Evil In Frankenstein

After being driven away by Victor and left alone in the woods, the monster becomes angry. His anger roots from the sadness he feels as he faces abandonment with no idea on how to live and function both properly and ethically. He feels deserted and lost as he raises himself. The anger that builds inside of him causes him to act negatively against the Frankenstein family, killing William Frankenstein solely based off of his relationship with Victor. This is an example of the Creature using physical action to assert power, showing that he can harm not only Victor’s life, but his family’s. Later, when he confronts Victor, however, he uses intelligence to inflict power over Victor. He explains his situation and how he feels abandoned and unfairly treated by Victor. He says “I will revenge my injuries; If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy” (Shelley 173). He gives Victor the option to abandon him again, although he secretly hopes for acceptance and love from his creator. The goal of asserting power over his creator, although mostly influenced by anger and sadness which could have been avoided by Victor, leads the Creature to violent actions that harm the Frankenstein

Victor and the monster hate each other and eventually seek revenge on one another (60). In the beginning, Victor was passionate about his creation of life, he thought it was a brilliant idea (79). However, he was unable to “endure the aspect of the being [he] had created” (84) after the completion of the creature. The monster appeared to be friendly as “a grin wrinkled his cheeks” (84) and tried to communicate with Victor (84). However, Victor tried to avoid him and did not want to associate himself with the monster at all (84). The monster was furious and “[swore] eternal revenge” (154) when his creator rejected him because of his appearance. Therefore, when the monster knew that William was related to Victor, he became enraged and killed him (154). As the monster continued to kill Victor’s family, Victor pledged that he will get revenge on the creature (60). The exchanges between these two individuals were an indication of Victor’s vengeful

Victor endangers people by not warning them about the creature. When Henry Clerval arrives in Ingolstadt, Victor explains his haggard appearance by telling him that he has been too “deeply engaged in one occupation” (88) to allow himself sufficient rest. He does not tell Henry any details about this occupation because he cannot bear to think about his creature. When Victor invites Henry to his apartment, he “[dreads] to behold this monster; but [he fears] still more that Henry should see him” (88). This shows that he is more concerned about Henry finding out how he has been spending his time than he is about his own safety. He does not want to tell his secret to his very close friend. For this reason, Victor makes Henry wait at the bottom of the stairs while he checks his apartment for the creature. Shortly after they enter the apartment, Victor becomes ill. His illness lasts several months. Since he is the only person who knows about the creature’s existence, there is nobody who can search for it while he is ill. During Victor’s illness, William Frankenstein, his youngest brother, is murdered by the monster. Although the

He believed that his Creature murdered his brother and framed Justine, the Frankenstein’s maid, in order to achieve vengeance for Victor abandoning him, but according to Levine, Victor is the cause for this evil, “...evil is a consequence of maltreatment or injustice,” (Levine 31). Victor’s internal flaws and shortcomings prevent him from revealing the truth about his Creation and therefore he is unable to disclose details of Williams death to save Justine. Victor cowers and stands by as the town unjustly convicts and “executes” Justine, (Shelley 117). The cowardly act committed by Victor shows that he does not possess a strong enough moral compass to do the justified act.

Every story has its hero and villain. Some authors’ works easily clarify the debate between which character is the ultimate protagonist or the antagonist, but sometimes the author tries to toy with readers’ minds. Similarly, Frankenstein’s author, Marry Shelley is one of the authors who is not straightforward about who is the villain in her novel. In Frankenstein, both the Monster and Victor Frankenstein could be considered the villains in the book. Doctor Victor Frankenstein is an alchemist who is obsessed with creating life from the dead. He creates the green creature, also given the name Frankenstein, who is portrayed as the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein’s complete disregard for mortal beings, obsession with becoming a God, and his self-centeredness throughout the novel are all good evidence to why he – Dr. Victor Frankenstein plays the role of the villain in the story.

As shown in Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley people grow evil without the presence of others with which they can relate. If someone feels they are alone, their actions will stray from their good intentions, and soon their intentions will not be so good either. The awful deeds done by humans, including those done by Frankenstein’s Monster, are done because isolation drives people to malicious actions. Frankenstein, Walton, and the monster would all be better people if they had a companion to help them through their troubles. The actions of these characters in their solitude’s contrast to their previous actions shows that being alone is what make them evil.

There is great discussion on whether Victor Frankenstein's creature is evil or not. I have concluded that the creature is not evil for three reasons. Firstly, because of his generous actions. Secondly, because of the simple things the creature enjoys, showing his innocence. Lastly, because of his sympathetic emotions. After reading the next three paragraphs, the understanding as to why the creature is not evil will be clearly understood, starting with his generous actions.

The monster is not faultless for the awful things that he has done. He kills three of the people that his creator was very close to including his adopted sister Elizabeth. Losing these people is very hard on Victor. The loss makes Victor so distraught that, “he calls the spirits of the dead” (179) to help him make the monster feel the pain of loss that he feels. In addition to killing those close to Victor, the monster destroys the house of the De Lacey’s with fire and then “dances with fury around the devoted cottage (123). Additionally, the monster appears to like the trouble and anguish that he is able to trigger in Victor: “your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred” (181), the monster writes

Both William and Justine die due to the creature’s hand, but that blame can only be placed on Victor, because of his neglect to teach Frankenstein any morals, any concept of right and wrong. The creature kills William first, but clearly had no intention of doing so; upon his first sight of the boy, he calls him beautiful. However, when William tells the creature that he is Frankenstein’s son, the creature “grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet” (171). Justine’s death, also accidental, places grief not only on Victor, for he was the man who created the creature, but on the creature himself, as he is not aware of the horrors of which he is truly

Victor can understand the feelings of compassion or fatherly care that stir within him but he is unable to sustain those feelings of concern: "I compassionated him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I looked upon him …my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred" (p.121). He continues to fail his creature, swearing him into exile, then creating another like him before destroying it (and thus any chance of happiness for the creature), and then hunting him down. Victor is never able to perceive the monster's tormented psyche leading to his exclamation "Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me"(p.172). The irony is Victor's creation already feels this, but Victor's anger and lack of insight causes him to oversee it (Claridge, Parent-Child Tensions in Frankenstein: The Search for Communion, p.20).

When his creation is complete and the creature comes to life Victor immediately realizes his mistake and abandons his creation. Victor not only abandons the creature but he goes into a state of isolation and self-pity. The abandonment of the creature is the opposite of the environment in which Victor was raised; this contradicts the assumption that a nurturing childhood will produce an equally loving and empathetic adult. When Victor receives the letter that his younger brother William had been murdered the question of who is the true monster becomes to be blurred. He knows in his gut that the monster he created was responsible for the murder but does not bother to say anything when a close family friend, Justine, is accused of the crime. There is no more blatant lack of empathy than letting a person you know is innocent die for a crime in which you are responsible. Also, to add fuel to the fire of Victor’s character, he actually thinks that he has it worse than Justine because she doesn’t have to live with his guilt, a disgusting act of arrogance and self-centered mindset.

Once he’s brought the monster to life, Victor is terrified by what he’s made with his own hands, causing him to abandon the monster, hoping that it will die on it’s own. Later in the book, the reader as well as Victor learn that the monster wasn’t a vile creature at all, but rather a man who needed love. If victor had thought logically creating the monster, thought about how a thing that has been freshly made most likely didn’t have a monstrous bone in its body, the tragedy that followed after the monster was made, could have been avoided. Towards the end of the book, the monster reappears in Frankenstein’s life, threatening to kill all whom he loves if he does not make the monster a life companion. Victor refuses, and in response Frankenstein kills those that he loves, before he disappears himself, presumably off to kill

The monster realizes that people are disgusted by his appeal which leads him to being disgusted as well and he claims that he will have revenge towards Victor, which is very perplex because how can a creation want to destroy the creator (hubris). The monsters search for Victor was not such a mission for him because the monster knew where he lived and when he arrived at Geneva he played his flute in the woods and little William ran off to the woods and saw the monster and the monster killed William and camouflaged the incident towards Justine a young women who worked in the Frankenstein household and these deaths were because of the rage in the monster that lead him to becoming a very arrogant person with no

Then his creation all suddenly turns on Victor killing everything he is dear too in the name of vengeance. The monster eventually murders three people in cold blood as well as one indirectly. First Williams’s brother who is accidently strangled to death. With the death of William the monster framed the servant Justine by placing a picture of William in her pocket. Justin was then executed for the unjust murder of William. Sadly Elizabeth, Frankenstein’s cousin and new wife on the wedding night. He also kills a good friend of Frankenstein’s Henry Clerval. The deaths of these innocent people were a result of the monsters revenge on Victor. The monster is seeking this revenge on the doctor because he did not want to be brought into this world especially looking like he did. Another key point that this book beings forth is why human beings should not try to play God and artificially create a being in a laboratory. When Victor creates a bride for the monster he decides to kill her before the monster can have a companion. Victor can’t give the monster what he wants not after what the monster did to his family.