During the creation scene, the creature is portrayed as a malicious beast by Victor and the reader blindly accepts his perspective because in the reader’s mind, Victor is a human while the Creature is not. As humans, we have a tendency to sympathize with the human Victor as opposed to the non-human Creature. As the story progresses to volume two, Mary Shelley challenges the reader’s perspective by providing a panoramic view of the Creature so the reader can gain a perspective through the Creature’s eyes and thus it allows Shelley to challenge what the reader views as…
Shelley’s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, explores the complex nature of mankind by considering the consequences of an unrestricted pursuit of science. A rise in scientific experimentation with Galvanism during Shelley’s time is reflected through the protagonist Victor as he uses it to bestow life. Shelley portrays Victor and the Creature as complex beings, demonstrating both inhuman and human qualities. Despite this, the subsequent rejection by his creator and the De Lacy family drives the Creature to ‘eternal rejection and vengeance of mankind’. Victor’s initial response when meeting the creature, demonstrates his savage, cruel treatment and lack of responsibility towards his creation.…
Shelley’s belief of the corruption inherent in science is demonstrated through the allegory of Victor’s fall from grace as he loses his morality which is highlighted by his lack of empathy. Through his destructive quest for knowledge, Victor’s own sense of humanity is destroyed, as emphasised by the hyperbole within Victor’s statement, “I seem to have lost all soul or sensation, but for this one pursuit”. In contrast, the supposed “daemon” he creates is depicted as a sentient, passionate being, evident in his opening narration with its sensory imagery “innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me” where the awareness and appreciation of nature reflects Shelley’s Romantic leanings. Shelley utilises this narrative voice of the creature to draw sympathy away from Victor to highlight the lack of empathy of Victor as he spurns his grotesque creation on superficial qualities, ignoring his responsibility to the thing he has created mirroring the chaos The creature alerts Victor of his moral failings through biblical allusions “I ought to be thy Adam... whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed”. Shelley's powerful biblical allusion to Genesis provides an immediate juxtaposition between the self-interested relationship of Victor and his monster,…
By examining Mary Shelley’s life we can see many of the key themes of her time reflected in Frankenstein. The novel Frankenstein was written in 1818 and follows the story of a scientist, Victor Frankenstein and his quest for creating life. However his experiment goes wrong as his creature goes on a rampage after he has been rejected. One theme from this novel that is part of Shelley’s life is the natural world.…
Victor begins to tell the story of how he became interested in natural philosophy, and what kept him interested. He had a thirst for knowledge, and when his father defiled the book Victor was reading and learning from, it lit a fire within him to do everything possible to prove his father wrong. Although Victor felt upset by this situation, it pained him more that his father did not teach him why he felt this book was “sad trash” (68). Therefore, Victor felt neglected by his father and maintained an unfulfilled desire for a father that truly cared. Along with this neglect came the feeling that he was “destined for some great enterprise.” Alas, to an outsider, Victor did just that. He created a living being from nothing. However, Victor only viewed his creation as a monster and not as an astounding scientific discovery. One last thing that Victor wanted for numerous years was to see the death of his creation (118). He became aware of the horror that he had created at the exact moment it came to life and tracked Creature down for years. Because neither Creature, nor Victor were real (they were broken parts of Walton’s psyche), only Walton would be able to put Creature to…
Victor’s rejection and abandonment of the creature and many other people’s subsequent rejection of the creature, based on appearance, reminds the reader of how society (both in Shelley’s era and in the modern day), can and do reject those who are different and Shelley cultivates more sympathy from the reader this way. Frankenstein has had love and support from family all his life, by showing us Frankenstein’s childhood and then showing us his acts toward the creature readers are positioned to think of how callous, selfish and awful Frankenstein is as he rejects the creature and does not deem him worthy. Frankenstein tells the readers of his charmed childhood and because of this the reader thinks he’s a decent man, you also admire how he loves…
As soon as the monster comes to life, Victor is filled with intense revulsion. He explains, "the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.(41)" He is so surprised that it actually happened that he didn’t take time to think about what to do. He doesn’t take care of the creature and he just wishes he had never created it. Victor thinks about creating another creature but then remembers what a bad idea it was to make one in the first place. So he just doesn’t create it at all. This is one of the reasons that the monster becomes so angry with Victor and seeks…
Victor 's creation then set out to find his creator in hopes that he would invent a female companion for him. “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel” (Shelley 128). “You must create a female for me… and I demand it of you as a right you must not refuse to concede.” (Shelley 134) the “monster” was agitated that he was created alone and without a partner to confide in as the characters did in the book. Victor then realized that the monster was very knowledgeable and persistent about what he…
It is proved that his mental state is unbalanced when he states, “My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil” (Shelley 36). As his mental health becomes unstable, he then becomes obsessed with science, making it his highest priority, even above his own health and family. Victor then suddenly became consumed with the concept of creating life artificially, and of the elixir of life. Although Victor does succeed in his dream of creating life, he is soon horrified at the sight of what he has created. He is not proud of the Creature, but disgusted at the sight of it, stating, “the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 57) Victor abandons his creation and leaving it to fend for itself, indirectly causing the murders of loved ones on account of his own shallowness, selfishness, vanity, and disregard of moral…
