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Victor Frankenstein Tragic Hero Essay

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As Adam Philips once said, “Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists, their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.” In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the obsessed scientist Victor Frankenstein becomes fascinated with natural philosophy and undergoes a journey trying to manipulate the laws of nature. Victor is a great demonstration of a tragic hero and displays all the characteristics necessary throughout the novel. To begin with, Victor had excessive pride at the beginning of the novel, a characteristic of a tragic hero. Victor was obsessed with science and reading textbooks from the young age of 13 and as he ages, he becomes fascinated with alchemy and the decay of life, concerning his father. Victor's father tries to warn him that …show more content…

As soon as Victor’s creation came alive, Victor turned his back on the creature, leading to it lashing out at the world around it. When Victor sees his creation, he thinks to himself, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form?” (Shelley 48). Without considering what the Creature was going through, Victor immediately starts judging it, calling it disgusting names such as “catastrophe” and “wretch”. Victor’s irresponsibility led to the Creature holding feelings of hatred against the human race. After the Creature escapes and is forced to grow up on its own, it learns basic needs and emotions, and how society treats people like him. The Creature being shunned away by everyone, including his creator, takes a toll on his mental health and self-esteem, and he expresses his depression when he tells Victor, “You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me” (Shelley 147). The Creature feels no remorse for his actions, as he deals with the immense emotions he feels about being abandoned. Victor's tragic flaw is that he never accepts he made a mistake until it was too late. He turns his back on the creature which ultimately causes his

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In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, there is evidence of a Hero’s Journey. This is shown through the ordinary world, refusal of the call, and meeting the mentor. In Frankenstein, the ordinary world is shown through Geneva and contrasted with the university in Ingolstadt. In Geneva everything sounds safe and comfortable, and when he gets to Ingolstadt everything suddenly seems to be told in a darker mood. For example, in chapter 3 it mentions how Frankenstein had always been “surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure” while living in Geneva.

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It is shown in both this quote and the actions of the creature that he acts out in defiant rage due to the lack of love and affection he ever received. Victor is asked by the creature to create another life, just like that of the creature himself. Victor’s creation begs for this in hopes of being able to live out the rest of his days loved and cared for. Victor does still care about his creation because Victor himself states: "No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs" (Shelly 40).

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Is Victor Frankenstein's monster human? The book adaptation of Frankenstein by Gris Gremly, Original text by Mary Shelley tells a story of a scientist named Victor who wants to find the answer of living forever and make it so nobody can get sick, in the process of makeing a creature that could live forever he creature a horrifying monster who goes a rampage after finding hatred for Victor for creating him and abandoning him, and killing Victors loved ones. In the book there are obvious points showing that this creature is not human at all. The creature is not human-being because he wasnt brought into this world like one.

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(Shelly, Chapter 9). These thoughts by Victor himself seem to be only thoughts of a deranged or insane person who are so haunted by their feelings and actions that they believe that solitude is their only option. This furthermore proves how untrustworthy Victor is with his word even if it not on purpose. He feels extreme remorse for those whose death’s could have beened prevented with not building the creature in the first place, but the consequences of doing so is what he has to deal

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The merriam-webster dictionary defines a hero as a mythological or legendary figure often of descent endowed with great strength or ability. This isn’t always the case. Everyone has their own hero and their own definition of a hero. For some, it’s a celebrity like Johnny Depp or Sandra Bullock. For others, it’s a political figure like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

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Victor runs from his creation, completely disregarding all fatherly obligations, “He might have spoken but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs” (Shelley 36). In the beginning of the novel, Victor talks about how beautiful and perfect he had put together his creature, but quickly his feelings turned into those of revolt when the creature “awoke”. Victor expresses his feelings when he says, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form” (Shelley 35).

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Disgusted and scared, he runs away from his “son”, illustrating the event of when a mother aborts her child. The lack of a family relationship fails to mold the creature into becoming a decent human being. Other may feel that Victor doesn’t have to show the creature compassion because it is not human. If Victor would have stayed with the creature, he

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The one who made the monster is the true monster. Victor Frankenstein was a man of imagination and curiosity, who was fascinated by the idea of creating a living being. Though to make this creature, he blocked out everything around him, including his own family. After years of hard work, he succeeded in creating this creature, but when he brought it to life he ran from it seeing that it was ugly and horrid. Victor Frankenstein was the true monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein because he treated The Creature as if it were a monster and he neglected his family, proving that the relationships you build with other people can truly impact your life.

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It longs for human connection and love but is constantly rejected and reviled because of its appearance. Despite their initial animosity towards each other, there are moments throughout the novel where Victor and the creature share a deep emotional connection. For example, when the creature first comes to life, Victor is overwhelmed with joy and affection towards it. Similarly, when the creature tells Victor about its experiences living in the woods and observing humans, Victor begins to see it as more than just a monster. Ultimately, however, the relationship between Victor and his creation is defined by tragedy and violence.

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Victor was about to leave in order to enter the university. Unfortunately, his mother passed away from scarlet fever. Still grieving, he left right after the death without fulfill his mother’s last wish, which was get marry with

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Victor Frankenstein wasted no time creating the infamous monster figure, his ultimate experiment ‘I began the creation of a human being. '(53) Dr. Frankenstein violated the law of nature by experimenting with death and life. Not only did he play with the power of trying to be god, but also he created a creature with superhuman abilities. The monster itself is a product of his terrible creator as it represents social rejection and it should not be destroyed.

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Being abandoned by his creator, the monster has no one to guide him, no one to teach him right from wrong and good from evil. When the creature is first abandoned by Victor, he’s confused and doesn’t understand that he has been abandoned. The creature explains how he felt when he woke up, “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses” (Shelley 99). The creature won’t fully realize the impact of being abandoned until later in the story. Victor also suffers from isolation from his

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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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