Victor Frankenstein: The Real Monster

Categories: Frankenstein Victor Frankenstein

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In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the product of supposed discovery and experimentation is abandoned by its so called creator and designer. Before the creature even has a chance to show its true intentions, he is scorned and discarded based solely on appearance. In the novel, the creature is described as wretched and a fiend, however throughout the story the reader has been made aware the creatures capabilities for kindness. The monster exhibits intelligence and endures the rejection from society before resorting to violence and turning to savagery.

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Is the creature inherently evil, or merely acting as he was treated the moment he was created, without love? With these thoughts in mind, an important conception arises: if the creature’s evil intentions were caused by the injustices suffered against him, perhaps he isn’t the monster in this story. When the creature is brought into the word he is a block of clay, waiting to be molded by the society around him, and describes his birth as, “confused and indistinct”.

He is innocent and pure, posing no threat nor showing malicious intent towards Victor. Instead of staying and nurturing the creature, Victor abandons him at birth, describing him as having “yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries…his hair was of a lustrous black…his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…his shriveled complexion and straight black lips. Victor has Jha 2 complete control over what he created, yet chose to make something he despises, the reason why the creature is so abhorred is because of his grotesque appearance.

Despite his amiable intentions society views the creature as only capable of destruction and malice, rejecting the very idea of him.

He is shunned by everyone he comes in contact with, villagers, the people he loves and looks up to and even his own creator. Frankenstein was erroneous to play God and even the thought of manipulating life from death is unnatural and unimaginable. The creature is deemed to be appealing based on appearance as mankind fears what it does not understand. Everywhere the creature went, people beat and rejected him, never once allowing him to show his inner goodness. The first time the creature encounters human contact is when, before he stumbles in, “the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked him, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, he escaped to the open country...”. The world is a harsh place for the creature’s innocent mind, especially when Frankenstein abandons him to survive on his own.

Frankenstein is the real monster as he shows selfish, neglectful, and hateful characteristics toward his creation. His actions caused four easily avoidable deaths and despite the creature delivering the death blows, it was Frankenstein who pushed him to it. The early desertion of the creature by Frankenstein influenced the creature’s change to aggression. The creature is, at the very start of his life, shaped into a product of a society that is incapable and unprepared for the constantly changing and advancing field of science and its consequences. Frankenstein and society hate the creature for being unnatural and for being different than any other creature that has ever existed. The creature’s mind is beautiful and perceptive as he learned how to talk and understand the world around him in a short period of time. But because of Jha 3 Frank enstein’s neglect and rejection of the creature, he despises in ever finding love and enacts his vengeance on his maker. Hate turns the creature into the very being that society assumed of him.

In Romantic themes, monsters are conveyed as failed and faulted objections of mans scientific progress and understanding. Frankenstein created life then left it to be corrupted and hated in a world without discipline or authority. His is instantly hostile towards his animation despite the creature doing nothing to deserve that type of animosity. Victor has no compassion to what he created and turns his back on the creature at its greatest time if need. He does not take into account the severity of his actions and instantly abandons his creature at the moment of his creation. This abandonment sets in motion a series of events that would lead to the death of not only innocent bystanders but the very people Victor swore he would protect and eventually Victor himself. Victor disparaged the requirements of his creation for his own greed which inevitably led to his demise. Victor Frankenstein is the Modern Prometheus, because as he gave life he was also fated to undergo the ramifications of his undertaking.