Victor Frankenstein Foil Analysis

Franken-Similarities: A Compare and Contrast of a Creature and a Monster and Who Ending up Being What

In the 1818 novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley developed the creature to act as a foil for Victor Frankenstein, highlighting both redeemable and toxic qualities of the failed father figure: obsessed curiosity, ambition for greatness, and unfailing arrogance. Frankenstein’s failings reveal that his real ‘destiny’ was inevitable isolation and utter self destruction. He could have lived a good, long life with his family with all of these qualities at a normal, healthy level, but Frankenstein’s degree of these qualities were way past sustainable—way past endurable. Shelley related him to the creature, because his unsatisfied heart could only be

Unlike Victor Frankenstein’s birth, the creature searched for glory from a beginning of loneliness and a craving for love from the humans he wished to be. Even though he was unfamiliar with the typical childhood when he was first ‘awakened’, the monster knew he had “no money, no friends, no kind of property”, and he wished to change that (128). He wanted what everyone else got freely, and even with this unfairness, he tried desperately to earn these ‘normal’ assurances he didn’t already own—like acceptance. When the creature was furiously denied these privileges, he turned away from humanity and their prejudice and looked to his own race, demanding a similar undead wife from Frankenstein. “‘You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede’” (156). The monster did not end up receiving this gift, as well, and the same can be said about Frankenstein’s pursuit for glory. Though Victor had a loving childhood that never rang with solitude, he still coveted respect and admiration from humanity, only not for his similarities with them—like the monster tried for—but with his superiority. This contrast perfectly displays to the audience that Victor

The creature does not share the same measure of egotism, but he does hold himself deserving of things he should not be. “‘Shall each man,’ cried he, ‘find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn’” (182). Though it is sad that the monster is forever alone, he doesn’t seem to understand that throwing a tantrum over it and killing people does not end with compensation, especially with such a ‘gift’ as this. He holds himself above humanity at this point, like Victor, and this gall is completely unwarranted. The creature later is so filled with prideful rage at Frankenstein to the point where he did not even consider the consequences of his revenge. “I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful” (182). The abomination succeeded in ruining Victor’s live, but in doing so committed multiple accounts of murder. His only thought was getting what he deserved and he did not see his wrongdoing, or feel remorse, until the very end of the novel when he still had nothing even after all his vengeance. “But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the