An Idiot’s Guide to ‘Frankenstein’

Victor Frankenstein: Characterisation

Victor Frankenstein is a character who is full of contradictions and conflicts: the reader is never certain whether he shows bravery or cowardice, or both; he feels guilty about his actions but yet blames the Creature; he is at once both unfeeling and insensitive and yet a loving and caring person. To complicate matters even more, he is an unreliable narrator, so what he says does not necessarily really reflect what is true. For example, he is telling his story to Walton, whom he likes and admires, therefore we can probably safely assume that he glosses over some of the more inglorious scenes in his story and emphasises those parts in which he seems noble and brave. He must have been frightened of the consequences of his actions, yet never fully admits this.

Furthermore, Victor is obsessive and single-minded: this can be seen both in his approach to making the Creature and also in his relentless pursuit of revenge against the Creature (it is ironic that Victor is at first obsessed with creating the Creature, then wholly obsessed with destroying it). He is extremely intelligent in an academic sense, and this makes him a very powerful man, although this is not something he fully grasps himself. However, he is not emotionally intelligent, and this is what causes him to make such fatal errors, for example in abandoning his Creature. He had the brains to transcend the normal rules of science in making a new life form, yet he was not intelligent enough to realise what the consequences of abandoning it would be. This lack of emotional intelligence, and possibly also his extreme sense of pride, is what causes him never to fully take responsibility for his own actions. Even at the end of his life, he blames the Creature for everything which has happened, and does not take into consideration that he should also share some of the blame. Significantly, he has remained completely ignorant of why the Creature killed his loved ones and not himself: the Creature desperately wants Frankenstein to feel what he feels: loneliness and desolateness. He wants him to understand just how terrible his own life has been. Yet Frankenstein never does realise this. He certainly feels desolate and lonely, but never really connects this feeling to how the Creature feels. He also does not understand why the Creature does not kill him (the Creature has no desire really, to kill him. In making Victor chase him, the Creature is getting the only human contact – indeed the only contact – that it has ever had in its life. The Creature does not want Frankenstein to die, and mourns him when he does, because Victor is the only person it’s ever had a relationship with) – proving yet again that he is completely incapable of understanding the Creature’s thoughts and feelings, as a living, breathing being.

Until he meets with the Creature, Victor’s self-obsession is endless. His main concern with his own ambitions is reflected in his irresponsibility. Even he, however, cannot be unmoved by the Creature’s story and agrees to make a female companion for him. Nonetheless, he again

abandons his responsibilities to the Creature by refusing to complete the female. He fears creating a monstrous ‘other’ race who might run riot over the earth; yet the Creature gives no indication that he intends to reproduce, and simply speaks of living in isolation with his companion until both die. Frankenstein’s fear of a ‘multiplication’ of Creatures has, in fact, roots in his own ambitions and self-obsession: when he first has the idea for his experiment he says:

‘A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.’ (p43)

This suggests that he assumes that his own arrogant, egotistical desire to create a ‘race’ must also be in the Creature’s mind. It is this same self-obsession that causes him to assume that the Creature’s threat about his wedding night is directed at him, not at Elizabeth.

The destruction of the female Creature is what sparks off the deaths of Clerval and Elizabeth and the final chase across the northern ice. This chase reveals a change in the balance of power: before the Creature had seemed helpless and dependant on Frankenstein, whereas towards the end he is the dominant one in the relationship, leading Frankenstein across the wilderness and leaving food and messages for him. It also shows that they depend on each other. The Creature significantly kills Frankenstein’s family, not Frankenstein himself. It becomes so that neither can live without the other. In a sense this shows the permanent and binding bond between parent and child. The Creature’s lament at Victor’s death is a cry of pain, anguish and desertion, and also of remorse (a feeling that Frankenstein never shows towards the Creature).

At Victor’s death, he speaks of another who ‘may succeed’ (p. 166) where he has failed and this shows he has learned very little from the suffering he has caused. This is made particularly clear when he does not understand Walton’s desire to turn the expedition around. Even now, after ambition has destroyed him, Victor cannot see the destruction in allowing ambition to take over: the sailors turn back because they realise that the pursuit of their goal is not worth more than their own lives; Victor still cannot see this.

Key Quotations (relating to Frankenstein’s character): Frankenstein’s Narrative (1)

1 “While I admired [Elizabeth’s] understanding and fancy, I loved to tend on her, as I should on a favourite animal; and I never saw so much grace both of person and mind united to so little pretension.”

Here, Victor compares the way he treats Elizabeth to the way he would treat a ‘favourite animal’, which tells us a lot about how he views her. Although it is not an unpleasant comparison – indeed, he calls her his ‘favourite’ – and although he is praising her ‘grace of person and mind’, it is clear he does not really fully respect her. He refers to her as being like a pet – a possession to keep and love, but not an equal – which tells us he does not view her as someone who is the same as him. He obviously believes she is there to love him unconditionally; and that he can pick her up and drop her when he pleases, as he would an animal. This also becomes clear through his actions towards her – he leaves her for years on end and yet she is expected never to complain, which she doesn’t, and to welcome him lovingly without reproach when he returns.

2. “…I entered with the greatest diligence into the search for the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. But the latter obtained my most undivided attention: wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!”

This is a very revealing statement: Victor wishes to find the legendary ‘elixir of life’, a potion which would keep a person alive by banishing disease and old age, but not because he wants to help others; instead, it is because of the ‘glory’ that will come from the discovery of it. His motivations are purely selfish. It also reveals Victor to be a person who craves attention, admiration and praise; therefore, we should be cautious about believing everything he says in the novel, as he tells his story to Walton, a person who he respects and admires. It is probably safe to say that Victor tries to paint himself in a very favourable light to Walton, since he has already given away that he thrives on admiration and attention from others.

