Victor Frankenstein Psychological Analysis

With procreation comes with the expectation to provide, protect and to love one’s progeny. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a cautionary tale of the effects that parentages and society have on adolescents, particularly the disabled and abused, and the consequences later in life. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant and ambitious man with a God complex gives life to a monster, whom he immediately hates and fears. Victor’s disdain leads to the monster’s existential crisis and psychological impairment, which results in theft and murder. This parallels to contemporary maltreatment of children and its bearing on their future health, and interaction with society. Victor-like abuse and abandonment towards a juvenile correlate to mental instability, social

The pristine blankness of their mind is susceptible to impressions, both positive and negative, from external factors, primarily parenting, schooling and their interactions with society. Victor’s physical and emotional reactions to his child tarnish this slate, altering the monster’s interpretation of the parent-child relationship and that of his part in the social order. Victor’s “bitterness of disappointment” reflects through his avoidance of his creation and foreshadows the abuse and abandonment that would ensue for the rest of the novel (Shelley 60). The monster cannot help his actions and thoughts because the only moral confidant that could possibly understand him is the absent

One cannot expect him to learn to control his emotions and find a way to cope with the neglect he feels as an outsider to society. Therefore, when he meets a boy who mocks him for being ugly, and finds him to be of relation to Victor, he unintendedly murders William as he cannot control his rage. His self-preservation and growing condescension for society rationalizes his actions. Victor yet again fails the monster, as he is absent and unable to provide a moral compass for the creature. A serial killer is often defined as someone who murders three or more in at least three or more separate events (Mitchell& Aamodt). Throughout the course of the novel, the monster kills three: William, Henry and Elizabeth. Familial factors have long been thought to contribute to the development of a serial killer. Many of modern serial killers had a “lack of personal involvement” by at least one parent in their lives (Mitchell& Aamodt). Because the monster was born as a man and not a child, he rapidly developed motor and mental capabilities, absorbing a decade or more of adverse childhood experiences in a short time. Victor was absent for most if not all the monster’s experiences. In a study of 50 serial kills, it was reported that 100 percent of them were abused as children either through “violence, neglect or humiliation” (Ressler as cited in Mitchell & Aamodt