Symbolism In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein attempted to create life without truly understanding life’s implications. Throughout Frankenstein’s relentless pursuit of knowledge it becomes painfully apparent that he has become consumed with his task. In becoming consumed he neglects his humanity and many conventional morals. In their place he instead focusing on self-glorification and personal prowess. He blindly and dangerously pursues the knowledge of the creation of life without maintaining the necessary morals to successful complete his research. In the novel Frankenstein the author Mary Shelley conveys a theme about the dangers of scientific pursuits when they are unguided by strict morals through allusion, characterization,

The outward appearance of the monster is symbolic of the inward state of Frankenstein’s soul. Frankenstein already has the soul of a monster, which is evident through his selfish motives. All Frankenstein needs is to have a monstrous appearance, then there would be no question on if he was a monster. The monster’s personality is in many ways more innocent than Frankenstein, but due to Frankenstein’s poor morals when it comes to the creation of life, the monster is also more to be feared (Bloom). The monster in and of itself is more human than Frankenstein because of his mentality. Victor Frankenstein’s mind is completely focused on himself which is symbolic of his lack of morals. This mentality stays with Victor throughout the entire novel from him ignoring his family while he is creating the monster to him assuming the monster will attack him which causes Elizabeth’s death. Frankenstein is completely obsessed with science and cares little for anything else, “In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you and there is nothing more to know: but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery” (Shelley 30). Here Frankenstein’s hunger for knowledge trues him into an animal, voraciously searching for answers. Due to this it is no surprise that his creation of life is a monster. He does not dwell on whether this form of science should be taken on, as he is solely focused on his ability preform this experiment. There is no moral backing for Frankenstein to take on this project. For Frankenstein, “The creation of life is of purely theoretical interest to Frankenstein: he thus conceives of life with blunt disregard for its specifics” (Hustis). Frankenstein’s rushed process produces a rushed result, a result that is symbolic of the error in his ways. The symbolism of the relationship between monster and creator