3. “No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bored me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success…A new species would bless me as its creator and source: many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude so completely as I should deserve their’s.”

The comparison to a hurricane here is particularly effective as hurricanes are destructive, powerful forces which quickly obliterate everything in their path; similarly Victor’s incredible obsession spurs him on, and his ability and intelligence make him powerful, yet destructive (as the consequences of his actions prove him to be). He also lets slip his reasons for wishing to create another life form, and in particular, why he wanted to create an intelligent being, like a human: he says ‘a new species would bless me as its creator’. Victor is clearly stating that he desires to be thought of as like a God: he wants to be admired, respected and, importantly, revered by the new species. He does not want to study a new species because he is fascinated by the science of it, or teach a new species, or to create a new species for any other moral or good reason; he simply wants them to worship him.

Even more interestingly though, he refers to himself as a ‘father’ here. This is significant, as it shows that Victor did have some sort of awareness of the responsibilities of a creator towards his Creature, yet he does not fulfil these responsibilities (he also shows awareness of this later, when he speaks to the Creature for the first time; a sense of nagging guilt comes over him and he admits he has duties towards it as its creator).

4. “The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.”

Victor is contradictory here: in chapter five, when the Creature is ‘born’, he says that he had selected his features to be “beautiful” (see the quotation below), however here, before the Creature is ‘born’, he admits to feeling a sense of ‘loathing’ when he dealt with materials from the slaughter-house, therefore proving that he was not oblivious to the fact he was creating a monstrous looking creature, despite what he tells Walton. However, he carries on with his task because he is obsessed with the idea of creating a new species, and the glory what would come from that.

5. “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God!”

See above.

6. “I stepped fearfully in: the apartment was empty; and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me; but when I became assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy, and ran down to Clerval.”

Victor tries very hard here to persuade Walton of his point of view, that he had done no wrong: his language is very carefully chosen to try and get Walton on his side. He uses words like ‘fearfully’ to suggest that he was in danger, and ‘freed’ to suggest he had escaped some terrible fate. Furthermore, he uses emotive words like ‘hideous’ to describe the Creature, and ‘enemy’, even though at this point the Creature has done nothing wrong, or nothing to Victor. It merely exists, because Victor has made it exist. Victor calls it ‘enemy’ because he is speaking in retrospect, after the Creature has indeed become his enemy, and because he wants to impress Walton: relating how he abandoned his vulnerable Creature is not going to impress him, so he uses words such as ‘enemy’ instead.

Furthermore, he talks about his ‘good fortune’ that the Creature has vacated his apartment. This shows Victor to be cowardly and irresponsible, as if the Creature really was evil, then he would have unleashed it onto the world without a thought; and if it was not evil, then he has abandoned an innocent, vulnerable new being in a world it knows nothing about.

7. “A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine; but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.”

Again, we can see here another example of Victor’s unreliable narration. This should be taken with a pinch of salt, as Victor is clearly trying to present himself in a more favourable light to Walton. That he might be considered mad by the judges is indeed a possibility, but it does not really hold up as an excuse to say nothing for two reasons: firstly, Victor kept a journal of his work and is an acclaimed scientist at the university. Therefore, he can prove his scientific discovery through the workings in his journal and the professors at the university can vouch for his character. Well-educated, professional men of high standing in society would be taken very seriously by a court; Victor himself would be taken far more seriously by the court, despite his strange tale, than Elizabeth, who was a woman and therefore less respected (women were considered irrational, hysterical beings whose word could not be relied upon to be true). Moreover, whether he would be considered a madman or not does not really matter when a close family friend’s life is actually at stake for a crime she did not commit. Victor actually lets

Justine die a terrible death, with a blackened reputation, because he is simply too cowardly to speak up and damage his own reputation. This shows Victor at his very worst.

8. “I believed in her innocence. I knew it. Could the daemon, who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother, also in his hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy…I rushed out of the court in agony…but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom, and would not forego their hold.”

Again, this is typical of Victor: throughout the novel he blames others for the consequences of his own actions. His transfers the blame for his own inaction onto the Creature. Certainly the Creature is guilty of the murder of William, and of framing Justine, but it has not ‘betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy’, i.e. Justine. It is Victor who does this, yet he blames the Creature. Yet again, he is unable to take responsibility for his actions.

9. “When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed. When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation…I wished to see him again, that I might wreck the utmost extent of anger on his head, and avenge the deaths of William and Justine.”

Victor’s anger is very touching here, and it expressed eloquently through expressions such as ‘gnashed my teeth’ and ‘eyes became inflamed’, yet he does not see the irony of what he is saying. He himself wishes to become a murderer because the Creature murdered his brother. Furthermore, he talks about his thoughtlessness in respect to creating the Creature, yet he does not reflect that he is being similarly thoughtless in entering in his vengeful plan of killing the Creature.

Before the Creature tells Frankenstein his story:

10. “I proceeded…and determined at least to listen to his tale…For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness.”

Victor, like a real person, is full of contradictions. He shows blatant disregard for his Creature for much of the story, yet is moved by him to feel ‘what the duties of a creator towards his

creature were’. However, despite this epiphany (realisation), he slips back into his old ways again and does not ‘render him happy.’

Contradictions in Victor's Character

CompassionThroughout the story, although Victor displays the

ability to feel compassion for others.

InsensitivityDespite Victor's compassion at certain times

throughout the novel, he is also guilty of incredible insensitivity.

Victor is deeply upset when his mother dies: “I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance.”

After Victor's initial shock at creating his Creature, he still runs away from it after it seeks him:

“He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detail me, but I escaped, and rushed down the stairs.”

