Preview

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
833 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
In the novel "Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein is the creator of a "monster." Because of his thirst for knowledge and ambition to create life, he goes too far and creates a huge creature, which he immediately rejects. This rejection plays a major part in the monster's hatred for humans, especially Victor. The author, Mary Shelley, supports the theme, loss of innocence, through plot, setting and characterization. This essay will explain the many ways that the characters lost their innocence throughout the novel Frankenstein.

In the novel “Frankenstein” plot deals with the conflict that is inside Victor Frankenstein, who produces a monstrous creature. Victor is disgusted at the site of the creature he has created. "I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived"(43). After Victor rejects the monster, he meets a family that brings out his sensitive side. When these people reject him, the creature destroys everything in sight. "I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag like swiftness"(121). The innocent Justine is accused of a murder, committed by the creature, and dies, therefore increasing Victor's feelings of guilt and his need for revenge. Victor makes it his mission to destroy the monster, who has been ruining his life. The monster threatens to be there with Victor on his wedding night. Victor interprets this as a threat against his own life, but instead finds his wife, Elizabeth, murdered. "She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair"(179). The next paragraph discusses how loss of innocence was portrayed through setting.

In the novel “Frankenstein”, Victor is seventeen and leaves for the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Composed during the Industrial Revolution at a time of increased scientific experimentation, Shelley warns and forebodes her enlightened society of the consequences which come about from playing god. She uses Victor Frankenstein as her platform, whose self-exalting line “many excellent natures would owe their being to me” represents a society engrossed with reanimation. Recurring mythical allusions to Prometheus, “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge” portray Victor as a tragic hero; a noble character whose “fatal flaw” of blind ambition ultimately results in his own downfall and dehumanization, “swallowed up every habit of my nature”. In addition, Victor’s impulsive rejection of his grotesque creation, leads to the Monster’s rebellion (“vowed eternal hated and vengeance to all mankind”).…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    But, it is these processes that clearly show flaws in their own philosophy. As an Enlightenment Era scientist, Victor has all of nature at his disposal, to experiment and conduct tests on however he likes. His deeds show this; the torture of animals in order to discover the “inner workings of the natural world”, without remorse he digs up countless corpses in the night in search of ‘perfect’ body parts to put together and form his creature. The problems in this approach to science are evident in the cruelty and horrific acts that its moral code condones. These acts have been committed without emotional or human attachment, values that are fundamental in Romantic ideals. In describing these events and directly attributing them to Enlightenment ways, Shelly describes the realisation society is coming to that its values must change. In staying true to the scientific values of the time, Frankenstein exposes their flaws and as a result unwittingly challenges…

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    After the monster found victor in his room he was filled with anger “You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend?” (120). In addition, the monster asked “endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?” (120). Subsequent to the monster braking in to Victor’s room and escaping in his own boat, Victor was filled with rage. “The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness, when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair” (121). One main event that started the quench for the undying hatred and sorrow was the death of Victor’s son, William. The monster decided to give the humans one last chance. When he stumbled upon a child, “suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me, that this little creature was unprejudiced, and had lived too short of a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity” (100). Soon after his encounter with the child, the monster realized that the young boy was just like everyone else he has met. “Hideous monster! Let me go; my papa is a Syndic-he is M. Frankenstein-he would punish you. You dare not keep me” (100). The creature also learned that the child he gave one last chance to was the son of Victor Frankenstein. “Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy-to him towards whom I have sworn…

    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Creature could not bare to be alone, so he sought out Victor and asked to make him a girlfriend and said that he would leave and live in the forest with her and not harm anyone, but Victor denied his request and the creature snapped. That was something that the Creature cared about and Victor took that away from him, and the creature decided to take away the things he cared about starting with his little brother William Frankenstein. On Victor’s Honeymoon night the Creature snuck in and Strangled his new wife Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s hatred for the creature was indescribable he was so repulsed that he could have created something that terrible.…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Frankenstein Major Essay

    • 1469 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The character of The Creature in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, endures a life of denial, abandonment and isolation. Due to his unusual appearance, society and his creator, Victor Frankenstein, reject him. The creature was crafted into an innocent being with no evidence of any previous knowledge. He is developed into an actual monster due to his unstable upbringing as well as a life without companionship. It is deemed that the creature is an evil being, but in reality it is due unfortunate life of loneliness that lead him to perform unjust actions. The character of the creature should not be viewed as evil, but unloved as it is evident from the hatred his creator had for him, his desperation for a companion and society’s denial towards him that he was ultimately not an evil being.…

    • 1469 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein, many themes are presented throughout the story. However, through the impact of historical events during the 19th century, Victor’s relationship with the monster, and the influence of Victor’s mother, causes both Victor and his monster to grow hatred between each other. Therefore, the idea of revenge is the most prominent theme in the book.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frankenstein didcaticism

