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Essay On Tragic Flaws In Frankenstein

979 Words4 Pages

Doctor Frankenstein’s Biggest Regret The greatest minds have the potential to cause the greatest harm. This is evident in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, as the main character, the brilliant Doctor Frankenstein, through discarded body parts creates a monster, which results in harming the people that mean the most to him. In Doctor Frankenstein’s innocent efforts to figure out the key to life, he ultimately unlocks a tragic door for himself and others. Behind this door, he finds that the knowledge he searched for should have stayed hidden, exemplifying his tragic flaw. Doctor Frankenstein’s revolutionary ideas made himself, and others, an instrument of suffering throughout the story. A hamartia, or what’s more commonly known as a tragic …show more content…

The flaws can affect the plot in negative and both positive ways. For instance, Doctor Frankenstein’s flaw caused all his problems in the book, but in stories like The Most Important Day by Helen Keller, her flaw caused all the good things to happen to her. Although in both stories the main characters had a grand realization. Doctor Frankenstein realized that he doesn’t want to be godlike anymore. Helen Keller’s realization was that life is beautiful, and this quote affirms that, “ It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come” (Keller 84-85). Helen and Doctor Frankenstein’s flaws determined whether the plot was going to be positive or negative. Doctor Frankenstein’s fatal flaw caused suffering to not only himself, but to his loved ones as well. Doctor Frankenstein’s flaw was that he was on a quest to become godlike, but that ended up being beyond his control. Doctor Frankenstein was truly an instrument of suffering for himself and others. His actions set off a series of events that caused a traumatic change in his life and his families. In this piece of literature the tragic flaw Doctor Frankenstein possessed caused the innocent characters to ultimately suffer the most, which contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a

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