Victor is both cowardly and insensitive here: cowardly because he does not have the strength to face the consequences of his actions; insensitive because his Creature has sought him out for guidance, and he abandons him without any thoughts of his feelings, or indeed, any thoughts about whether he has any feelings.

After the Creature tells its tale, Frankenstein feels compassion for it:

“I was moved...I felt there was some justice in his argument.”

“ I compassioned him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him.”

It would be prudent to remember that when Victor meets the Creature for the first time, the Creature has already murdered his young, innocent brother. It would be very difficult for anyone to feel compassion for the murderer of a child, especially a sibling. It begs the question that if Victor had met with the Creature before it murdered anyone, would he have then felt compassion enough to

When Victor decides to destroy the female Creature, he approaches the situation without any sensitivity to the Creature's feelings. He thoughtlessly and cruelly rips her apart so that the room is covered in blood and flesh. To Victor, this means nothing as he views the Creatures are less than human (he says, “I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being” - the emphasis here is on the word 'almost'). However, he does not think about how this will affect the Creature, who sees his future wife, literally all of his hopes of happiness reside with her creation - being torn to shreds in a frenzied attack. Furthermore, he actually does this in front of the Creature:

“As I looked on him...trembling with passion, [I]

take responsibility and be a father to it? tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.”

Victor says he does not create the female Creature because he had no way of knowing whether she would be a good or evil, and did not want to unleash a 'devil' on the world. This argument is reasonable, however he was completely insensitive to the Creature's feelings to destroy her in front of her eyes. A more sensitive person would have had a conversation with him to explain why he would not finish the female Creature.

He loves Elizabeth and shows compassion when he tells her to retire so that she will not see the fight, which he expects will occur, between he and the Creature:

“...I reflected how dreadful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her to retire.”

He is also grief-stricken when she dies:

“I rushed towards her and embraced her with ardour; but the deathly languor and coldnes of the limbs tols me, that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished...I hung over her in an agony of despair.”

He is also insensitive to Elizabeth's feelings throughout the whole novel. She is required to wait for him to marry her, without complaining. When he tells her he will tell her his secret after he has married her, he is being both selfish and insensitive, as he is abusing her good will:

“I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder I survive what I have endured. I will confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place; for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. But until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude to it. This I most earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply.”

Learns From Mistakes Does Not Learn From Mistakes

He tells Walton several times that he does not wish Walton to follow the same path of destruction that he has, and that the pursuit of knowledge has caused him to lose everything:

“You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”

Despite saying all of this, he actually encourages Walton to press on with his voyage, even though it would be far more prudent to turn back as there is danger of death. Walton’s voyage is also in pursuit of knowledge (knowledge of discovering a new continent of ice) and glory, as Victor’s was. Yet, rather than recognising the dangers of pursuing this quest for knowledge, as he seems to have done before, he tells Walton and his crew to stop at nothing to achieve it:

“Frankenstein…roused himself, his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said – ‘…are you so easily turned from your design?...Do not return to your families with the stigma of

disgrace marked on your brows.’”

When Walton questions him about how he made the Creature, he replies:

“’Are you mad, my friend?’ said he, ‘or whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy …Peace, peace! Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.”

Again, this can be contrasted with the fact that Frankenstein appears to have learned nothing when he tells Walton to continue on his voyage (see above).

Gives up his life to pursue and destroy the Creature, because he wants to correct his mistake:

“If I were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive utility to my fellow-creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But such is not my destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled, and I may die.”

Frankenstein also says that he does not think he should blame himself for anything which has happened:

“Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I feel that burning hatred, and ardent desire of revenge, I once expressed, these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blameable .”

Frankenstein’s perspective is entirely different from the Creature’s and our own, more objective, viewpoint: he believes that he has learned from his mistakes because he has learned that he was wrong to have created the Creature (although there are arguments which say he has not even learned this). However, our perspective and the Creature’s is that he cannot have learned from his own mistakes because to do so he would have needed to have taken responsibility for the subsequent tragic events, and he never does.

Although he does indeed do this, from his perspective, selfless act, he never truly really does take responsibility for what has happened: he blames the Creature for everything that has happened but does not consider that the Creature’s actions are his own responsibility, both for the fact that he unleashed the Creature on the world, and also for the fact that he did not take responsibility for the Creature’s well being and education.

Frankenstein’s Narrative (2)

Frankenstein’s Cowardliness:

1. “…often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities together. But I was restrained, when I thought of the heroic

and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly loved, and whose existence was bound up in mine.”

Probably, the most courageous and selfless thing that Frankenstein could do is to commit suicide, because then the Creature would not kill anybody in order to hurt him, however, Victor believes that the Creature wants to kill him, not those around him, which of course is not true. This shows a complete lack of understanding as to the motives and feelings of his creature, who, of course, both loves and hates him, who wants to see him suffer but not die. Yet, does Victor believe this, or is this what he tells Walton to cover up the fact that he was so cowardly he could not part with his own life to save others? The answer is not clear. It seems unbelievable that Victor could be so blind not to understand that the Creature can, and would, kill his family (after all, he murdered a young child), yet Victor is in many ways blind, so perhaps this is the truth of it. In any case, his claim to not commit suicide for Elizabeth’s sake seems unconvincing and therefore it is far more likely that he simply did not have the guts.

2. “I had now made arrangements for my journey; but one feeling haunted me, which filled me with fear and agitation. During my absence I should leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy, and unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my departure. But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go; and would he not accompany me to England? … I allowed myself

to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me, and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations.”