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Frankenstein is a didactic novel that teaches the reader not to judge solely on appearances, as they can be deceptive. The protagonist, the famous Creature, is shunned by society due to his hideous physique. This highlights Mary Shelley’s criticism of her prejudiced society, who consider the Creature as a monster because of something as superficial as his physical appearance. However, the reader knows that The Creature has a good heart and a true inner beauty, yet he is seen as the monster of the story. A common interpretation is that Victor, the creator, should be considered as the monster because he is monstrous from within, a mirror image of his creation. This shows how appearances do not always represent reality, they can be deceptive.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Hours

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, one of the major themes is the idea that the monster is a representation of the monster within all of us. Also, that the romantic age, which was prominent during the time in which Shelley was writing, was one of the conflicting mindsets that led to Victor Frankenstein’s manipulating and controlling nature, which throws him out of his mind and down a destructive path towards the creation of the monster. In The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, Peter Ackroyd takes the metaphors and themes present in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and makes them more literal in his reimagined work. In Ackroyd’s novel, he sets out to inform the reader that the horrors shown in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are more real than we would like to believe due to the effects of Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and Atheism.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victor Frankenstein's repudiate for the monster and the civilians reject are the outside elements that concludes in the monster becoming _______ Furthermore, while Frankenstein and his monster were conversing he reveals, “You, my creator, abhor me. Your fellow creatures spurn and hate me” (55). Frankenstein’s monster shunning and persecution resulted in him changing his personality and retaliating because, he could no longer hold his emotions within. Furthermore, his great feelings of vengeance for the society left the monster to kill and destroy. In addition, the overwhelming environmental influences of hate compels the monster to “be no more [so I] shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me (127). Being neglected by his creator…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frankenstein

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the book Frankenstein, a lonely scientist, Victor Frankenstein, brings a being of great power and fear to life, an eight foot vicious green monster assembled from various parts. Horrified by his creation, Victor attempts to flee, however, that leads to the death of his brother directly from the monster he created and the death of Justine, who was adopted by Frankenstein’s family, since she was accused of the murder. After their deaths, the monster asks Frankenstein for a female partner, however, once Frankenstein begins his second creation, he thinks better of it and destroys her, leaving Frankenstein’s monster to swear revenge on him on the day of his wedding. On that day, while Frankenstein is concerned for his own life, the monster attacks his bride, Elizabeth and murders her, fulfilling his proclamation of revenge on Frankenstein. While Frankenstein tries to catch his creation, he passes out and is found by Walton, when he then dies and leads to the death of his monster since he can no longer live without his creator because of the remorsefulness he feels.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Frankenstein makes clear of Frankenstein’s innocence before everything becomes tragic. The reader is shown his largely happy and privileged childhood, his blameless obsession with knowledge, and how he arrived at studying what would soon become his downfall. When Frankenstein creates the monster the immediate effect is his disappointment and exhaustion. He is sickened by his own work and regrets the creation from the moment he saw it in the way everyone else will see it. Frankenstein is our tragic figure but the effects of his tragic flaw do not end with his own suffering.…

    • 367 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Kenneth Branaghs film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the director, Kenneth Branagh sticks to the major themes of the original book with minute changes. There are many similarities and differences between the book and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the book. I believe Mary Shelley wanted readers to catch the themes of child abandonment, presented in Victor abandoning his creature. She also wanted readers to have compassion and sympathy for the abandoned creature that Victor created out of dead body parts. Shelley wanted the creature to be similar to Victor in many ways. Shelley wanted to show the relation between life and death, and the unbreakable laws of nature. Shelley wanted readers to realize that we need to accept life and death, and not try to control it because life is the “Act of God” and we cannot change that. She was implying that there are consequences for fooling with these laws of life and death. Even if you can create life out of dead body parts, just doing that, may ruin your whole perspective of the world, and throw anyone into a state of depression. This movie “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” by Kenneth Branagh is a good representation of the original book overall, except for a few changes in plot, setting, characters,, and the relationships between them.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frankenstein was written in 1797 by Mary Shelley. It instantly gained popularity and is considered to be a classic piece of literature. Due to this popularity, Frankenstein has been widely studied and critiqued across the literary world. Lee Zimmerman critiques the novel by analyzing Victor’s childhood from a psychological perspective and connects parts of the monster’s life with that of Victors.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    and prejudice he encounters convinces him of the "barbarity of man." That the only character…

    • 106 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein during a time period where the idea of the unknown was still uncertain. Many wondered whether you could put life back into the dead. Close to the topic of bringing life back into the dead was whether you could create your own being, like selective breeding but a bit more powerful. Close to where Mary lived there was a man named Vultair was experimenting putting electricity through Frogs to see if they could come back to life. With that going on close to her as well as the fear of a revolution and the pressure on her to think of a ghost story it is not surprising she thought of a horror story that would still be popular in the 21st Century. Now I have explained where the story came from and why it is as it is I will explain the social responsibility it brings up and how it is still important today.…

    • 3263 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics