In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein’s desire for excessive knowledge and his aspirations to become greater than his nature will allow, causes him to manipulate the nature of life and death, resulting in a creation corrupted by the oppression of society. Victor’s intentions with the manipulation of life and death were good at first but as time progresses, he becomes unjust to his creation, who is oppressed by society. Society’s oppressive nature towards those who are seen as different causes injustice, a social isolation, misery, and suffering, as seen through the lives of Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Prior to the creature’s motive of revenge and violence towards his creator Victor, the creature had kind and benevolent
In the novel, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the voices of Victor Frankenstein to show how the ethics of both change. In the article by Manuel Velasquez, et al. ethics has to do with right and wrong. As a scientist, a family member, and a friend, Victor is unethical. It is clear that Victor's actions were unethical.
Frankenstein punishes himself, his family and his consciousness suffered because of his arrogance of trying to have the power of God. The consequences of playing God is the cost of human life, even though Victor gave life to one creature, he is responsible for the deaths of five. Victor’s fruitless attempt at being God cost him his family, happiness, and himself. Even though Victor had not planned for it to happen this way, the results speak for themselves. Playing God leads to destruction and has consequences.
In the beginning of the novel, one cannot help but feel sympathy for the monster. Terrified, the poor wretch found himself forced to navigate the early stages of his life independently as he lacked any help from his maker. It was also a sorrowful factor that Frankenstein acted with repulsion to the Creature when the being strived for his creator’s love and affection. If Victor had not turned his back on the entity, and instead did his rightful duty in educating the brute, perhaps the immediate result would have been a more commendable
The attainment of knowledge did not improve Victor Frankenstein. He lacks compassion with the Creature right after it was brought to the world. His ignorance and lack of affection, brings the worst in the creature which leads the creature to kill Victor’s loved ones. After abandoning the creature for years, Victors returns back home after being informed about his brother Williams murder. While returning back home, Victor encounters the Creature for the first time after all his avoidance since past couple years.
As shown in the book Victor's obsession leads him to gather body parts, using science and his quest for knowledge to help create a creature of his design, therefore Victor's desire to act as God by creating new life. With creating a new life with an unknown creature there are severe consequences against the creator, Victor, and against the creature. Victor's desire to act as God has ruined his life not only for his quest for knowledge but because of the creation he so desires to create. The monster destroys many innocent lives, the creature goes on a rampage killing many people. Some of the murderers that the monster killed were Victor’s family like William, Justine, and Henry.
Frankenstein’s excessive drive for knowledge is his flaw because it goes against human limits and natural order. Although Victor realizes that his dream is no longer possible, he does not yet see how glory enthralls his life and consumes him to pitfalls – deaths of his surrounding people. Victor’s denial of the monster pushes it to kill William and impute the crime on Justine, who also dies because of the wrongful execution. Although Victor can clear Justine from blame by claiming the existence of the monster, he does not do so. His helplessness proves that his creation, the monster, is out of control.
Before this moment in the novel, Victor Frankenstein had not been forced to face the results of his actions. Due to the fact that the monster murders Victor’s younger brother, the monster makes everything more personal to him. Not only is Victor now mourning the loss of his brother and an integral (61) part of his family, he is also aware that William’s death is entirely his fault. If Victor had not brought that creature to life, his brother would still be alive and no one would have had to deal with the pain William 's death caused. Additionally, this murder committed by Victor’s monster reveals something about it.
In “Frankenstein”, Victor, a mad scientist, becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life. After making the monster, he falls into a depression because he feels bad that he created something so “hideous and gigantic creature” he felt bad for himself and the monster. Victor spends most of the story trying to deal with the consequences of his actions as well as the monster’s. By the end of the story, the monster has been taunted, rejected, and afraid of his creator and society. It pushes the monster to commit the murder against his creator’s family (66).
His creator abandoned him once again, which led him not only to feel hatred, but to kill Victor’s wife. It was Frankenstein’s influence on the monster that led to his life falling apart at the hands of his creation. Furthermore, these themes of hatred and horror are significant to the downfalls of these characters, and hence, the novel as a whole. The deaths were horrifying for Victor and the loneliness and betrayal were fueling the
Victor felt responsible for those deaths, because they were done by the monster he created, and done for Frankenstein’s sake. Frankenstein said,” Each and all would abhor me and hunt me from the world (if they knew) my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me” (Shelley 191). The guilt that Frankenstein felt even just within the presence of his fellow humans as a cause of the monster he created killing so many people. Victor’s decision to go to college led him to meeting the professors, M. Krempe and M. Waldman, who told Victor to give up on the teachings of Agrippa and Paracelsus and devote his learning to other areas of science, which led Victor to creating his monster. In Frankenstein’s words, that day “decided (his) future destiny” (Shelley 39).
In Frankenstein, complications arise after Victor Frankenstein conducts his cruel experiment. Victor’s experimental creation of “the monster” ultimately leads to the deaths of William and Justine because the monster was mad at his creator’s indifference (pg. 51). Victor Frankenstein reveals he should not have interfered with the process of life because it isn’t natural and essentially gives him the power of being the creator of life. As a result, Victor doesn’t know what the monster is capable of and creates conflicts that cause the monster to kill innocent people. Next, Victor Frankenstein decides how tall the monster is and what parts of different bodies he uses (pg 76).
Devastating the creature and knowing just how scared Victor is of the creature he is irate. The creature additionally swears to “sever his enemy’s emotional and social ties by murdering all “whose existence[s] [are] bound [to Victor]” (“Responsibility of Frankenstein” 1). The creature has now promised to have his justice multiple times even if that means killing everyone Victor knows, which by now has been proven the creature is capable of. In the end, the creature did everything he could and then some to conquer his loneliness and desperation for justice all because he was not given that father son relationship.
In the book, Victor Frankenstein is a scientist that has given life to a creature through electricity, but abandons it immediately due to its scary appearance. As a result, the creature becomes vengeful and tries to ruin Victor’s life when he is outcasted from society. Victor then experiences many personal struggles, and is faced with the decision of hurting himself or possibly destroying the world when the creature asks him for a female companion. At first, Victor complies to try and save his family and friends, and while building it he says “I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken in my bosom" (Shelley 164).
The monsters revenge on Frankenstein, drives him too to be full of hatred and need for vengeance because he destroyed everything good in his life. He feels as the death of his loved ones is his fault because he is the one that created the horrid creature in the first place (Brackett). “As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them” (Shelley 158). The monster wanted Victor to feel the same thing as him, lonely and sadness. The monsters revenge works, Victor becomes rejected by people and has nobody but himself.
