ipl-logo

Sleep Deprivation In Frankenstein

976 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on sleep deprivation effects

The symptoms of sleep deprivation are apparent in the characters in Macbeth, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Frankenstein. These symptoms affect each character’s daily life. Sleep deprivation is a common predicament among the characters in Macbeth, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Frankenstein. Sleep is a five letter word with, at least, an eight hour requirement. Many people are curious as to why humans need sleep. This curiosity has lead to countless studies, and research dedicated to this phenomenon. First it was assumed the brain needed time to rest, but then it was realized the brain is just as active when the body is asleep than it is when awake (“Sleep,” Health 55). Not much is known about why humans need sleep, but what is known …show more content…

Victor Frankenstein finds himself unable to obtain a beneficial sleep, because of nightmares he experiences when he closes his eyes. Victor is frustrated with his insufficient quality of sleep: “dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long were now become hell to me…Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt” (Shelley 45). Victor states that he typically looks forward to his time of rest, but the nightmares he has about the Creature interrupt it. This lack of an effective sleep routine results in him feeling overtired the following days. Victor displays and describes certain symptoms of sleep deprivation: “Exhaustion succeeded to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured…when I place my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion” (Shelley 82). His extreme exhaustion is the result of years of stress concerning the Creature. As Victor’s life progresses he begins to long for sleep and the peace sleep brings with it. Robert Walton comments on Victor’s “Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance” (Shelley 201). During the day Victor is tortured by the thought of his creation, and the ramifications that have followed. When Victor reflects on his life he realizes “it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy” (Shelley 195). Victor could only find consolidation in his sleep because it is the only time he can truly escape his

Show More
Related
758 Words | 4 Pages

Emotional and physical isolation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are the most pertinent and prevailing themes throughout the novel. These themes are so important because everything the monster, Victor, and Robert Walton do or feel directly relates to their poignant seclusion. The effects of this terrible burden have progressively damaging results upon the three.

Read More
3464 Words | 14 Pages

Valverde 1 Joseph Valverde Mr. John Salmon Ap Literature October 2014 Volume 2 - Chapter 1: Victor Frankenstein is going through great sorrow and grief as his conscience cannot handle the guilt caused by the death of the innocent Justine. He “wandered like an evil spirit” (Shelley 103) as he was unable to conceive peace. This state of mind preyed upon [his] health” (Shelley 103) as he was unable to cope with the present events and his guilt, this marks the mood at his part of the novel as that of despair and of regret. . Victor is then taken to Belrive in order to find peace, there he pondered about the outcome caused by his actions.

Read More
762 Words | 4 Pages

.Following Victor’s description of his creation, he begins to describe the horribleness of the creature and his abhorrent emotions and feelings he must endure. Inevitably, Victor falls ill with some mysterious sickness due to his uncertainty of the creature he previously created. All of his mental suffering occurring in the month of November, the completion of fall. Further on, after William and Justine have been killed, Victor decides to leave, “It was the latter end of September that I again quitted my native country” (Shelley 166).

Read More
1868 Words | 8 Pages

After this passage, Victor then moves to exclaim that he would be alright if “Wandering spirits” would “take me...away from the joys of life.” By connecting the daunting and rainy landscape to the feelings of elation and awe that envelop Victor, the reader can interpret that, unlike the beginning of the novel where Victor is accustomed to the sunny bliss of Geneva, he is instead much more at ease within the dark yet powerful landscapes of the mountains. Using the darkness of the rainy day, Shelley helps to paint a picture of the melancholy that begins to take hold of Victor’s

Read More
610 Words | 3 Pages

For this I had deprived myself of rest and health”(p 42). Victor devoted his entire life to a science experiment that would become his biggest regret. When Victor first laid eyes on the creature he realized what kind

Read More
1617 Words | 7 Pages

When Frankenstein had his initial nightmare his abandonment from his monster was not yet concrete. When Frankenstein awoke from his nightmare he still had the chance to reclaim his creation and nurture him. However, once the separation is complete between the monster and Frankenstein, a worse fate lies before Frankenstein. Soon after realizing “the apartment was empty, and [Frankenstein’s ] bedroom,” making it virtually impossible for Frankenstein to raise the monster, as he will never find it, Frankenstein enters into his nervous fit. The

