Once noted, the parallels between Frankenstein’s fears and desires and the reality the monster experiences are many. Now that Victor is in university, he no longer has family and friends to fall back upon in the unknown territory of his university. Frankenstein voices is that “[he] believed [himself] totally unfitted for the company of strangers,” irrational as it may be, and believes himself solely dependent on his family and childhood friend for companionship. Without the love guaranteed to him by his family, Victor believes he is unfit to make companions by himself and destined to a life of loneliness. He places much importance on the fact that his father and Elizabeth love him and are concerned with his well-being.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of the novel Frankenstein and an advocate for women’s rights, has often stated while in the face of adversity, “the agony of my feelings allowed me no respite” (“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley”). While Shelley’s prose has influenced millions of people throughout the world, she has faced several hardships in attaining this goal. Both her tragic upbringing and life and the people surrounding it imposed a profound impact on her writing. The tragedies Shelley experienced throughout her childhood left an unforgettable impression on her life today.
Victor Frankenstein’s relationship with his sister, Elizabeth, is very intimate, to the brink of over-possessive. He demonstrates an innate association of ‘ownership’ towards Elizabeth. His intense fondness for Elizabeth is due to the prior lack of companionship during his childhood. He’s been the sole target of his parents’ affection for many years as they traveled. The constant traveling caused Victor to feel isolation, due to only having his parents as companions.
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, shows how a character who is portrayed as a tragic hero, in the beginning, can become the monster in the end. Victor and the Monster in Mary Shelley’s captivating novel showed how rival enemies share striking similarities. The similarities between the two tragic characters are driven by their dreary isolation from the secluded world. A large difference is that they were both raised in two completely different environments but understood the meaning of isolation. Physical differences are more noticeable rather than their personalities.
“Dad, you are not an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way” (Jane Lindsay). Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is a piece of literature that explores the pent-up resentment in a maternal-like relationship between a shamefaced creator, Victor Frankenstein and his neglected creation, the “monster”. The central plot and main characters revolve around the taboo theme of desertion and shame. Characteristic behaviors and emotions found in the story reflect back to Mary’s own inner dark struggles and memorable moments, in the sense that they are coordinated in a haunting family-like dynamic. Uncoincidentally both the author and multiple written characters share qualities and encounters similar
You let out a terrible cry for help that echoes among the trees. You jolt awake in your bed and a cold sweat pours from your forehead. You can not imagine something this terrible being true, but in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the main character Victor had to deal with a similar nightmare. Mary Shelley’s work also includes many themes. The
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a gothic novel that tells the story of scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and his obsession with creating human life. This leads him to creating a gruesome monster made of body-parts stolen from grave yards, whom upon discovering his hideousness, the monster seeks revenge against his creator, causing Victor to regret the creation of his monster for the rest of his life. Shelley uses the literary elements of personification, imagery, and similes to give a vivid sense and visualization of Victor Frankenstein’s thoughts and feelings as well as to allow us to delve deeper into the monster’s actions and emotions. Throughout the novel, Shelley uses personification of various forces and objects to reflect the effect in Victor’s actions.
After telling Victor the story of his short, miserable life, the creature’s longing to be a part of a family continues as he begs Victor to give him a female creature, similar to himself, that he can run away and avoid humanity with forever. The creature explains to Victor “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (Shelley 156). The absence of family throughout Frankenstein causes psychological as well as physical illness in several characters.
Through Marry Shelley’s despair over her dead infant and the diligent struggle to become pregnant she creates the main protagonist Victor Frankenstein (Shelley 203-204). Her grief that
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” exposed the reader to a tragedy and horrific story of the life of Victor Frankenstein. We’re introduced to a series of letters from Robert Walton to his sister, that in which explains the story of Victor Frankenstein. A man determined to create life, accomplished the goal but soon led to his downfall. Throughout the novel, I learn that our actions can sometimes determine someone else’s fate. As shown in the many flashbacks of the multiple narratives of Victor, the creature and Walton.
Steven Lehman’s article on the novel also speaks about how Mary Shelley’s life was reflected in the novel. He states that “Mary Shelley’s grief over the death of her baby is refracted through the obsession of her “mad scientist” protagonist Victor Frankenstein” (Lehman 1). He then explains that Shelley’s primary coping mechanism for her grief was writing Victor to have a happy ending by almost giving birth. However, it was his mother and sister Elizabeth that catapulted the creation of the monster. Because Victor had the take over for his mother after her death to look after Elizabeth, he was left wanting more.
Mary Shelley, wrote this novel on a rainy, gloomy day that became a staple piece in literature. She is famous for her novel, Frankenstein, that had a huge influence during the Romanticism age. Frankenstein is about a student who created a monster and was scared of his work of art. Frankenstein eventually comes back to request a partner, but when Victor refuses, Frankenstein comes back for revenge by going after Victor’s family, taking his brother and “wife-to-be’s”, life away. Throughout this novel Mary Shelley use different techniques to give this story life.
Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley about a man named Victor Frankenstein and his life and how it came to be. He had created a monster and brought it to life by studying and learning natural philosophy. Mary Shelley brought the emotions forward from the main characters by the amount of detail she put into the book. Most of the detail was brought in by the suffering that happens throughout the book caused by Frankenstein’s monster. The monster in this story is a tragic figure that is the main cause of suffering that occurs to everyone.
In the novel “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley displays a variety of themes throughout the novel. The author utilizes various themes that were controversial during the time of the release of Frankenstein. The reader can find themes like the quest for knowledge or even a prejudice theme. The quest for knowledge was one of the most controversial themes because of the use of science being utilized for evil frightened people at the time. Although, these themes were very controversial, the predominant theme Mary Shelley exhibits in the novel is family, society, and isolation.
The fictional horror novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is driven by the accentuation of humanity’s flaws. Even at the very mention of her work an archetypal monster fills one’s imagination, coupled with visions of a crazed scientist to boot. Opening her novel with Robert Walton, the conduit of the story, he also serves as a character to parallel the protagonist’s in many ways. As the ‘protagonist’ of the story, Victor Frankenstein, takes on the mantle of the deluded scientist, his nameless creation becomes the embodiment of a truly abandoned child – one left to fend for itself against the harsh reality posed by society. On the other hand, Walton also serves as a foil to Victor – he is not compulsive enough to risk what would be almost
