Victor's Responsibility In Frankenstein Essay

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a gothic horror novel in which a curious scientist animates a creature built by human parts, leading to numerous devastating deaths. Victor Frankenstein, the curious scientist, should be held responsible for the deaths his creation caused, because it is his actions and wrong doings that led to the monster’s deadly behavior. Victor is culpable because he did not consider the risks and dangers his creation posed.
Victor is responsible for the monster’s actions because it is his creation that he did not account for the potential consequences of. Prior to Victor’s creation, he explains that his only real motive to create this new being was so that "a new species would bless me as its creator and source;

many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption" (Shelley 32). Victor is really only concerned with playing god and not creating any benefit to society.

His arrogance leads him to neglect any sense of morals or ethics. By having this lack of morals, he begins to make poor decisions regarding the monster. Building upon this, in the argument over whether or not synthetic life forms are ethical or not, many scientists believe that it is very dangerous because it imposes an “unmanageable potential risk” (‘Ethics Concern Over Synthetic Cell, BBC.com). Scientists say that in the possibility that a synthetic life form were to be created, “action must be taken now to make sure risks are assessed and avoided [and] it should be closely monitored for unforeseen consequences” (‘Ethics Concern Over Synthetic Cell, BBC.com). Also, “Simple prudence therefore recommends caution and sufficient regulation to guard against potential dangers” (Is Synthetic Life Dangerous?” LiveScience.com). It is clearly stated that in the presence of a synthetic life form, all precautions must be taken, including careful surveillance of the thing because it is unpredictable. Victor evidently does not abide by this because immediately after the awakening of his monster, he runs away from it out of pure fear and disgust by its appearance. This leaves the monster revengeful and

wandering around Victor’s house, and eventually the rest of town where he finds William Frankenstein and murders him (and later the rest of the Frankenstein family) out of spite. It is because Victor neglected the monster and left it without supervision, that it went on to commit such heinous acts. Victor, being a very intelligent person, should have known to never leave the monster unattended, as it was the first of its kind and no one knows how it is going to behave. It is his fault that the murders occurred, because as the creator, it was his responsibility to supervise his creation.
On the other hand, some believe that Victor is not responsible for the monster’s actions because of how the quality of his mental state at the time may have affected the making of his creation.

While Victor was creating the monster he was not sleeping and keeping himself in complete isolation from everything except his lab and his experiment. This, eventually causes Victor to fall physically ill for a very long time (Shelley). However, this does not excuse Victor from his wrong doing in neglecting the monster, as he chose to not take care of himself, and allowed himself to end up ill the way that he did. T. Rajgopal, Vice President of the Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental medicine, states that “work related stress is a major cause of occupational ill health, poor productivity and human error… This means possible increase in accidents due to human error… loss of concentration and poor decision making” (“Mental Wellbeing at the Workplace”). Victor’s poor mental state could have caused him to make a mistake or error in creating the monster. By putting himself in a bad place mentally, it influenced his physical performance while working on his experiment, which caused it to become even more dangerous and

destructive.
Victor Frankenstein’s arrogance while creating the creature, abandonment of it and depleting mental state all factored into its horrific behavior. Shelley teaches readers that being overly ambitious can have damaging results. In Victor’s case, his desire to create life and lack supervision of for the monster, cost him his whole family and best friend.