Again, Victor only manages to thinly veil his utter cowardice. He is clearly too terrified to admit to anyone what he has done, as people would hate and scorn him, and because he could now also be held accountable for doing something probably illegal (creating a new life form) but also for the Creature’s murder of innocent people. Perhaps this is understandable, but not excusable: he puts his family’s lives at risk, as well as his friends, in not warning them of the potential dangers of the Creature. What is astounding about Victor’s cowardice though, is that he does not even consider telling his family to warn them; he knows that is something he would never do. Even at the end of his life, he tells one person only of what he has done: a person he barely knows, in the wilderness of the Arctic, and who might die himself on the journey.

3. “Sometimes I thought the fiend followed me, and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime.”

See above for Victor’s cowardliness. What is interesting is Victor’s use of language. He is very persuasive and eloquent, which is also something that he accuses the Creature of . He uses words like ‘protect’ to suggest that he is the ‘good guy’ and ‘destroyer’ to make the Creature sound evil. He presents opinions as facts: ‘I was guiltless’, which is another persuasive technique, in order to convince Walton of his point of view and he distances himself from any responsibility by saying that he was innocent, but had brought a ‘curse’ upon his head, therefore implying that something else had caused all his misfortune (as a curse is usually bestowed by someone else). He is extremely eloquent and succeeds in persuading Walton that he is indeed the victim of all of this; he seems much less convinced of this himself, although he also does a good job of persuading himself too. Moreover, he can be compared to Satan here, as Satan is renowned for speaking deceptively and persuasively; when Victor accuses the Creature of eloquence and warns Walton against listening to him, he is implying that the Creature’s eloquence is dangerous, like Satan.

4. “During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently fixed on the sequel of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.”

Frankenstein’s arguments for not creating the female:

5. “I was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed its own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also

might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species.”

These arguments are sound, and we can see real truth in what Victor is saying. This is not cowardice; instead he is now being selfless, brave, and perhaps noble. The way he goes about telling the Creature he will not make a mate is rash and wrong, however his arguments for doing so are reasonable.

6. “Even if they were to leave Europe…one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth.”

On one sense, this is a fairly reasonable argument: the Creature certainly hates mankind and has murdered many people (remember, Victor has never directly murdered anyone, for all his faults): many countries still today have the death penalty for this crime. He has done evil, evil things to innocent people. So, we cannot really blame Victor for being apprehensive about creating another being like the first one. If they did have the ability to reproduce, as Victor thinks they would (and he is the creator) then perhaps it really is a dangerous thing. Victor barely knows his creature: he does not know if he can trust his word – after all, all he does know of him is that he viciously and coldly murders his family, including a young child. Victor has not seen the Creature’s gentle nature, and neither have we – we only hear of it from the Creature; we do see his vicious side. Is it wise to make another Creature, enabling them to reproduce, when this new race of beings is more powerful and agile than humans? Perhaps not. Victor here, arguably, is doing a courageous and selfless thing, in rationally and intelligently considering the consequences of making a mate for his creature. This shows that, in this sense at least, he definitely has learned from his mistake.

7. “Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? … I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness hesitated to buy its own peace at the price perhaps of the whole human race.”

See above. Yes, Victor is considering that it would be perhaps selfish and reckless to make another Creature, but maybe there is a different motive for not making it: look more closely at what he is saying. He can’t bear to ‘think that future ages might curse me as their pest’. Is this Victor’s pride and desire for glory and admiration coming into play again? He cannot stand the thought that his name will go down in history for something shameful; he wants glory for doing

something amazing. Perhaps it is not such a noble, selfless thing he is doing as might his motivations be, again, based purely on selfish reasons?

8. “I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words – “I will be with you on your wedding night.” That then was the period fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die, and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice.”

Is he telling the truth? Is he so blind that he cannot interpret the Creature’s threat correctly? Maybe, maybe not. The fact that he at first thinks that it will be another person is suspect: why, or how, could he convince himself otherwise after that, without having at least some fear for those around him?

7. “The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being.”

The word ‘almost’ proves again that Victor does not really see the Creature as a worthwhile being: he sees him as less than human despite having endowed him himself with all the attributes and qualities of a human being AND despite saying earlier, after he met the Creature for the first time after the murder of William, that he was of ‘fine sensations’.

8. “The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me ; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act if mine could avert it. I had resolved in my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.”

This can be said to prove Victor is unfailingly noble. Certainly he is trying to persuade Walton of this, but it might also be true.

9. “Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, and she suffered the same charge; she died for it; and I am the cause of this – I murdered her. William, Justine and Henry – they all died by my hands.”

Victor tells his father this in the midst of his guilt. He does seem to take responsibility here for their deaths – he certainly admits that he was the cause of it all. This is perhaps the closest he comes to actually admitting guilt. However, he contradicts himself when he says that Justine was ‘as innocent as I’, which contradicts everything he says later about assuming responsibility.

10. “I avoided explanation [of his reaction to Clerval’s death], and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a feeling that I should be supposed mad, and this for ever chained my tongue, when I would have given the whole world to have confided the fatal secret.”

Two contradictory statements by Victor, again, when he says he would give the whole world to confide his secret, but will not give up his status to do so because he is concerned he will appear mad. It does not add up. Also, it shows his selfishness, as it is only a ‘feeling’ that he has; he never puts it to the test, never tries to reveal the truth. This would be the brave thing to do but Victor does not do it and tries to cover up his cowardice.

11. “I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood drop by drop, to have saved their lives but I could not, my father, indeed could not sacrifice the whole human race.”

See number 9. Also, this is contradictory to what he says in number 8, that he misinterpreted the Creature’s threat. Here, he is suggesting that he has sacrificed his family for the sake of the whole human race, therefore it we could assume that he has let slip that he knew exactly what the Creature was threatening.

12. “I would rather have banished myself for ever from my native country, and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth, than have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions; and when I thought that I prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.”

