Elizabeth Lavenza is the orphan child taken in by the Frankenstein family, and raised with Victor. She is the daughter of an Italian nobleman and a German woman. She was orphaned and taken in by a poor Italian family before Victor‘s parents took her in. Elizabeth is the gift his mother gives him. The man’s family name is Frankenstein, his birth name is…
Throughout the movie there are many changes in the plot and vision of main characters. First of all, the movie never portrays Caroline Beaufort as being the daughter of the unfortunate merchant, Beaufort. In the novel, once Beaufort dies, Alphonse Frankenstein weds his daughter, Caroline. The movie also leaves out the adoption of Elizabeth. This leaves the viewer wondering why Victor is marrying his sister and why they are so intimate. The movie also seems to portray Elizabeth's appearance very differently than the novel's description. In the novel, Elizabeth Lavenza is an adopted daughter of Caroline and Alphonse. She is described as having an angelic glow around her body and beautiful blonde hair. In the movie, Elizabeth has ugly, brown, curly hair and a very pale complexion. Elizabeth appears nothing like Mary Shelly had intended the reader to visualize her.…
By questioning the attributes of a human being and how one becomes integrated into society, Shelley has explored the nature of humanity through the complex characters of Frankenstein. After Victor Frankenstein, a revolutionary scientist for his time, created life using an amalgamation of body parts he rejects his grotesque Creature who becomes scarred by experiences of rejection by society and suffers from estrangement and loneliness. The Creature challenges the Romantic values of Shelley’s time, as his tendency for violence is contrasted with his yearning for returned compassion. Writers in the Romantic period explored the qualities that defined the human experience, such as compassion. The juxtaposition of the Creature’s acts of extreme violence such as the murders of Elizabeth and Clerval (Frankenstein’s wife and good friend), with the acts of kindness he hoped would integrate him into society, such as the gathering of wood for the migrant family. By juxtaposing…
Robert Walton the explorer and captain of a ship that is head to the North Pole In a sequence of letters, communicate with his sister Margaret Saville back in England about the progress of his treacherous mission that he is taken. Robert tells his sister about the desire in him to discover something so great. Also how he felt as if he was isolated from the other shipmate who makes him feel lonely because he has no one to confident in also no one to share his ambitious with. The mission of Robert Walton was interrupted by a huge sheet of ice that wouldn’t allow the ship to pass. Trap Walton and his man spotted a sledge that was lead by a huge creature. Ironically the next morning the men spot another sledge that was drawn by all dead dogs…
There is nothing worse than feeling detested and abhorred by society, especially if this hatred is caused solely by one's physical appearance. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the Creature to show how people are inherently good, but compelled to become evil only when ostracized by their fellow man. Although the Creature is initially full of love and is surrounded by examples of human happiness, he finds himself excluded from this happiness, through no fault of his own. The creature turns to evil only after he is spurned by humanity. Two tragic events lead to his transformation: being rejected by his 'family' - the De Laceys, and being rejected by his creator - Victor Frankenstein.…
The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly tells the story of an obsessive scientist who pursues to defy nature and create unnatural life. Victor Frankenstein attends a university where he is introduced to natural philosophy and soon after becomes consumed with a project replacing all ties to the outside world and those closest to him. When Frankenstein succeeds in bringing life to an inanimate body he is set back immediately by the botched creation he has made. Without a word from the creature, Frankenstein throws a tantrum and ultimately abandons the brand new life he started. As the creature struggles on the search for love and compassion, he encounters continuous rejection because of his distorted appearance and is driven further into isolation…
Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, is a journey through the highs and lows of humanity through the experiences of individual characters. Minor characters such as Justine and Walton show a less severe contrast between well made versus poorly made decisions. Major characters such as Victor and the creature introduce a far more drastic contrast, and pose a more influential impact on one of the overall themes of the story which is the idea that a poor moral compass pushes people to fall to such depths that attempting to redeem one's self is practically futile. Shelley uses the characters throughout her novel to symbolize the moral heights and depths to which humanity will reach in an attempt to succeed in their own personal pursuits; which is…
