leaves vowing to kill himself on his own funeral pyre, and this proves the monster's level of misery "I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me" The reader reacts in many different ways towards the monster, first there is sympathy because of his dreadful up-bringing but then that sympathy I lost because of the monster's violent nature. The main question is would the monster have turned out so evil if Victor had given it a caring home and an education?