Narcissism In Frankenstein

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 9:1). In Genesis, Noah saves all of the animals and his family from the great floods that destroy the Earth and together they repopulate the planet. However, while Noah saved his family from certain death, he could never save them from death entirely. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein is able to play God and gives new life to previously deceased creatures. In this sense, Victor has found a loophole in God's punishment for Adam after he and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge but also created a metaphorical ark for humanity. This raises the question of whether or not it is admirable or iniquitous to

The optimal incident of this comes when Victor is at the Ingolstadt university where he is working on the creation of his experiment. Victor exclaims that “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent creatures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (54). Initially, Victor’s tone betrays a slight amount of narcissism, but this is not fitting with the rest of the quotation. When Victor makes these statements, it evident that he is elated and this simply shows that Victor is simply pursuing happiness in his field of work. Additionally, when Victor uses the term “new species” it has the connotation that he is being motivated by scientific advancement. This would be fitting considering Victor’s love of Colonius Agrippa being scoffed at by most everybody. Therefore, what drives Victor in his pursuit is not the possibility of attaining god like status, but rather, to acquire the bliss that comes as a side effect. Another excerpt that reiterates this from another angle comes a little while later when Victor had just finished his creation and he ponders “I had worked so hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (57). It is clear that Victor has devoted a large portion of his life building the monster. It must also be taken into consideration, all of the time that Victor spent learning on the subject before he could even begin to test the boundaries of science. Thus, it is evident that Victor was devoted to his creation, and he spent time to carefully craft the monster. What this also displays is that Victor loves his creation, at least initially because he has spent so much time working on it. More support for this claim comes from when Victor is commenting on his state of being at Ingolstadt; “My cheek had grown pale with study, and my