Again, see no. 8 and no. 11. Victor argues that the Creature ‘blinded’ him with his ‘magic powers’, meaning that Victor did not interpret his threat correctly. This seems like a weak argument and there seems to be two possible reasons for this: that Victor knew that the Creature was threatening to kill Elizabeth at the time and does not want to admit it; that he feels guilty and stupid for not realising that the Creature was threatening her and is trying to

cover up his own guilt by blaming the Creature (for what is, in fact, a clear threat). Again, he alludes to the idea of the Creature being like the devil, with his ‘magic powers’ of persuasion and eloquence.

13. “I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how dreadful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her to retire.”

Victor again displays an unnerving disregard for Elizabeth’s feelings; he doesn’t mean to be insensitive, it’s just the way he is. It takes a whole hour for it to occur to him that to engage in a fight to the death with a creature that looks like a monster (which Elizabeth knows nothing about) might just be a little bit of a terrible experience for his wife-to-be!

14. “A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness: no creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful and event is single in the history of man…one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left desolate.”

Victor again displays a frightening lack of understanding and awareness of what is actually happening and of his own creature. He claims ‘no creature had ever been so miserable as I’ yet, even though he uses the word ‘creature’ does not make the connection between the Creature’s miserable situation and his own: he simply does not understand that the Creature wants him to feel desolate so that he will understand how the Creature feels and so that he will turn to the Creature after having no other family left.

15. “…as I awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause – the monster whom I had created.”

Like the quotation in number 9, Victor blames the Creature fully for his misfortunes. This is again contradictory to what he says in 11, where he claims responsibility for everything.

To the magistrate after the Creature kills Elizabeth; he finally admits what he has made:

16. “My revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul. My rage is unspeakable, when I reflect that

the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists. You refuse my just demand: I have but one resource; and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction.”

Two things: Victor’s love has disappeared with the death of his family, and therefore turned to hate. Love and hate are the two most powerful human emotions and when I person cannot love, the emotions they feel often turn to hatred. This is what happens with Victor. Also, again (see no. 8), he appears to devote himself to a cause. However, there is a difference to what he says in 8: before, he devoted himself out of selflessness and a desire to protect the human race; now, he devotes himself to the Creature’s destruction out of hatred and a desire for revenge.

More Analysis of Victor Frankenstein

Victor comes across very badly in the novel, as – although he tries to conceal it – his cowardliness is obvious through the choices he makes. However, Mary Shelley deliberately put Victor’s narrative before the Creature’s in the novel: she wanted us to try and understand his side of the story. For all his faults, Victor is very human. He makes mistakes – many of them – and does not always learn from them. This is a very human, normal thing. Shelley’s character is real, and because he is real he does not follow the prescribed outline of a hero, the usual protagonist of a nineteenth century novel. He has faults, makes bad choices and then tries to cover up the fact that he has faults – like we all do sometimes. Nobody likes to appear in a bad light in front of other people, and most of the time we don’t need to because our faults and mistakes are not big enough to need to own up to (perhaps something which we have said about someone else we wished we hadn’t. If it goes unnoticed, then why would we own up?).

Victor’s, however, are very different. He is a unique person: extremely talented, intelligent and enthusiastic, making him a very magnetic, powerful individual. His enthusiasm and obsessive nature, when channelled into the right things, cause him to be successful and to be admired – as he was at the university. However, his enthusiasm and ambition, when channelled into the wrong things – such as making his Creature – are dangerous because Victor himself is so powerful, although he is not really aware of this himself.

He simply makes a mistake: he goes overboard. This is, again, something we are all capable of. In most normal people, this is usually something simple, such as getting too carried away, and taking a joke too far, or carrying it on for too long; in Victor, who is so powerful, it results in the creation of an actual life form, when no thought or preparation has gone into what will happen to that life form after it is created.

Victor is young, and does not think of the consequences of his actions. Again, this is something which the vast majority of young people are guilty of, as it is caused by youth. Lessons really are learned

through experience. However, most young people are able to make simple mistakes that do not really affect anything too severely; Victor’s mistake is disastrous. When he realises his mistake, he is frightened. He is firstly terrified of what he has done, and avoids facing up to his mistake by running from the Creature (although this is never something he admits to Walton: he is too proud). Childishly, although understandably, he hopes it will just go away and he won’t have to deal with it. However, he only realises that he must face up to it when the Creature approaches him. He does, at this point, see sense and understand the Creature’s perspective and in this part we see Victor at his best: he is understanding, brave and reasonable.

Yet, why does he forget what the Creature has told him and revert back to his previous cowardly ways? Well, two whole years have passed. Think about yourself, two years ago. Did you think the same way? Were you into the same things? Can you even really remember very clearly everything that happened? Time is a strange thing. As time goes by, things that we thought and felt change or fade away. The same would happen with Victor. As time goes by and the Creature doesn’t attack his family, he becomes more and more complacent. This is misguided, but perfectly natural. As time goes by, he forgets more and more how reasonable the Creature sounded and remembers only those things which he cannot forget, such as the murder of his younger brother. Therefore, the reasons for making a female mate for his Creature fade more and more over time. Again, this is wrong, but it is a natural response.

Furthermore, Victor is a very frightened young man after the Creature’s ‘birth’. He suddenly realises what he has done: unleashed a being into the world that looks like a monster out of a nightmare. He has also created life without the express permission of the university. He has created this being from dead flesh, and where he got this flesh from is never fully explained (he mentions slaughter-houses, but skims over this part of the tale – did he get any of this flesh from human corpses? It seems that he must have. If so, where did this flesh come from?). The being that he created is more agile, hardier and more robust than humans – what are the dangers of creating another race of beings which are more powerful than us? Lastly, and most importantly, he is responsible for this being and he suddenly realises he has no idea what to do with it. He is a young man. Is he any worse than a young woman who makes a mistake and abandons her child because she is too frightened to cope with it? This happens all the time too: abortions, adoptions and young girls who abandon their children out of fear. Victor’s reaction is not so unusual. He is, quite simply, very frightened. And, when he is telling his story, he does not want us to judge him too harshly, so he tries to excuse his behaviour. This is also natural.