Read More
1370 Words | 6 Pages

Victor falls ill with anxiety, and as a result of Victor’s neglect the monster begins to destroy his life. Even when the monster confronts Frankenstein, threatening that he “will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of [Frankenstein’s] remaining friends, 102" Victor does not acknowledge the problem he has caused, the literal embodiment of his anxiety. He does not attempt to confront the monster head on or alleviate his loneliness, both a form of acknowledgement and thus a healthy way to respond to his fears. Instead, he once again pretends the monster doesn’t exist which only further enrages and empowers him. Once again, this mirrors the fact that when fears and anxiety go undealt with they will only grow and confirms that the monster is the embodiment of this

Read More
1090 Words | 5 Pages

It is quite telling that the most severe punishment in our society other than the death penalty or torture is solitary confinement. Although, isolation is in itself a form of torture, it can drive someone to the brink of insanity. Although published nearly 200 years ago, Mary Shelley clearly understood the potential detrimental effects of isolation, as demonstrated in her famous novel, Frankenstein, where both main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, suffer from and cause isolation for the other. Mary Shelley directs the reader to believe that isolation is the true evil, not the monster, Victor or any emotion inside of them. At the beginning of the novel, Victor is isolated from other people, causing to forget his scientific

Read More
901 Words | 4 Pages

Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley about a man named Victor Frankenstein and his life and how it came to be. He had created a monster and brought it to life by studying and learning natural philosophy. Mary Shelley brought the emotions forward from the main characters by the amount of detail she put into the book. Most of the detail was brought in by the suffering that happens throughout the book caused by Frankenstein’s monster. The monster in this story is a tragic figure that is the main cause of suffering that occurs to everyone.

Read More
1511 Words | 7 Pages

Victor is stirred by his work, but not in a positive manner. He goes on to explain his feelings towards the creature by saying, “… my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred” (136). Victor is so bewildered and repulsed by the creature that he misses key signs of violence, from the creature, that may have saved Victor’s family had he not been so

Read More
1056 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the book the death of Victor's family has taken a toll on his mental state and he starts showing signs of mental illness. Much like Mary Shelley had mental illness because of the horrors that happened in her life. The illnesses that Victor starts showing signs of depression, paranoid schizophrenia, and anxiety. Depression is something that

Read More
1921 Words | 8 Pages

Shelley’s novel encompasses the unknown and how ambition drove Victor’s passions, ultimately leading him to the tragic end with many other bumps in the road along the way. As Victor had been in the study of life and its cause, the death of his mother had catalyzed a movement of grief which had started, “…depriv[ing him]self of rest and health. [Which he] had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation…” (Shelley 35). Even though he knew that he had been raiding graveyards, Victor believed that he created the body with the ‘finest body parts’ available.

Read More
322 Words | 2 Pages

(Shelley 50) hence he unknowingly and quickly he is taken from life into darkness. The darkness of the night due to the weather conditions was a way for the author to convey Victor’s sadness and William’s death. The imagery in the quote is ended with the description of a “preceding flash” (Shelley 50) and this is the way the author foreshadows the next outcome of emotion for Victor. Off in the distance Victor sees something large and realizes it was the creature which he brought to life who probably killed his

Read More
656 Words | 3 Pages

Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit…” Shelley’s use of imagery in this situation gives over the feelings of Victor’s intense guilt at having been the cause of the death of an innocent girl. This also implies that in a sense Victor questions his own existence because of the weight of his actions “Press[ing] on [his]

Read More
1127 Words | 5 Pages

One night, Victor had drunk too much from an Indian party that he had went to and so when he came back home and tried to sleep he couldn’t. In the book, it said, “It was late early in the morning. He kept his eyes open until they grew accustomed to the dark, until he could see vague images of the bedroom... Fifteen minutes had passed and it ways closer to sunrise and he still hadn’t slept at all” (Alexie 85). This reminded me of the times in which I would have all nighters from playing video games.

Read More

More about Sleep Deprivation In Frankenstein

Related Topics

Open Document