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Theme Of Responsibility In Victor Frankenstein

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In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the theme of responsibility for one 's creation and the actions of that creation shows up at several points. The responsibility of Victor Frankenstein to his “Creature” and its actions is similar to the responsibility of a parent for their child’s actions. In the United States, parents are legally responsible for their children in some capacity until the child is a legal adult at 18 years old. By this time the belief is that the child is mature enough to make their own decisions and assume responsibility for their actions. In the case of the creature created by Victor Frankenstein, Victor had a responsibility for his creation and it’s actions. The creature, being similar to a child, did not have the knowledge necessary to make its own decisions. The creature did not even have the judgement to know that murder is wrong, and Victor made a mistake by releasing the creature into the world without supervision. When it comes to the responsibility for something one has created, it can be broken into an analogy. If you work in a restaurant and mop the floor, the floor becomes slippery and it is the law that a cautionary “wet floor” sign must be put out, because if the sign is not out, then the restaurant will be responsible for creating a hazard for the …show more content…

The lack of meaning in the creature’s life meant that he went searching for that meaning in the form of companionship, but to very little avail as most were appalled by him. The creature then seeked his maker again to create him a companion, but Victor denied the creature and kept his distance. The creature came to the same realization as Victor did early on, that it is impossible to self-create meaning in life. The creature decided to lash out to give himself a feeling of purpose and to fill the void in his life, becoming the opposite of his creator by destroying life rather than creating

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Jacob Opalka Mrs. Ramey 4 April 2016 English 12 CP Victor Frankenstein: a Deadbeat Father Figure (Rough Draft) One out of every three children living in America lives without a father figure in his/her lives. Children growing up without a father figure can develop emotional and/or behavioral problems. In some cases, these children even become aggressive and get into trouble with the law (“Statistics on the Father Absence” n.p.). Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, occurs in Geneva and Ingolstadt, and portrays Victor Frankenstein as a deadbeat father figure to his creation because he does not take responsibility for him, and he must ultimately deal with the consequences of his creature.

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Kyle Lyon Professor Ed Steck AWR 201 F3 14 April 2015 Annotated Bibliography Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Hunter, Paul J. Norton Critical Edition.

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Initially, characters in Frankenstein not taking responsibility show the reader the potential dangers of pain and death in numerous situations in the novel. The reader of Frankenstein sees various examples of Shelley’s warnings of the dangers in not taking responsibility in the first couple chapters in the novel. Shelley first points out the dangers of not taking responsibility when Victor first creates the monster on a stormy November night when he was shocked with the “horror of that countenance [the monster]”(Shelley 44) before he vacated his home, abandoning his creation which fueled the monster with the hatred that he needed to punish his creator. Shelley’s Sliwowski 2 illumination of Victor and the monster as father and son, shows the importance of a parental

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Fighting a Mirror In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, self deception eclipses Victor Frankenstein and clouds his judgment. Victor’s passion in breaking the bounds of nature guides him in making the creation, but when Victor regrets giving life to the hideous creature, he deserts it. The abandonment is just the first step Victor takes to introduce the creation to malevolence followed with Victor’s assumptions of evil and lost responsibility in the results of his own zeal. Victor Frankenstein’s self deception not only forges evil into the creation, but also incriminates him for the consequences of Victor’s ambitions.

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The crimes were done by the creature due to the revenge he sought out for towards Victor. The creature cannot be to blame for his behavior, Victor Frankenstein is the only one at fault for the murderers and wrong doings of his

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Frankenstein’s monster are justified because he did not have a parental figure in his life. When he was first created by Frankenstein, Frankenstein bolted out of sight, thus deserting the creature into a world of the unknown. It states, “I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest for the night, walking up and down the greatest agitation, [...] to which I had so miserably give life” (Shelley 42). Since Frankenstein was the one who gave the creature life, he was supposed to be a parental figure, as well as a person to look up to. However, Frankenstein’s daring escape from his monster shows he deeply regrets giving life to the creature in the first place.