Similarly, it is this same reason that he does not own up to his family. He is purely frightened. How might they react? It is such a big, powerful mistake that they might well turn from him and abandon him: after all, he caused the death of William, in a sense. Frankenstein cannot be admired for these actions, but he can, I think, be sympathised with as well as criticised.

So, Victor can be criticised very harshly for his role in the novel: he is cowardly, irresponsible and reckless, with fatal, disastrous outcomes and certainly he should be blamed for this. However, he is also very human, and while it might not make us look on him any more favourably, it definitely makes us understand his actions more, even if we don’t excuse them.

The Creature

The Creature comes into the world by a pretty terrible set of circumstances. He has the strength of a giant, yet an infant mind. He initially – or so he says - has a gentle nature, yet his physical defects hide his goodness and make everyone fear and mistreat him. He is rejected by his own creator because of his hideous looks. His feelings are the most deep and moving of any character’s in this novel, as well as the most conflicted.

The Creature is like a new-born baby when he is abandoned. He cannot talk, knows nothing of the world and is vulnerable and open to attack. He is forced to discover his own basic needs. He is a victim of prejudice: he soon learns that his hideous appearance makes him despised and rejected, despite his gentle nature. He longs for human companionship but spends his life isolated, desolate and friendless. His isolation from humanity is marked by his namelessness, and by the words used by Frankenstein and Walton to dehumanise him: ‘devil’, daemon’, ‘monster’. Not only do these words have extremely negative connotations (‘devil’ is representative of evil as a concept in itself and the most evil creature known to the western world), but they are all words which are given to non-human creatures. Therefore, it dehumanises him.

Furthermore, since the Creature has no name of his own, he’s not quite an independent person. Instead, he’s tied to his creator. He is nothing without Victor. He is as much a part of Frankenstein as he is his own being. This starts to get at the sob-fest at the end of the text. We, like every other reader, react something like this: "What? We thought Victor and the monster were enemies! What’s going on?" Exactly. What is going on? The Creature may hate Victor, want to take vengeance on him, want to kill all his friends in gruesome and inhuman ways, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love him. He, like any child, has yearned to be loved by its father, or in the Creature’s case, his creator. Victor was his last connection to humanity. If you hadn’t noticed, the Creature is one of many people in this text that suffers from loneliness, solitude, and an all around yearning for companionship. Victor may have scorned him, hated him, and tried repeatedly to kill him, but hey, at least he talks to the Creature. At least he acknowledges the Creature’s existence. And for a person (thing. Being. Monster.) who’s spent most of his miserable life in hiding and exile, this can be pretty appealing. Good or bad, Victor is the only relationship he’s ever had.

To make matters more confusing, the Creature is compared to both Adam and Satan in Paradise Lost (a narrative poem about the biblical stories in Genesis). This may seem slightly unclear, as Adam was the first man to be created by God, and was loved by him; Satan was a fallen angel who fell out of grace with God and became his bitter enemy: Adam was ‘good’ and Satan was ‘evil’. The thing to keep in mind is

that the idea at the core of the Creature is his duality (i.e. his “doubleness”) . His very complex duality. He is at once man in his pure state before the Fall of Mankind, before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge forbidden to them by God (the Fall = evil), and yet the incarnation of evil itself (what with all his murdering and such). Remember, the Creature was happier before he had any knowledge of the world and of how prejudiced the world was against him: knowledge, you might say, was his downfall. Hmm…this is starting to sound a little like Victor Frankenstein. Complex duality…conflicting characterisation…could it be that the Creature resembles his maker in his duality?

Now, whether or not you’d like to admit it, you felt a bit sad at the ending. Come on, a little bit. Why is that? Because we, the readers, really like the Creature. He’s a nice guy. He’s compassionate. He’s people-smart. He saves a little girl’s life. People are just prejudiced against him because he’s ugly. Can we blame him if he lashes out in unexpected and absurdly violent ways?

Do we blame him? Do we hate him? Do we love him? These are more conflicting emotions. Could it be that we, the reader, feel the same duality of emotions that the Creature and Victor feel for each other?

The Creature is at first gentle, helpless, vulnerable, loving and yearns for human companionship. In many ways he is more human than Victor, as Victor lacks compassion and reason. However, after many rejections, the Creature’s love turns to bitter hate. This is important to 18 th century thinking: John Locke suggested that people were neither good nor evil at birth, but became one or the other through the experiences which shaped them. Therefore, the Creature’s experiences of rejection and prejudice turn him to the crimes he commits.

Shelley suggests that ‘creation’ does not stop at the moment when life is bestowed, but that your life experiences also ‘create’ you and continue to ‘create’ you until you die. In this way, Victor ‘creates’ the Creature by bestowing life, but also ‘creates’ a monster by rejecting him, since by rejecting the Creature he is causing him to commit evil acts instead of good ones.

The Creature’s account of his continued attempts to make friendly contact with others, and the hostility with which he is constantly met, thus marks him as a tragic figure whose testimony is deeply moving.

Key Quotations (Relating to the Creature)

1. “I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption; but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots, which I gathered from a neighbouring wood…I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours…I…brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.”

The Creature, before he is spurned and rejected, is a gentle, thoughtful, kind being: he brings the De Lacey’s firewood and does not take food from them when he realises that he was hurting them.

2. “I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I was, have made me what I am.”

The Creature shows a deep sensitivity and self-awareness which is in direct contrast to Victor, who rarely displays any signs of being aware of how his surroundings, experiences and actions shape him (e.g. he has no idea that his actions towards the Creature made the Creature what it was).

3. “I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants…was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?”

The Creature appears as a sensitive, thoughtful, emotional being; again we can contrast this with Victor, who is self-centred and never thinks about others around him, much less about people he does not know (think about how insensitive Victor is to Elizabeth and his family – such as never visiting them – and compare it to the Creature weeping over the fate of people who lived years before and who he had never met).

4. “Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock.”

Here, the Creature sounds very much like Victor. He too bemoans the acquisition of knowledge because, like Victor, it has only brought him harm. The simile used is effective because once a lichen attaches itself to a rock, it is almost impossible to remove it; likewise, the Creature feels like knowledge clings to him in a similar way, and he cannot get rid of it.

5. “I was shut off from intercourse with them…The gentle words of Agatha, and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian, were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old man, and the lively conversation of the beloved Felix, were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!”

The repetition of ‘were not for me’ emphasises how alone and desolate the Creature truly is: he literally has nobody to converse with, to have a relationship with.

6. “No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses.”

This is very poignant and fills the reader with emotion for the Creature as the idea of having no mother and father is one that few of us can comprehend. It also shows that the Creature had no guidance in life, no one to tell him what was right and wrong, or to keep him on the right track when he was angry, upset and alone. Therefore, we feel we cannot blame the Creature too much for his wrongdoing.

7. “But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions…I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect…I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.”

See the notes in your jotter for how the Creature compares himself to Adam and also to Satan.

8. “Cursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of your’s, more horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.”

The Creature shows clear and rational reasoning here, of a kind that we never see from Victor. Certainly, it is something that the reader wonders about: why exactly did Victor create a monstrous looking being which he himself actually ran away from!? It also again emphasises the Creature’s desolateness and the comparison to Satan reinforces this. The Creature suggests that Satan, who lives in Hell – a place of eternal agony – is in a better position than he is, because at least Satan has companions.

9. “Increase of knowledge only discovered to me what a wretched outcast I was.”

See no. 4

10. “…it was all a dream: no Eve soothed my sorrows, or shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator [Adam asks God for a wife]; but where was mine? He had abandoned me, and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him.”

See no.7

11. “[Felix] dashed me to the ground, and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained.”

The Creature’s good, gentle nature comes out, even as he feels angry and hurt. He takes a beating from Felix, though he has done no wrong, and yet does not hurt him back, despite being of superior strength. The simile is effective in depicting this superior strength, as the comparison to a lion eating an antelope is very graphic, and we can picture exactly what bloody death and destruction the Creature could have wracked on Felix, had he decided to do so.

12. After Felix beats him and he runs from the house:

“I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.”

This is a key quotation, as it is the first time the Creature’s gentle feelings are turned to hatred and bitterness. He is angry and hurt, and it is a natural reaction to want to destroy and to hurt when you yourself are hurt. We understand why he feels this way. It is also significant that he says he ‘could have’, but didn’t, destroy them and their home. It takes more than this for the Creature to resort to violence.

13. “All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment; I, like the arch fiend [Satan], bore a hell within me; and, finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.”

See no. 7

14. “There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.”

The moment when the Creature turns to revenge and hatred against all of humanity, after he is shot whilst saving the life of a little girl.

15. “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.”

See no. 8

16. “I was scarcely hid, when a young girl came running towards the spot where I was concealed…suddenly her foot slipt; and she fell into the rapid stream. I rushed from my hiding place, and, with extreme labour from the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to shore…but when the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body, and fired…The feelings of kindness and gentleness…gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.”

See no. 14

17. When the Creature tries to capture William as a companion :

“Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy - to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.”

It is important to note that the Creature does not at first plan to kill William. Instead he wants to take him and raise him as a companion for him, as he believes children have no prejudices. Therefore, even though he has declared vengeance on mankind, in reality he still does not really want to hurt anyone. It is not until he realises that William is in fact prejudiced, despite being so young, and that he is related to Frankenstein, that he loses control and strangles him.

18. “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse.”

The Creature is transforming from the passive, gentle being he was into a much more assertive, demanding being (much more, in fact, like Victor). The language he uses is demanding and persuasive: ‘must’, ‘necessary’, ‘demand’. He also understands the responsibilities of a creator; Victor, obviously, does not.

19. “You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder, if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands.”

Again this references the point that Victor does not see the Creature as a respectable being, a being whose life is precious. The Creature yet again has a very, very clear understanding of Victor which can be immediately contrasted with Victor’s lack of understanding of the Creature.

20. “…you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess.”

The Creature sees very clearly into Victor’s character as he ‘hits the nail on the head’ when he says that Victor does not think about the fact that he is also to blame for what has happened. This shows the Creature to be perceptive.

21. “If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them an hundred and an hundred fold.”

Important as it shows that the Creature is not evil at the core, as Victor suggests he is, and that the evil deeds he has committed have been a result of circumstances and a lack of guidance, nurture and love. Although this only comes from the Creature’s mouth and can’t be verified by anyone else, we are far more likely to believe the Creature than Victor, as Walton’s account of how the Creature talks and acts is much like Victor’s: the Creature seems like a more reliable narrator, although we have no way of proving this.

22. “…if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”

Again reinforcing the theme that without love, emotions turn negative – to fear and hatred.

23. “If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion.”

See above.

24. “Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.”

