Preview

The Life of Victor Frankenstein

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1111 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Life of Victor Frankenstein
Frankenstein is a novel of a man who was born in Geneva to a very well-known family. At a young age, Frankenstein’s parents took in his close childhood friend, Elizabeth to live with them. This came about when Elizabeth’s mother passed away. Frankenstein’s mother had decided while on her death bed that Elizabeth and Frankenstein should marry. It would seem that his life was laid out for him. As a teenager, Frankenstein becomes interested in the study of the natural world. This intense interest is peaked when Frankenstein witnesses the damage to a tree after it if struck by lightning during a storm. The process of electricity is then explained to Frankenstein by a family friend who at the time was a natural philosopher. When Victor Frankenstein is 17 years old he leaves his family and life to attend the university at Ingolstadt. There victor meets with a professor of natural philosophy, M. Krempe who tells Victor to pick another field. Disillusioned by the conversation with this professor, Victor turned to the study of science. Victor became so involved in his studies that he began to neglect his family in Geneva, his friends at school and his health. As stated in the “My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” Victor’s “interest quickly turned into an obsession: he is completely dedicated to learning the secrets of heaven and earth.” It is at this point that Victor realizes that he would like to see if he could make some new discoveries about the human body that no one else had yet to discover. Could you take the flesh or body parts of dead bodies and make a new body? This seemed to consume Victor to the point that he began to collect body parts to make what he hoped to be a new creation. Once he had the body of his new creation built it was time to bring life to his creation. With the knowledge of the electricity, Victor was able to bring the new creation to life. Even though Victor Frankenstein spent several years building his creation, the emotion


Citations: Literature.org the Online Literature Library. www.literature.org Monstrous.com 2011 Frankenstein Psycology www.Frankenstein.monstrous.com/frankenstein_psycology.htm Pamintuan, T. 2002 Its 's Alive:Frankenstein www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2002-09/itsalive.html Shelly, M. 2005 Frankenstein Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics Clayton, Delaware Webmaster, 2010 My Hideous Progeny, Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein www.Home.tiscali.nl/-hamberg/

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Victor Frankenstein’s demise stemmed from his infatuation with the balance of nature and science. Even as a child, Frankenstein longed for answers that no one could give, “ I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn” (28). From that moment Victor’s fate was determined, and his pursuit for these answers soon became an obsession with playing God. However, moments after the birth of his creation, his entire deanor shifts; he suffers remorse, “breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (51). This horror only worsens with his later encounters with the monster and the knowledge of the several murders of his most beloved. Victor Frankenstein gave life and now longed for…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    * Throughout Frankenstein, the reader is left with the feeling that Victor's obsessive desire to defeat nature, through the creation of another life, directly led to the many tragedies that befell him, "Learn from me, if not by my precept, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier…

    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through the theme of birth and creation, Shelley criticizes Victor not only for creating the new being, but also for abandoning it when it comes to life. Shelley's description of how Victor created his creature closely resembles that of human birth. She calls Victor's lab a "workshop of filthy creation" and describes it as a…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As soon as the monster comes to life, Victor is filled with intense revulsion. He explains, "the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.(41)" He is so surprised that it actually happened that he didn’t take time to think about what to do. He doesn’t take care of the creature and he just wishes he had never created it. Victor thinks about creating another creature but then remembers what a bad idea it was to make one in the first place. So he just doesn’t create it at all. This is one of the reasons that the monster becomes so angry with Victor and seeks…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cited: Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and J. Paul Hunter. Frankenstein: The 1818 text, contexts, nineteenth-century responses, modern criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.…

    • 1927 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly tells the story of an obsessive scientist who pursues to defy nature and create unnatural life. Victor Frankenstein attends a university where he is introduced to natural philosophy and soon after becomes consumed with a project replacing all ties to the outside world and those closest to him. When Frankenstein succeeds in bringing life to an inanimate body he is set back immediately by the botched creation he has made. Without a word from the creature, Frankenstein throws a tantrum and ultimately abandons the brand new life he started. As the creature struggles on the search for love and compassion, he encounters continuous rejection because of his distorted appearance and is driven further into isolation…

    • 1601 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A theme of indifference and rejection from society clearly persists through the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh. After Victor Frankenstein, the main protagonist, realizes that reanimation is a tangible reality, a domino effect occurs which in turn alienates not only himself but also his creation from society. The reality of the creature's existence is so gruesome that one begins to understand the negative effects that alienation can have on one's own self-perceived identity. In fact, this estrangement from society perpetuates a downward spiral for the creature as he develops a mind that is unadulterated by moral behavior while also nurturing a strong desire for revenge. Not only does Frankenstein leave the creature to fend for itself, but society rejects it as well. The alienation from all of his surroundings, and his creator feeds the creature's desire for vengeance, ultimately resulting in the deaths of every that his creator Frankenstein held dear to his heart.…

