Mental Illness In Frankenstein

Aspen Sagan

Ms. Haughey

English 3 Honors

16 December 2022

Karma Through Illness

In the novels, authors use both physical and mental illness as a device to reflect flaws within characters to develop the plot. Within Frankenstien, Mary Shelly uses her protagonist's illness; Victor Frankenetsien’s, to convey his flaw in negligence towards facing the consequences of his actions, as like a sense of procrastination and putting off dire situations that need to be addressed. Victor's illness allines with his issues both in physical and mental states, and due to these illnesses being conveniently when he has a responsibility to address, it causes him to have his problems escalate; a sense of karma for not attending to them sooner. Within Frankenstein,

Through every major aspect of his life. Victor consistently gets sick and is able to avoid the sense in facing the consequences of his actions. When Victor first got sick in the novel, it was when he first created his monster Victor fell ill with a fever, and due to that it gets rid of all the hypothetical situations where he could have atoned for his actions and helped his creation. But due to his illness, his creation was isolated and rejected from society. He also was unable to reach his creation and try to help him, and it was conveniently too late to find or say anything to atone his creations actions, due to his illness being conveniently timed. When Victor was being treated for his fever by his friend; Henry Clerval, he “...was in reality very ill; and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attention of [his] friend could have restored [him] to life" (Shelly 33). Victor's sickness is able to excuse him out of his responsibilities and is able to put everything on hold conveniently do what he needs and wants to do. When Victor {can't remember but event as to when} he is then able have an excuse to isolate himself and focus on his studies, in the beginning and then later on, his isolation is utilized to show that due to his isolated, it causes Victors mental health to decline and spiral into an episode. Victor's illness is due to his own isolation and leads himself to his own demise….(more to be

Due to Victor's convenience of getting sick after major events in his life, he is unable to face the consequences of them and act accordingly due to the fact that he is unable to attend to them due to his wellbeing. When Victor's wife; Elizabeth, is killed by his creation, it had “...a grin was on [his] face” and “...seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.”(Shelly 197). Due to Victor never taking the responsibility of creating the monster due to his sickness, he was unable to raise and monitor the actions it had. Due to his lack of responsibility and the consequence of him becoming ill, it led him to face the karma of his dead wife, and more of his loved ones. Because of the fact that Victor was the reason that his creature was isolated from society, his creation kills off his family in a sense making his karma. Eventually his creation kills enough of his family and friends for Victor to be alone. Victor's consequences of his actions come back to him in the end, feeling the same way his creature did when the first and only person to see and value in him rejects him, and makes society reject him