Who Is Victor's Ambition In Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story about Victor Frankenstein and his monster. Victor creates something so repulsive and disturbing that just as soon as it is alive he rejects it. This creates a downward spiral of events that ultimately lead to Victor's death. Victor starts out ambitious in studying natural science, proving his professors wrong, and doing the impossible. It only took a lock of the door and isolation to become obsession. Obsessed with creating, then obsessed with destroying. Shelley is trying to show us that dedicated ambition can quickly turn into parasitic obsession, no matter what subject or objective, that anything can be dangerous enough to destroy one's soul and take one’s life.
Victor started out as an ambitious,

young scholar who study an old forgotten science. He studied natural science and made many discoveries. “From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation” (Shelley, 36). Victor was so dedicated to his study that he essentially locked himself away for two years, unknowingly creating something that would come to ruin his life. He was so dedicated that his diligence turned into an obsession. “… it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory” (Shelley, 36). He spent nights at a time with no sleep, focused on his work. Shelley is showing, through Victor’s ambition, that ambition can quickly turn into obsession with the right, or wrong, motivation.
One of the first signs of Victor’s obsession was when he first discovered he could reanimate objects.

“Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true” (Shelley, 38). He thinks himself mad for only a second, but then he shakes of that feeling. That displays one of the characteristics of truly a obsessed madman. He thinks himself not to be mad and that his cause is one of sound and substantial discovery. What he should've thought was that there must be a reason why no one was continuing this research, and why no one has ventured down the same path that he is headed. As the story progresses and Victor has confronted his monster, he denies his obsessive nature even further; making things worth. “I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race” (Shelley, 176). Victor's obsession had been eating away at him ever since he saw the monster come to life. He tried so hard to get rid of it, but all it did was cause him more pain; pain that he brought upon himself and others, but he made it worse by not accepting his own work of science and denying the ultimate truth. By

rejecting his creation he formed their relationship into a parasitic one, especially for Victor. Nearing the end of his journey Victor would rather cut himself down slowly and painfully then have released this monster onto the world.
Ultimately Victor brought all this upon himself. His ambitious tendencies quickly turned into an obsession of creating life. As soon as that life was created he was obsessed with destroying it. The monster had grown fond of his creator and had come to see Victor’s true nature, but when Victor came to his demise he realized something would be missing from his life. “The only joy that he can now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth” (Shelley, 200-201). Even the monster could see the pain that Victor felt. The monster knew that Victor wanted him gone and to relieve himself from this obsession he found solace in his dreams. He created his own world believing what he wanted to believe, not the truth. Victor kept himself away from all and drove himself mad with the obsession of finding the monster and getting rid of it. By the end of Victor's journey he was delirious by his own doing. The monster saw that Victor was no longer stable and it was his own obsession in chasing something and trying to undo something he never could undo that killed him. He was so obsessed with seeing the monster gone that he brought himself to death. He freed himself of his inner demon the only way he knew how, death.