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Many argue that since the creature is doing the killing, it is to blame for their deaths, but Frankenstein should be the one to be blamed. Victor Frankenstein is the one who played God, neglected his creation, and refused to make it happy. At the beginning of the book, the reader quickly learns that Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with science. In chapter five, he goes against the laws of science and gives life to a creation of his own.

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Have you ever been held responsible for the tragedies caused to others? For most the answer is no, however, for some, their actions have led to the misfortune of guiltless lives. In the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, because of the absence of attention and teaching, the reanimated creation Frankenstein is unstable; Victor Frankenstein is who to blame. Two events that he should be accountable for are not training his creation to know right from wrong and abounding the monster which led to the murder of innocent people. Firstly, Shelley uses conflict of “human” versus nature to demonstrate the major idea that Victor Frankenstein is responsible for the loss of innocent lives.

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Although, the person to blame behind the deaths in Frankenstein would be the person who decided to make the monster in the first place. If you create

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The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley says a person is responsible for their actions if they do not weigh the possible consequences of their actions before making their final decision. Throughout the novel, Mary Shelley shows the consequences of actions that are done without proper thought beforehand. Victor Frankenstein wants to create life, he wants to be god, and his lust for this goal overtakes his common sense. Victor rushes into making his creature and then makes rash decisions which also contributes to his demise and the death of several of his close friends and family. The monster should be held responsible for his actions to a certain extent, however, his actions are influenced by Victor’s initial impetuous decisions.

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In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates an intelligent monster with no name. The creature is thrust into the world to fend for itself when Victor leaves it alone in his lab. The creature has childlike tendencies because he has recently been “born”. If the creature is viewed as a child, then Victor is essentially his father. There are many times in the book where the author elluded to Victor and the creature being like father and son.

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Responsibility is the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the reader finds many examples of the importance, need, and especially lack of responsibility with characters like Victor and the monster. A reader of Frankenstein sees multifarious examples of Shelley’s theme of the dangers in not taking responsibility even today in the real world. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Shelley’s portrayal of Victor as selfish suggests that not taking responsibility can lead to pain, death, and the suffering of others as we see in the novel which relates to today's society of powerful countries not taking responsibility for the weapons that they create, and the damage that is revealed as a result. Characters in Frankenstein not taking responsibility show the reader the potential dangers of pain and death in numerous situations in the novel.

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Guilt can either be an emotion that makes a person feel remorse for his or her’s actions toward another, or can be the conduct involving the executions of such crimes and wrongs. In the novel, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, both definitions of guilt were the common theme. However, the main problem was whether the creature or the creator, Victor Frankenstein, were guiltier for their actions. The one presumed to be more guilty was Victor Frankenstein who created the monster in the first place causing his family pain and failed to take responsibility for the monster’s actions. Although he didn’t directly kill his family, the monster is guilty too.

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In reality, he is disgusted by the sight of his creation so he abandons it leaving it all alone in the world without any guidance and runs away to the next room. Victor himself suffered from being a social outcast and now he bestowed the same feeling onto the creature by abandoning him. By treating the creature as an outcast, “he will become wicked … divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations—malevolence and selfishness” (Caldwell). Not only is Victor selfish for abandoning his creature but he is shallow as well. Instead of realizing that he achieved his goal of bringing life to an inanimate body he runs way because of how hideous it is.

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In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a novel that follows Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious man on his journey to defy the natural sciences. In Volume I of the novel, Victor discusses his childhood, mentioning how wonderful and amazing it was because of how his family sheltered him from the bad in the world. “The innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me” (35). When Victor brings up his childhood, he suggests that parents play a strong in how their kids turn out, either "to happiness or misery" (35). In particular the main character was sheltered as a child to achieve this “happiness” leading to Victor never developing a coping mechanism to the evil in the world.

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