Mary Shelley novel ‘Frankenstein’ Essay

Once, Victor completes his creation of the being he finds him to be very repulsive and he feels it is impossible to love such a ‘ thing ‘, ‘ His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing†¦ but these luxuries only formed a more horrid contrast’. Instead of staying to understand why and how his experiment went so drastically wrong, or to take care of his creation, he runs away from his responsibilities with fear ‘ one hand wrenched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escape and rushed down stairs†¦ ‘ During Victors encounters with his creation he treats his creation with disrespect and hatred even though it was he who created this monster. Victor feels his creation is disdain and malignant, he also feels that his creatures ‘ ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes ‘. During this time Victor is very childish in his opinions as he insults his creation ‘ it ‘ hasn’t done anything wrong. But on the other hand, his creation tries to be civilized and reasonable. Victor tries using his intelligence to fight against the creature, as the creature defeats him in any imaginable physical aspect. But Victor underestimates the creature’s true intelligence and understanding of life; the creature returns the fire back to Victor with his own degree of intelligence. This situation soon turns to Victor becoming seriously immature and irresponsible, as he tries to incorporate a verbal battle into the damage relationship between them unlike the creature who tries to civil. Initially Frankenstein’s creature is seen as aggressive and violent but this is only shown in the eyes of Victor Frankenstein. The creation is no portrayed a thoughtful and caring creature but this is overshadowed by his aggression which he only uses to emphasise is want for a father figure and a friend, so he looks to Frankenstein, his creature. Because of Frankenstein’s rejection the creature becomes more and more bitter and rejected and as a result becomes more violent and aggressive which is his way of portraying hatred towards Frankenstein. At this point of the novel the creature created by Frankenstein acts more adult-like than Frankenstein himself. I feel that Frankenstein should take responsibility for his own action and consider the consequences, and then reflect on these consequences, but he totally rejects the creature because of its appearance. The creation has learnt a lot of advanced knowledge in a short space of time, and has become more lingual than his creator, which shows that the creature could live alone in the world but it just needs a companion or a father figure to help him on the way. Victor’s tragic fate is sealed by his growing obsession to destroy his creation because of all the hurt it has caused him in the latter stages of the novel. As Victor’s obsession to destroy the monster grows he begins to have a role reversal as he becomes the outsider and the creature becomes the supremely intelligent one, now he experiences all the misery and hatred that the monster felt after he rejected him. This change is quite ironic as the creature and Victor switch roles. This ironic change also shows Frankenstein how he treated people at this time from this Victor learnt a very important lesson ‘ Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself ‘. This change now begins to change Victor’s perspective on life, as he starts to feel guilty for what he has put his creation through, the torture and rejection. The guilt has now been emphasised by the hatred of Frankenstein of him self and his hatred of the creature. In conclusion the tragic fate of Victor Frankenstein is brought about by his own careless actions. Mary Shelley is showing us that the causes of Victor’s death were down to himself and his own actions. Victor’s careless pursuit of scientific knowledge is partly to blame for his fate as he never, until his monster was created thought about the consequences. Victor’s overstepping of human boundaries by defying God and going against nature is also partially to blame as, he again never considers the moral issues surrounding the recreation of people. Finally the main point of his fate was caused by his inability to love what he has given to live. Frankenstein only sees his creation for its inhuman looks and physical appearance, instead of the creature’s personality and feelings; he only shows a one-dimensional view of the monster. Mary Shelley has given the novel a hidden message, this message is trying to put across the dangers of pride and egotism, as in the novel Victor feels that when he recreates life he will become world famous. The second message of this novel is that the careless use of science can become dangerous. Frankenstein not considering the consequences of his action is showing this careless use of science. Mary Shelley does not criticize this act of creation, but Victor is unwilling to accept responsibility, for his deeds. His creation only becomes a monster because of its rejection from humans and especially Victor Frankenstein. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Mary Shelley section.