Frankenstein Research Paper

Creation of a Monster “Monsters exist because we create them”(Packard). What some people don't realize is that monsters are not just born. Someone is not born with the desire to cause harm and destruction. It is outside elements that cause this. Mary Shelley conveys the themes of parental duty, alienation, and nurture vs nature in her novel Frankenstein through characterization. Parents have certain duties that are considered “responsibilities” for their children. Some include preventing their children from harm, providing food, and shelter, as well as providing stability. These duties or responsibilities vary between parents though the general idea remains the same. At the beginning of the novel Victor's mother dies and “maternal closeness

“Victor's inability to know his creature relates directly to his lack of responsibility for the creature's welfare or actions” (Frankenstein). If the monster had the guidance of a paternal figure, such as his creator Victor Frankenstein, the novel could be different. The monster finds his first victim when he discovers William is a Frankenstein, as an impulse to the neglect he faced by his creator with the same last name. “Victor denies to him the affection, the emotional and physical support, the nurturing, the “mothering”, thay every newborn child requires' (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley et al). The monster was left as a “baby” having to learn right from wrong, how to survive, and basic traits on his own. Babies learn from their parents, though Frankenstein did not act as a parent to his monster, which led to multiple deaths. The monster clearly has the capacity to learn these things as he understood that the Delacy family was poor and he gathered firewood for them, rather than continuing to steal from the

Some characters were nurtured and helped to grow from a young age such as Frankenstein. He was able to develop his search for knowledge through schooling as well as at college and in the lab. Victor is nurtured by his mother as a mother should. She nurtures both her children, when Elizabeth was sick, “ Caroline nurtures Elizabeth back to health and loses her life as a result”(Themes and Construction). Caroline cared for her children, giving them an environment to prosper while she was alive. Nature eventually took its turn and took Caroline while helping her adopted daughter. This shows the contrast between nature taking its path affecting the way characters such as Victor and Elizabeth are nurtured the rest of the novel. From spending most of his life without a mother “Victor lacks maternal instinct that would have enabled him to empathize with his creature, to ask even once weather his creature wants to be born, to give him an average size and familiar appearance”(Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley et al). Victor did not nurture his monster similarly to how he wasn't nurtured by a mother most of his