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Who To Blame In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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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. Victor is held responsible for not teaching the monster Frankenstein right from wrong. As Victor Frankenstein created the monster he neglected it based on its appearance of imperfection and mentality. The monster was forced to teach itself the necessitates of life and common sense. For example, on page 79 Frankenstein says, “By degrees I made discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experiences and feelings to one another by articulating sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke …show more content…

Victor Frankenstein turns away from his responsibilities by ignoring the existence of his creation. Throughout the novel, Victor is constantly running away from the monster and not giving him attention, which resulted in the monsters change of personalities. For example, in page 71 the creation said, “All men hate the wretched; how must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.” This quote suggests that because of the ignorance of Victor the monster began to become evil and have the urge to seek

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In Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein, neither Frankenstein nor the monster are devoid of blame for what transpired that lead to each other's imminent destruction. Instead, the blame should rightfully be put on both these men because of the ensuing pandemonium that they caused. While he is not entirely to blame, it was Frankenstein's, the protagonist of the story, inability to take responsibility for what he had created that caused the monster to be raised the way it was. Besides, it was Victor who wanted to “pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation” (Chapter 3, pg. 15). I am not sure that Victor understood the gravity of such an undertaking, he did not think about what he should do after he had finished the creation; he only thought of the

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Victor is to be blamed for numerous incidents throughout the story. First, Victor is to blame because of his desire to create life. If it wasn’t for his desire, he would have never created the monster. Second, Victor is to blame because he abandoned his monster because he got so scared of his unpleasant appearance. If Victor spent a little bit of time with the monster and taught him the correct behavior for life, then maybe the monster wouldn’t have been so unstable.

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The trial showed that Frankenstein’s actions resulted in the deaths of three people: Elizabeth, Henry, and Justine. From the state of Alaska’s definition of manslaughter, the prosecution proved Frankenstein’s responsibility for the deaths through his reckless actions in his neglect of the creature, and by intentionally keeping the creation a secret. Frankenstein’s responsibility for the deaths relies in his neglect of the creation. Once the creation became alive, Frankenstein immediately ran away.

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The monster in Frankenstein is acting out of revenge and doesn’t know forgiveness or compassion. Which is Victor’s fault because he neglected to raise and teach is creation. It is something that the monster could’ve learned if taught or seen, but he was not shown compassion or forgiveness because of his outward appearances. The monster finds the papers on page 93 where it says, “Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors, and rendered mine indelible.” Victor the father of this creature hated his creation and rejected it.

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You’d never expect your own creation to destroy you, not even under the most hostile situation. Not very often do you hear a son destroy its father’s life to create a better life for itself, so why would a scientist create a monster that would only destroy everything it loves? What if the scientist was unaware of the harmful consequences of its creation? The expectations we have as humans are never contradicted, Mary Shelley manipulates the expectation of the novel to engage the reader in a cautionary tale through different forms of irony and allegory. Mary Shelley Frankenstein illustrates direct, situational and verbal irony throughout the novel to play against readers expectations.

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Victor Frankenstein, is at fault for the creature’s actions. Victor was looking for some honor and triumph, but when he accomplished his experiment, not only did it bring terror to Victor, but to the whole world. The monster never learned right from wrong and was never raised correctly, his first moment of life, all he experienced was the fear in Victor's emotion, and was abandoned right from the start. Victor selfishly isolated himself from society and ran away from his responsibilities which caused destruction to the people Victor cared for and loved deeply. The creature was known as a monster and was doomed due to his appearance.

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Although the question of “who is to blame” Is up in the air, it’s quite obvious that the monster was directly to blame for the murders. But, when you think about the fact that he was merely created and not born, so he wasn’t able to differentiate right from wrong, or how to control his feelings. His anger was stemmed from his hate of his creator Victor. The wrongs that Victor did unto the creature is what caused the creature’s anger to overtake whatever bit of logical thinking and ability to reason and in a way, throw it out it out the window. So, physically speaking, the creature was to blame.

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Victor does not handle his monster, or his fears, well. When Frankenstein first sees his monster, he immediately “escaped, [from the room the monster was in] and rushed down stairs. p50” As the monster is an externalization of Frankenstein’s fears, this escape, this inability to so much as look at the monster, can be interpreted as Frankenstein’s inability to acknowledge his fears and anxieties. Like with anxiety, denying the monster’s existence only causes him to grow more destructive.

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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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This much is true for Victor’s failure to take responsibility for not only teaching his creation about life but also failure to take responsibility for the actions of his creation. “Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy… you shall be my first victim” (153). Victor’s knows that he is responsible for the death of William because he abandoned his creation and made the monster learn the hard way that he would not be accepted into society. But he has no choice but to let Justine take the fall for the death of his brother because he fears being seen as a madman.

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The monster is spurned by society because of his horrific appearance, his body, alone and hated, unfit for the company of strangers, just as Frankenstein fears he is. He is miserable which makes the hatred grow, as he says, “all men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!” In fact, this wretchedness and enforced isolation is the monster’s main character trait, parallel to the isolation being Frankenstein’s biggest fear. Now that Victor is in college, he does not have his family to fall back upon for affection.

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The monster continues by reassuring the creator of his independent intelligence and power over the creature by telling Frankenstein, “This you alone can do”. Here, the creature assumes a role of submissiveness and reliance on Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster gains the sympathy of the reader who, despite condemning the murder of innocent people, commiserate with the lonely creature who is in search of an acquaintance, which he will likely never find. The monster also displays power and aggressiveness over Frankenstein; “You are my creator; but I am your master; obey!” The monster wants to desolate Victor’s heart, not by killing him directly,

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766 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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Victor Frankenstein caused his own misery and destruction, which is why he is to blame for what

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Frankenstein created the creature so he could manipulate the power of life, not to learn from the experience. He is so immersed in his studies, fascinated by the creation of life. He studies what the human body is made up of and how it falls apart. Victor completely disengages from the world when away at school after his mother dies of scarlet fever.

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