After months of traveling in the dark out of sight, he was down by the stream getting water on his way to Geneva. That's when he noticed that there was a girl who slipped into the water and was struggling to swim, and he said ”I rushed from my hiding-place; and, with extreme labour from the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to shore” (Shelley). Once he rescued her, he tried his hardest to bring her back to consciousness. The man saw him awkwardly running at him with the lifeless girl in his arms. He feared that the creature was going to do something harmful to the girl, so he shot the creature in his shoulder with his gun. The creature not only suffered physical abuse but also mental abuse. Eventually the creature wanted to have a companion. He asked Victor if this would be possible, after some discussion Victor agreed to the idea to produce another creature just like the one he already made. Midway through the construction of this new creature, a thought came into Victor's mind. He wondered if he made this new creature if the two of them would try to start a whole new race, and possibly try to take revenge on all of those that wronged him. With the thought of this Victor decided to destroy what progress he had made towards the new creature. Little did he know that the other creature was watching him through the window and saw him end what Victor promised him.…
Shelley describes the creature's birth in two different points of view, she writes about Victor`s and the Creature`s points of view. When the creature is talking about his side of the story he starts by saying “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.” (Shelley 207) The creature is talking to Victor about when he awoke he knoticed that he the same sense`s that every human has. Next the creature goes on to say that he closed his eyes after he first woke up, because the light was so I bright. After that when he opened his eyes again he knoticed that Victor was nowhere to be found. So he got up and he learned that he knew how to walk. He then went to Victor's room where again Victor ran away. After that the creature just sat down and cried. He was cold and was lonely. This reminds me of when babies are born into the world they immediately cry out. They do this because they have senses that tell them they are cold so they let out a cry, just…
He merely felt like an outcast since the day he was born and continually repeated it throughout the novel. “It was as a child when I awoke, I felt cold also, half frightened as if it were instinctive finding myself so desolate” (Shelley 68). Being rejected by Victor since he was created was all it took for him to feel insignificant in the world. It was as if his own father abandoned him and throughout the novel was ashamed of his existence. No one cared about the monster, but all he ever really wanted was just his creator’s approval. The monster’s appearance naturally just strikes fear into people and these actions of rejection into one’s society cause for the monster to inflict pain and suffering to his creator’s loved ones so Victor too can feel his suffering. “I shunned the face of man, all sound of joy, or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation” (Shelley 98) The monster’s vulnerability to the reaction of the De Lacey family helped him accept the fact that he wasn’t welcome into society and was forever going to be in denial. The monster was miserable and the lack of joy that he had compared to the joy he witnessed clarified his worthy of acceptance.…
Although the Creature later went on to commit crimes, he was not instinctively bad. Victor's Creature was brought into this world with a child-like innocence. He was abandoned at birth and left to learn about life on his own. After first seeing his creation, Victor "escaped and rushed downstairs." (Frankenstein, 59) A Creator has the duty to teach his Creature about life, as well as to love and nurture him. However, Victor did not do any of these; he did not take responsibility for his creature. One of the first things that the creature speaks of is that he was a "poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, (he) sat down and wept." (106) The Creature knew nothing when he was born. He could not distinguish rite from wrong. The only thing that he could feel was pain from being rejected by his own creator. Victor was the first to force the Creature's child-like innocence away from him. Even after being educated by the DeLacey family his child-like innocence shines through. He was reading books while he stumbled upon a story of bloodshed and he "could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow (He) turned away (from them) with disgust…
The first time is when Victor finishes making the monster and he lays down to rest but can’t really fall asleep. He finally falls asleep but he is awakened by the feeling of something staring at him. He wakes to find the creature staring at him, admiring him, and then smiling at him. “I startled from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the shutters, I beheld the wretch--the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks” (Shelley 44). The creature was not "born" bad or evil. The quote shows that the creature is sweet and doesn't have bad intentions. This quote also shows his good side because the creature didn't try to harm Victor as soon as he saw him. Another time he shows that he had good built in him is when he saves a little girl from drowning, but later is attacked by a man with the girl because; He thought the creature was trying to kill the girl. “I was scarcely hid when a young girl came running toward the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if she ran someone in a sport. She continued her course along the precipitous sides of the river, when suddenly her foot…
The monster, although it has acquired the name Frankenstein in popular culture, remains nameless throughout the novel, signifying its lack of acceptance in a human society. The monster’s rejection stems significantly from its appearance, ranging from its "yellow skin" (Shelley 42) and "dim-white sockets" (42) to its "straight black lips” (42) and a "shriveled complexion” (42). Shelley has clearly distinguished the monster, marking the first divide between monster and human. She has also established the initial trickling of the monster’s inability to associate with humans. In fact, the monster’s own creator, Victor Frankenstein, rejects it due to its appearance and refuses to interact with the hideous beast. The monster’s appearance prevents other characters from seriously interacting with the monster, as they form a prejudice against a non-human being. The fear of that which is non-human lingers throughout Shelley’s…