    • 880 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I’ve seen her. I want her. I need her. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I’ve started thinking of ways to make her mine. I can't think clearly whenever I see her, I am just transfixed watching her move and I decide then and there that I have to have her whether she likes it or not. I will be making her life so much better once she is mine. From what I have seen from my car I can see that she will help someone who is in need. The next person she will help will be me, But how do I get her to help me without looking suspicious. I will have to work harder to get her than I thought, But I will do anything for my precious angel. She doesn't know it yet but her life is about to get ten times better once I am part of the picture.…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is proved that his mental state is unbalanced when he states, “My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil” (Shelley 36). As his mental health becomes unstable, he then becomes obsessed with science, making it his highest priority, even above his own health and family. Victor then suddenly became consumed with the concept of creating life artificially, and of the elixir of life. Although Victor does succeed in his dream of creating life, he is soon horrified at the sight of what he has created. He is not proud of the Creature, but disgusted at the sight of it, stating, “the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 57) Victor abandons his creation and leaving it to fend for itself, indirectly causing the murders of loved ones on account of his own shallowness, selfishness, vanity, and disregard of moral…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victor does not think about benefitting other from his creation and causes harm to his beloved ones. He used science to help him with his curiosity but he goes too far and he unleashed a strong evil…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Frankenstien

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the book Frankenstein: a Modern Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein begins to get curious about life and death. He begins to think about bringing people back from the dead, this is when things begin to get dangerous for him. Victor Frankenstein loved to experiment and seeing the bodies move when her ran electricity…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Throughout the novel, emotion of all kinds of heights and depths are explored. Shelley writes “This discovery was so great and overwhelming” (Shelley, 52), to exemplify the exhilaration Frankenstein feels exploring his interests. Frankenstein claims that he “fell senseless on the ground” (Shelley, 212) to encapsulate what he felt when Elizabeth was taken from him and the monster says “To him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge” (Shelley, 153) to show the extent of his hate for his creator. Frankenstein in its entirety shows the whole spectrum of human emotions. From Victor Frankenstein’s perspective, the childhood and even collegiate years have have no major trauma aside from his mother’s death. Frankenstein’s childhood depicts a very elated and passionate state as he mentions “I read and studied the fancies of these writers with delight” (Shelley, 38). At this point he’s very jovial and all those he holds dear including his mother, father, Elizabeth, and Henry Clerval are all close by. Before he enters Ingolstadt, there is a marked change in his life as his mother passes away. He narrates, “It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw everyday and whose very existence appeared a part of her own can have departed forever” (Shelley, 43). His mother’s death causes an emotional toll on Victor and even delays his journey to Ingolstadt. Although this stage of his narration is not as jolly as his childhood, it is less terrifying than the later portion of his story. Despite the tragedy of his mother’s death, Victor is still immersed in the studies that he is passionate about while at Ingolstadt. However, he still isolates himself and his health deteriorates, as his friend Henry Clerval notes that Frankenstein looks “so thin and pale” (Shelley, 62). Frankenstein’s life makes a turn for the worse once he reaches fruition of his…

    • 1511 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful 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

    Victor longed to uncover the secrets of life, so he started with creation, but ultimately he wanted to find a way to bring the dead back to life. "I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation," (Shelley, 45). Victor had good intentions also, he wanted to far surpass the discoveries of previous scientists, and to pave a new way of thinking. Unfortunately, Victor did not think realistically and he turned out to abhor the monster. This caused the monster to runaway and wreak havoc while Victor was sick and powerless over…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The story begins with Victor’s decision to create the Monster. Victor says that he “[s]ucceeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, [he] became capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 43). Immediately, a parallel is drawn to the creation of man in Genesis. This parallel continues when Victor discloses to the reader that he, “[c]ollected bones from charnel-houses and distrusted, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” (Shelley 45). Shelley portrays the creation of Victor’s monster in a subtle but similar way that God created man. Her intention is for readers to focus on the similarities, and at the same time notice the nuances, hinting her moral argument that man cannot exceed his natural boundaries. When God created Adam, he collected dirt from the ground. Similarly, Victor collects bones and scraps of pre-existing human remains. This parallel provides an interesting twist to the story of creation, since it suggests that both man and God have the power to create human life.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays