Comparative Essay Frankenstein

The Creature symbolizes the war between passion and responsibility with the effects of society. Victor abandons his responsibility for his passion, the creature, this begins when Victor goes away to ingolstadt to increase his knowledge in the field of anatomy and gets lost in his project of piecing together a non-living creature. When he finishes with his Creature victor states “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (Shelley 43). “-For this i had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation” (Shelley 43). Victor says he has deprived himself of sleep thus causing his health to decrease, this is an example of victor abandoning responsibility for for his passion “by being connected with the favourite projects and passions of the times Victors health declined rapidly ( Baldick).” When Victor begins his creation in ingolstadt, he locks himself away from his social life. Inside his apartment he is away from family and any social ties, causing his mental health to decline rapidly. Victor abandons his passion, the Creature, when he thinks through the eyes of society causing his responsibility for the Creature to fall to next to nothing. Victors first impression of his creation is, “Now that i had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”(Shelley 43). Victor judges his creation based off of its appearance instead of its thoughts much like society has always done. Victor doesn't give the Creature a chance and instead abandons it, leaving it to its own devices. Here in the story the Creature is depleted of all its rights simply because of its appearance, this throws shade on society simply because society shapes who we are as

The creature's physical grotesqueness makes the creature unable to attain affection from the human societies. The creature is initially rejected by his creator, who is the closest resemblance to a mother or father figure. Despite this relationship, Victor finds the creature to be a "miserable monster" (39). Consequently, as soon as life is present within the creature, Victor abandons his child. Victor claims that he "escaped, and rushed down the stairs" (40) away from the

The creature is renounced by Victor throughout the book, which removes any positive role model that the creature might have had. The two encounters that Victor has with the creature when it is first created are evidence of his rejection. The first is when Victor finishes creating the creature. During the process of creation, Victor dedicates himself so greatly that he "pursued [his] undertaking with unremitting ardour" (32). He puts aside everything else in his life, and concentrates completely on his purpose, which is to bring a being to life that would serve him. In order to do so, he spent an entire summer "engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit" (32). Because of the hard work that Victor puts into his work of creation, he never really examines the fruits of his labour. He is too caught up in his work, and has "lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit" (32) of finishing his work on making the creature. So in the process of his creation, Victor is never really aware of what he is creating because he is too focused on the actual act of creation. However, when Victor finally finishes the work of making the creature, and takes time to look at what he has done, he is horrified by his accomplishment. As the creation opens an eye, and

However, Victor and Walton’s paths diverge in the timing of their journeys; Victor has already accomplished his forbidden goal while Walton is still trying to achieve his. At length, Victor’s successful creation of the creature leads to his ultimate demise. One by one, the creature takes all that is precious to him by murdering his loved ones. Following the deaths of William, Justine, and Henry, the superhuman monster mercilessly murders Elizabeth, the love of Victor’s life, as well (199). Victor’s extreme mental torture is evident in the thoughts that followed his wife’s death: “A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness: no creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of man.”

Due to Victor’s neglect and abandonment, the creature begins to take revenge. After Victor makes it very clear he wants nothing to do with his creation, the creature makes his way to Geneva and finds Victor's brother, where he takes revenge on Victor by killing

Victor ultimately sees knowledge as a blessing and finds happiness from it rather than feelings of guilt and hopelessness. However, as the story unfolds, Victor’s once-beneficial knowledge transforms into a curse, as his relentless pursuit of knowledge leads him to cross boundaries, ultimately resulting in devastating consequences and haunting him with guilt and remorse. In comparison to the last quote, when Victor expresses his emotions after creating the creature, he proclaims, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 45). This quote reveals that Victor’s super ambitious drive and his overstepping of natural limits ruin his dream, transforming it into something horrifying. The contrast between the initial desire and the horrific reality proves that crossing ethical boundaries for knowledge becomes a curse, bringing about disgust and even making him

The creature ruins a life by killing Victor’s youngest brother, his best friend, and his wife; he also unknowingly becomes the cause of death of two other innocents, one being Victor’s father. Though tortured by embarrassment, regret, and anger, Victor refuses to let anyone know the tragedy of what he has brought unto the earth, even as he

Victor is falsely convicted of this crime and spends a few months in prison after he arrives in Ireland (Shelley 182-184). Moreover, the creature murders Victor’s wife Elizabeth on their honeymoon in Evian, France, and the anguish surrounding the circumstances causes Victor’s father to die (Shelley 203-206). Victor suffers extensive grief because he knows that his creation has caused five people he loved to die. Due to the agony that the creature has caused Victor, he decides to follow the creature through the arctic and attempt to destroy him. However, this is very harmful to Victor’s body, and it eventually causes him to die (Shelley 210-227).

Once he realizes the fault of his actions, Victor’s lack of involvement in the creature’s life forces it to learn on its own, which ultimately leads it to develop negative conclusions about human interactions and life itself. The importance

If it weren’t for the creation of the Creature, there would never have been any problems and Victor would have been happy with his family. After being rejected by Victor, the monster found shelter in a hovel next to a cottage. He learned to read, write, and speak by observing the residents of the cottage through a crack in the wall. The Creature discovers how he was created by reading the notes found in the clothes he took from Victor. He felt disgusted at how Victor regarded him. When the Creature tries to interact with the villagers, they attack him and drive him off. He vows his revenge on every human being. While walking through the forest, he encounters Victor's brother William. He then proceeds to strangle the boy and kills him. He then takes a locket on William and places it in Justine’s pocket, who is later executed for the murder of William. After meeting with Victor, the creature asks him to make a female companion so that he can stop his revengeful acts. Victor agrees to his proposal and begins to create a female partner for the monster. One night, after noticing the monster’s hideousness and the possibility of a second creature like him, Victor destroys his work in progress. The Creature becomes enraged and proceeds to vow his revenge on Victor. The next night, Victor rows out to

Mary Shelley continues the emphasis on parental influence between Victor and Creature to show how important a parental figure has on human behavior. The key difference between the relationships is Creature lacked any form of parenting. Creature learned and developed his behavior on his own by watching others and reading classical literature. By reading these books he begins to question his creation and notice differences between himself and others. “My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them” (citation). Creature is reflecting on who he and how he came to be in this world. This being said, he is also aware of the fact that he was created by someone else and lives in a world where he does not belong. Creature was sent into a world that he did not understand, he had a ‘child’s blindness’ which is similar to the relationship between Victor and his father. Not only did Victor’s relationship with his father affect his life, but it also affected the life of Creature. The lack of parental guidance in

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.

When Victor isolated himself from society, he went mad finding the depths of natural philosophy and creating the monster; discarding himself from the responsibility and consequences to come. Even Clerval, when he went for a visit, noticed his unusual behavior “he saw wildness in my eyes…; and my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and astonished him.” As for the monster, Victor neglected him ever since he was brought into the world. The monster’s intentions were never to be evil until his heart became filled with hatred and revenge because of his loneliness. Solitude and the lack of compassion toward the creature leads him to make Victor’s life miserable, killing the people he truly

The creature’s life begins with rejection from the man who created him. The very moment the monster awakes he is haunted by darkness and is feared. “It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate”(Shelly 71). The moment Victor created this

Victor created the creature to do positive things. But instead of being positive the creature committed malicious acts. He murdered some people and eventually murdered in own creator. The creature blamed all of his acts on loneliness. People thought the creature was evil, but he was just misunderstood.