Key Moments for Victor (Frankenstein)
1) When he discovers the books and natural philosophy while on holiday with his family. Victor discovering these books results in him becoming obsessed with the objects these philosophers desired, the philosophers stone and eternal life. This lead him to want to create his own creature, which he will later call the monster.
“…I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, ‘Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.’ If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced… I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and… It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.”
2) The death of Victor’s mother as he is about to leave for university cause Victor to have death on his mind, and gives him a push towards trying to create life.
“…I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay (the death of his mother). One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?”
3) The death of Elizabeth, Victor’s Wife and adopted sister/cousin (it’s complicated), at the hands of the creature he created causes victor to solely focus on its destruction, and ultimately results in his death.
“I rushed towards her and embraced her with ardour, but the deadly languor and coldness of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips… My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost…I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task.”
The Creature
How He Learns
THe creature learns by observing his environment, mainly through either reading or watching and listening to the humans around him.
“ I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds… this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species.”
How People React To The Creature
People usually react negatively towards the creature. They see his appearance and assume he is a demon or monster. This is unfair because people don’t give him a chance to prove that he is either good or bad and immediately have hostility towards him. Initially the creature doesn’t deserve the response he gets from people as he only has good intentions, but as he begins to be corrupted by the constant hate and negativity he start to murder people and does deserve the hate he gets from people.
What Turns Him ‘Bad’
1) When he tries to reveal himself to the cottagers and they reject him. This makes him leave the cottage, and run into a man who shoots him. This caused him to lose all hope that there are nice good humans.
“There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me…”
2) When he saves a girl from drowning and is shot by the girls caregiver, this reinforces his ideas that humans all hate him and are bad and cause he to ‘swear vengeance’.
“This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. 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.”
Minor Characters
Robert Walton
Robert Walton is the author of the transcript of victor’s life that we read in the book, he is an explore in the far north, artic, from england who finds Victor on the ice while his ship is stuck in the ice. He befriends Victor and learns his life story with he transcribes and is what we read, it’s like a book inside a book.
“…my friend… listen to my history…”
Robert Walton helps the reader understand how alone Victor was after his Wife and Henry died. This is because after only knowing Walter for a couple of days, and because they have remotely similar interest Victor suddenly with very little persuasion reveals his life story to this relative stranger showing that he is desperate for human connection.
Henry Clerval
Henry is Victor’s deceased best friend. They are childhood friends and both have a desire for knowledge they both travel to england where Henry dies. Victor thinks of him as one of the best people he has ever known.
“I once had a friend (Henry), the most noble of human creatures…”
Henry teaches the reader that the creature has completely lost the humanity that he earlier displayed in the text. This is because the monster kills Henry out of cold blood, somebody who was a flawless human being in the readers eyes.
Elizabeth Frankenstein
Elizabeth is Victor adopted sister/cousin. She and Victor have a very loving childhood together, and end up getting married. But Elizzabeth is murdered by the creature Victor creates on their wedding night. This causes Victor to devote his entire existence to destroying the monster.
“Never will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth…”
Elizabeth teaches the reader that Victor is not a bad person, even though he has been so cruel to the monster and let Justine die. Through Victors display of affection and caring towards Elizabeth we are reminded that Victor is a good person he has just made some bad decisions and lived through some tough things, like the death of his mother, his brother and his best friend since childhood.
Fear
The Fear of Not Being Someone or Something
Shelley presents the fear of not being someone or something in the novel Frankenstein through Victors unrelenting desire to accomplish something new in the first Volume. It consumes him because he believes that if he doesn’t do a first in the field of Science that he is a failure, and he is afraid of not accomplishing something big in his lifetime. Through this Shelley teaches us that letting fear drive our decisions can have dire consequences, she teaches us this because Victor is driven to create the monster out of his fear of not accomplishing anything with his life, which in turn ends up destroying his life, killing those he loves and ultimately killing him.
The Fear of Being Rejected And Alone
Shelley presents the idea of the fear of rejection in the novel Frankenstein through Victor’s decision to not tell anyone about the monster to stop Justine’s execution. Victor has the opportunity to tell the townspeople of his home town that he created a Monster and that it had murdered his brother William, but he doesn’t because he fears being rejected by his family and his home town for creating such and an abomination, so he stays quiet and Justine is murdered. Through this Shelley teaches us that is is better to face our fears rather than avoid them, this is because if he came clean them the monster would have been hunted down and killed and Victor’s life wouldn’t have been destroyed by the creature.
The Fear of The Uncontrollable
Shelley presents the idea of the fear of the uncontrollable in the novel Frankenstein through Victor’s choice to delay his marriage for as long as possible to as he fears what that the monster will carry out it’s threat of being there on his wedding night, which is something he cannot control. Victor avoid it for as long as possible and eventually goes ahead with the wedding, which has the result he feared. Through this Shelley teaches us that if we fear the uncontrollable then there is nothing we can do and that it is better to face it head on, as if Victor had the wedding immediately he may have had enough time to escape before the monster found him and more importantly his wife.