Throughout the novel, emotion of all kinds of heights and depths are explored. Shelley writes “This discovery was so great and overwhelming” (Shelley, 52), to exemplify the exhilaration Frankenstein feels exploring his interests. Frankenstein claims that he “fell senseless on the ground” (Shelley, 212) to encapsulate what he felt when Elizabeth was taken from him and the monster says “To him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge” (Shelley, 153) to show the extent of his hate for his creator. Frankenstein in its entirety shows the whole spectrum of human emotions. From Victor Frankenstein’s perspective, the childhood and even collegiate years have have no major trauma aside from his mother’s death. Frankenstein’s childhood depicts a very elated and passionate state as he mentions “I read and studied the fancies of these writers with delight” (Shelley, 38). At this point he’s very jovial and all those he holds dear including his mother, father, Elizabeth, and Henry Clerval are all close by. Before he enters Ingolstadt, there is a marked change in his life as his mother passes away. He narrates, “It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw everyday and whose very existence appeared a part of her own can have departed forever” (Shelley, 43). His mother’s death causes an emotional toll on Victor and even delays his journey to Ingolstadt. Although this stage of his narration is not as jolly as his childhood, it is less terrifying than the later portion of his story. Despite the tragedy of his mother’s death, Victor is still immersed in the studies that he is passionate about while at Ingolstadt. However, he still isolates himself and his health deteriorates, as his friend Henry Clerval notes that Frankenstein looks “so thin and pale” (Shelley, 62). Frankenstein’s life makes a turn for the worse once he reaches fruition of his…
In analyzing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the monster is a sympathetic character. That is the reader sympathizes with the monsters experiences in life. Abandoned by his creator, and misunderstood by society, the monster exists alone. His search for a companion is unfulfilled. Moreover, the monster attempts to forge a relationship with the De Lacey's quickly being rejected by the elderly man. Finally, through an act of selflessness the monster is injured trying to save a girl. Clearly, great misfortune befalls him throughout the text. He’s an empty soul thrown into a world that loathes his…
Humans as a species are prone to make mistakes, not all of which are forgivable. Doctor Victor Frankenstein, the mad mind behind the grotesque creature known as Adam, or “The Creature”, a being brought back from the undead, without a soul and purpose in this world. When Dr. Frankenstein dwells into for lack of a better word black science, he becomes obsessed with the thought of cheating death and taking back one's life. Through secret experimentation on deceased animals he perfects the formula, with the permission of his mentor he illegally digs up corpses to find suitable body parts for his undead creation. As Frankenstein gives life to Adam, he realizes the that he has created a monster without a soul, so he dips out like a…
The lens through which readers encounter monsters is often a skewed one. This lens could be that of the author, who seeks to embody a monster as a horrific, non-human entity that will cause havoc in an area. Similarly, this lens could be that of a character in a piece, one who witnesses the monster’s wrath and destruction firsthand and hopes to avoid the cruel savage being. Monster narratives rarely unfold from the perceptive of the monster, and, as such, audiences must rely on other sources as to the monster’s course of action. Such voices can carry a bias with them. As in the case of the author, the omniscient perspective provides descriptions of the monster without directly interacting the monster. This perspective could easily fail to report…
This passage, the paragraph located at the bottom of page 138, and bleeds over onto page 139, comes from the part of the novel in which Victor Frankenstein is almost home from his ordeals in Ireland. While in Ireland, Victor promised to make a female companion for his Creature, but then throws his work into the sea, as he realizes that he does not actually want to create this second being because of the chaos it may cause. Enraged by this, the monster murdered Victor’s friend, Henry Clerval. After becoming sick by this news, Victor’s father comes to retrieve him and bring him back home to Geneva. While on his journey home, he receives the letter from Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s adopted “cousin”. This passage is a paragraph taken from this letter from Elizabeth to Victor.…
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein there are a lot of examples of how she is warning the readers about the perils of modern science. One of the biggest examples is the creator of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein himself. The fact that someone was taking the role of “god”, and trying to create life is a very scary factor in life. If someone of our kind can gain the power to create their own human life from machines, science, and electricity then they could have the ultimate power. Power is something that all human kind wants to achieve, but also fear. Power goes along with the perils of modern science, which Mary Shelley warns the readers about.…
Mary Shelly was born in 1797 and enjoyed a fairly happy childhood. Like her character Victor Frankenstein, she was raised with very little formal education but benefitted from frequent educational outings. As she grew older she also read to further her education and left her home to attend a boarding school. Like Victor’s grand-father Beaufort, Mary’s father faced debt and struggled to keep his daughters cared for, and, like Victor’s mother Caroline, Mary’s mother died of the flu; both Shelly and her character Victor cherished the memories of their mother. At the time when Frankenstein was written, Mary Shelly faced the loss of several children. Their premature births and subsequent deaths caused the young Mary Shelly to become very ill and depressed, a characteristic she passed on to her character Victor Frankenstein; as Mary was seemingly “haunted” by the visions of her lost infants, it is no wonder that she was able to describe, so vividly, the grotesque images encountered in Frankenstein.…
Who is the real Victor Frankenstein? Many people view the creature that he created to be his alter ego. Victor’s main objective is be a “god like” being, who can disobey the laws of nature and revive the dead. However, that did not happen. Based on Freud’s theory of the ego, id, and superego, Frankenstein creates a creature that reflects his inner self. After seeing the characterization of Victor and the creature, the reader will better understand how Freud’s theories are brought into play.…