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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Psychology Of Parenting

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Frankenstein : Psychology of Parenting When a child is created and brought into this world, it is the parent’s responsibility to nurture, guide, and teach he/she how to develop and strive socially, mentally, and emotionally in this world. Human beings have to be taught everything. Without someone teaching them right from wrong and how to survive, they could end up feral. It is the parent’s responsibility to teach their child socially and morally to help them survive. Mary Shelley uses her novel Frankenstein to analyze the idea of parenting. She compares the two main character's, Victor Frankenstein and his creature, social, mental, and emotional development throughout their childhood. Victor Frankenstein was raised in what he described as …show more content…

“ Children who are good at self-control grow up to be morally mature adults” and when they “can control their impulses [they] are more likely to be intelligent, self-confident, happy, and socially skilled” (Barber 24). Victor was able to develop the kind of self-control that he needed to grow up happy, self- confident, intelligent, and to be a socially skilled adult. His ability to form self-control allowed him to venture out and be able to achieve his “desire to learn” (Shelley). Victory had enough self- discipline to go off to school to learn all that he desired “whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied [him], still [his] inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world” (Shelley). However unlike Victor, the creature never developed the ability of self-control. He was able to develop the intelligent aspect by listening and learning from the De Lacey family, but he did not know how to control his anger against mankind when they lashed out violently towards him. Trying to save a little girl from drowning, her father thought the creature was trying to harm her, and shot the creature. This caused the creature great pain and “[he] vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind”(Shelley). The creature thought if “I am miserable” why shouldn't “[mankind]... share my wretchedness” (Shelley). When he wanted Victor to make him a female companion, and Victor denied him his one request his anger overcame him and he told Victor “not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of [my] rage” (Shelley). Soon the creature's anger grew until he became the murder everyone

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Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein is a frame narrative of the life of Victor Frankenstein recorded by Robert Walton. It is circled around his creation of a monster that suffered a lonely life and wanted revenge for being created. In Frankenstein, Shelley portrays many big ideas but, one that continues to show importance is the idea of Human Needs and Desires. so, in the novel Mary Shelley presents the idea that all creatures have a basic need for friendship and love.

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Parents should be there to express love and care towards their newborn. Within the novel, Frankenstein disregards the monster, which brings out the violence and turmoil within the monster. If Frankenstein were to give proper parenting to the monster, which he created, the monster would have not acted the same. Levine, George.

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Initially, characters in Frankenstein not taking responsibility show the reader the potential dangers of pain and death in numerous situations in the novel. The reader of Frankenstein sees various examples of Shelley’s warnings of the dangers in not taking responsibility in the first couple chapters in the novel. Shelley first points out the dangers of not taking responsibility when Victor first creates the monster on a stormy November night when he was shocked with the “horror of that countenance [the monster]”(Shelley 44) before he vacated his home, abandoning his creation which fueled the monster with the hatred that he needed to punish his creator. Shelley’s Sliwowski 2 illumination of Victor and the monster as father and son, shows the importance of a parental

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Parents need to love their children and show them right from wrong. Without care from a parent, children may feel lost or lonely like the monster did in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. Shelley analyzes the psychology of parenting through Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the monster, by comparing their behavioral and psychological development as a result of the parenting they receive in their childhood. Because Victor was loved and had a great childhood, he was able to grow as a person, psychologically and emotionally. As though Victor had a good childhood,

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Victor fully trusted in himself which gave him the ability to do what he did. Like Emerson says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” If you trust yourself you can truly be content with whatever you do. If you work hard you can achieve greatness. Victor shows us that not all that comes

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