Here, the Creature has usurped Victor’s role and is now the one who is playing God. Like God, he vows to strike down mankind, even innocent people, for the crimes the rest of mankind has committed. He is now so bitter that he speaks to all of mankind, lumping everyone together, because he does not believe humans are capable of showing him any love and overcoming prejudice against him. The comparison to a snake marks him out as dangerous, stealthy and evil and again alludes to the comparison to Satan, who assumed the form of a snake to tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

What Walton Says About the Creaure

25. “When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror, and sprung towards the window.”

This shows the Creature’s fear and apprehension of mankind; he now knows that he will be attacked and spurned and so jumps for the window without trying to speak to Walton. It also shows the Creature mourning Victor’s death, and proves that, despite everything, he still yearned for Victor’s love.

26. “I called on him to stay. He paused, looking on me with wonder…he turned…and every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some uncontrollable passion.”

The Creature’s reaction to Walton’s respect for him shows again just how little respect he has received in his life, that he is wondrous that a person should ask him to wait, instead of running away or attacking him. The ‘uncontrollable passion’ again reinforces his feeling for Victor.

27. “Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me?”

He asks Frankenstein for forgiveness, which again proves the Creature to be more truly human than Victor was: he repents his sins and shows remorse. Victor never does this. The Creature is a being of compassion, even at the very end.

28. “A frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think ye that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible to love and sympathy; and, when wrenched my misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, such as you cannot even imagine.”

This again perhaps shows that the Creature does not lose his compassion: he says he never enjoyed what he was doing. However, it is a weak argument, as he still committed those crimes. It is important to remember that, despite how we pity the Creature, he is still capable of violent, brutal murder of innocent people, including children. This shows again the fine line between love and hatred and Mary Shelley reinforces the idea that without love, emotion turns to hate.

Other Notes:

Narrative Form

The narrative is multi-layered, enclosing narratives within narratives. It is also symmetrical:

Walton – Frankenstein – the Creature – Frankenstein – Walton

Many people have seen this unusual narrative form as a deliberate attempt to weaken the text: each narrator is telling a version of the story, not the version; therefore the reader is invited to question all the different accounts of the story offered by the different characters, and consequently to draw their own conclusions.

It is also significant that the Creature’s narrative, which is the heart and centre of the story, literally lies at the heart of the text (i.e. it is the middle narrative). It therefore is in the best place to express the heartfelt themes of abandonment, responsibility and the effect of the environment. Furthermore, it is deliberate that we hear Frankenstein’s account first and are therefore encouraged to be prejudiced before we hear the Creature’s account. Shelley does this deliberately so we are surprised to find the Creature a reasonable being: she wants us to see that prejudice is in all of us that that we should all examine ourselves and our attitudes towards others. It also highlights the importance of perspective: what Victor sees is not necessarily what we see, or what others see.

Walton is the primary narrator, as Frankenstein’s and the Creature’s narratives are told through him. However, Shelley also uses him to introduce some of the key themes of the novel. For example, Walton is on a voyage of discovery to the North Pole, which he describes as ‘those shores which I so ardently desire to attain’ (p.19). This ambition of his foreshadows the ambitions of Frankenstein.

However, Walton also has parallels with the Creature: his ‘neglected’ education even though he was ‘passionately fond of reading’ (p.14) foreshadows the Creature’s self-education through reading. His desire for a like-minded companion to alleviate his loneliness also parallels the Creature’s desire for the same thing. The purpose of this is to show the normality of the Creature’s desires and his understandable rage and pain at their denial.

The Masculinity of Science

In many ways, Frankenstein has early elements of feminism. It is significant that in Frankenstein there is the removal of any feminine element from the Creature’s ‘birth’. The process by which the Creature is created removes any sense of humanity from the Creature: its life is defined solely in scientific terms as it has grown in no human body. So, although Frankenstein actually appropriates (or takes over) the typically feminine act of childbirth, his attempt to do so (i.e. his attempt to ‘own’ the feminine ability to ‘make’ children) will eventually fail because he never thinks about what he will do with his creature after it is alive. In other words, he is unable to ‘mother’ it.

In a time when women were considered useful only for their reproductive abilities (i.e. their ability to give birth to life), Victor attempts to allow men to take ownership of this ability, thus marginalising women in society even further. Moreover, this exclusion of femininity also extends to the consistent marginalisation and, indeed, the destruction of women by Victor’s ‘progress’ in this area of science. For example:

- Justine’s execution is caused, initially, by Victor’s actions and then his cowardice in refusing to tell the truth.

- Elizabeth Lavenza’s relationship with Victor is destroyed as he pursues his obsession, until she literally dies as a result of his actions.

- Furthermore, the half-completed female Creature is also destroyed by Victor.

All of these deaths are violent; all happen because of the male intrusion into a female process in which, in the ‘natural’ order of things, masculinity plays a much more minor role. The exclusion of Elizabeth, Justine and even the female Creature represents the exclusion of female concerns from the scientific process. The novel suggests that while science ignores femininity and excludes it, scientific experiments will always fail.

In a nutshell:

Victor Frankenstein arrogantly decides to invent a way for men to do what women have always been able to do: create life. However, because in Shelley’s world, the lives of women and men were separate (women were confined to domestic roles and were left uneducated; men were encouraged to explore the world and went to school), Frankenstein had no idea what to do with his creature when it was ‘born’. In other words, he found out how to ‘give birth’ but had none of the ‘female’ skills required to nurture his creature because this was purely a women’s role that men did not concern themselves with. Shelley believed that this was wrong and that women and men should not have separate roles and that, essentially, these roles should merge (much like they are today). Shelley suggests that because science excluded women, no scientific experiments would ever work because science needs women as well as men. Furthermore, she suggests that such experiments are dangerous to humanity (as demonstrated by the outcome of Victor’s experiment).