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Examples Of Moral Ambiguity In Frankenstein

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In the novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the two main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creature, both display a sense of moral ambiguity. Each character has committed both good and evil alike, and neither knew the consequences of what they had done. However, Victor Frankenstein is generally the morally ambiguous character by his treatment of his creation and his own imperious personality. He wanted to be able to help science by recreating life or bringing it back, but at the same time, he did not want to consider the consequences of doing so. Victor tries to prove himself as a good moral character in the relationship between his creation and himself. However, this proved horrific because, as a parent, Victor implied his “child” is a wretch which no parent should do, despite their flaws. This can be shown after Victor breathes life into his creature and the text states, “...His jaws opened and he muttered.. one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs” (Shelly 58). In darkness of Victor’s actions against his creation, Victor immediately had …show more content…

In this, Victor brought up things that no mortal should know about, such as: cloning, stem cell research, and IVFs. Examples of these were shown when the author states, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn… my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical… the physical secrets of the world” (43). Victor is knowingly tampering with knowledge that is essentially too great for man. He is also essentially trying to be like God, which is the original sin, and as a result, he is put in eternal despair. This can be confirm when he claims himself to be the “Adam of your labors” where Adam, was a creation of God who took from the Tree of Knowledge which was forbidden of him to do so, and as a result, punishment occured for his treachery against

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857 Words | 4 Pages

This led Victor to “gain some clue by which he might trace the steps, of his fiendish enemy” (249). After finding out that all the people’s death was because of his creation, Victor found it in himself to kill it. If the monster is dead, Victor does not need to worry about it killing nor affecting anyone anymore. With all those deaths, the only thing a person can do to get rid of the feeling of guilt is to kill whoever is responsible for those deaths. In summary, it was Victor’s fault that all those innocent people died and it led to him feeling

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1845 Words | 8 Pages

As a child, Victor was emotionally neglected by his father. He was never taught how to be a father because he did not have a good role model to look after. Consequently, when Victor’s creation came to life, he did not know how to act. He was scared and tried to run away from his problems. Since his creation has no parental figure to support and teach him, he develops behavioral problems and is very confused.

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1281 Words | 6 Pages

Victor would stop at nothing to finish his project and became so obsessed that he was isolated from his family and friends. His way of collecting lifeless matter for his creation is unethical and morally wrong. Eventually, he is punished for his actions: “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.” (pg.56) Additionally, extreme devotion to the building of his creation caused Victor mental distress due to the fact that he neglected his own needs in order to work exclusively on the creature: “I had deprived myself of rest and health.”

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687 Words | 3 Pages

(Shelly 69) What Victor endured in the past still fuelled his hate and anger towards the creature. This hate consumed his whole being leading him to parade such savagery to the creature. Through the cruelty he shows buth his own body and the creature we can see Victor's selfishness.

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550 Words | 3 Pages

The actions of an individual defines the boundary between sympathy and wickedness. Their behaviors and thoughts change the plot of the story and character identity. Mary Shelley uses moral ambiguity to overlook the unrealistic nature of her story. In Frankenstein, this concept incorporates itself into Mary Shelley’s characters. Ambiguity invokes an attachment between the figures and readers.

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798 Words | 4 Pages

Victor emphasizes the creation’s malevolence, but he fails to notice how his actions create the pejorative characteristic. From

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672 Words | 3 Pages

He uses the little that he knows to fuel his hatred towards humans and his creator. This shows the exponential growth of the problems that Victor has created as a result of his desire for knowledge. Not only did he create the destructive monster, but now the monster is using a hunger for knowledge, the very thing that created it, to do even more damage. This root cause is linked to everything that is causing Victor’s suffering. The monster also compares his relationship to Victor to that of God and Adam, wishing that he had the same supplication to his creator that Adam did, “I remembered Adam’s supplication to his creator.

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610 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, ambition evolves into a form of obsession with revenge. But the result of vengeance is a curse to human life and its longevity. Both main characters in the novel, Victor and the monster become obsessed and let vengeance be their downfall. Victor was a very ambitious character who longed for knowledge and the presence of new life. He soon became obsessed with his creation and said,“I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.

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1019 Words | 5 Pages

He despised the monster he believed he is; he stated that “when [he] heard the details of vice and bloodshed, [his] wonder ceased, and [he] turned away with disgust and loathing” (104). Therefore, he realized his flaws, which Victor failed to

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819 Words | 4 Pages

Duality is shown in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, a gothic tale of a scientist whom looks to advance the life-giving qualities of mother nature. Through this novel, Shelley proves that good and evil in human nature is not always simple to define, and that everyone has both of these qualities within them. The duality of human nature is shown through the characters of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, who are both heroes in the novel while simultaneously displaying anti-hero qualities. Shelley forces the reader to sympathize with them both but also creates gruesome ideas of the two. Frankenstein’s creature places himself in a submissive position when he begs his creator to have mercy on him and asking the creator to “create a female for [him] with whom [he] can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for [his] being.”

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992 Words | 4 Pages

In the beginning, Victor reveals his timidity towards occurring disasters. When the creature comes to life, Victor realizes that it is grotesque and describes, “I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep” (42). Upon realizing the unfortunate turnout of the creation, Victor avoids confronting his fault by hurrying off and hiding in his bedroom. Accordingly, Victor is unable to control his creation. When the creature leaves after threatening Victor about a tragedy on his wedding night, Victor asks himself, “Why had I not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife?”

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389 Words | 2 Pages

The idea of knowledge in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley interprets knowledge as an evil pursuit. The knowlege is misused, due to Victor, the monster, and the interference with nature. Theses reasons are different perspectives that lead to tragedies. The novel Frankenstein identifies Victor's desire to gain knowledge as misusing it.

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1260 Words | 6 Pages

After realizing what Victor had done, he ran away not taking responsibility for what he had made. “The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky” (161) Victor saw what huge mistake he made and ignored his problem(s) rather than taking accountability that he has created a monster hideous to the human eye. He didn't even return to the apartment. He just fled hoping that abandoning his creation would solve the problem.

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1135 Words | 5 Pages

In reality, he is disgusted by the sight of his creation so he abandons it leaving it all alone in the world without any guidance and runs away to the next room. Victor himself suffered from being a social outcast and now he bestowed the same feeling onto the creature by abandoning him. By treating the creature as an outcast, “he will become wicked … divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations—malevolence and selfishness” (Caldwell). Not only is Victor selfish for abandoning his creature but he is shallow as well. Instead of realizing that he achieved his goal of bringing life to an inanimate body he runs way because of how hideous it is.

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879 Words | 4 Pages

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein examines how the presence of a mother, negatively or positively, affects the development of a child. Victor’s mother, Caroline Frankenstein, dies while Victor is still a young man (he is about 17 years old), breaking their relationship between mother and son. Because Victor loses his bond with his mother, he is unable to act as a mother would when he creates his creature. Caroline Frankenstein’s absence in Victor’s life creates a disunion between the mother and child bond, which is evident in Victor’s creation and his fragmented relationship with the creature. Caroline Frankenstein, Victor’s mother, portrayed a traditional mother in the Frankenstein household, until her death.

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