Frankenstein, a gothic novel about love, betrayal, life and death has many characters with their own qualities that contribute key points to the novel. The character who caught my attention, and who will be highlighted as a self absorbed scientist, is Victor. Victors main quality is selfishness and could even be qualified as greed for many reasons. He puts the lives of his friends and family at risks with his careless and mindless actions. Mary Shelley highlights the life and light of women in this novel, and makes sure to complement it with the responsibilities of Victor.
In the novel Frankenstein, Victor can be perceived as an enthusiastic scholar when the novel first begins but he quickly pivots our opinion when he views Elizabeth as property. He immediately establishes that he views women as less than. He carries this attitude throughout the novel, even in the ending by telling her to “cheer up because she has nothing to be sorry for compared to him,” put in modern terms. “I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad, and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue. But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my heater with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast’’ (ch. 22 p. 4) His own selfishness, by not telling Elizabeth about the monster, was what got her killed in the end. When we relate selflessness to the monster, all we can see is the fault of Victor, once again.
The monster had one simple request, a companion. Victor, in the process of creating the female companion, destroys it due to uncertainty of the outcome. Although I can understand his point of view, he created his first monster without any knowledge of what would happen or how it would turn out as well. Now that he sees that his creation can be tamed, he is still only thinking of himself and his own image by not only promising to meet the demand, but destroying it while in process. This was the final straw for the monster which resulted in the murder of Elizabeth.
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Victor is portrayed as a selfish human being who only has his best interests at heart. Victor had this god like idea to create life of his own, which he did. He did so to manipulate the power of life, not for the greater good or even for a purpose. In doing so, he displayed his first actions of selfishness that, in the future, would cause more destruction and tragedy than he could even imagine. “When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation.” (ch 9 p.6) Victor is becoming enraged as he thinks of the monsters wrongdoings. What Victor is, purposely, overlooking is the role he played in the actions of the monster. He left him with no guidance, no love, no compassion and no one to show him right from wrong or even how to live, solely based off of his appearance.
Towards the end on the novel, the monster finally becomes fed up and threatens the life of Victor. “This night is dreadful, very dreadful. I passed the hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how fearful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her until I obtained some knowledge as to the situation of my enemy, the scream was repeated, and I rushed into the room, she was there, lifeless and inanimate” (ch ) As Victor is only paying attention to himself, he disregards the life of his soon to be wife, who ends up being murdered.
I have outside knowledge due to my own personal experiences. All humans have experienced a lapse of selfishness at some point during their existence. These could be not, letting someone merge on the freeway, not picking up the piece of trash “because someone else will get it,” or even not holding the door open because you don’t want to stop walking. Small things like that we don’t even think about can cause a large reaction. The car you didn’t let merge, cut someone off and caused a crash. The piece of trash ended up in a bird’s digestive system and the door you didn’t hold open, hit the person behind you causing them to drop what they were carrying. We don’t always think everything through, causing us to be oblivious to the consequences of our selfish actions and I feel Victor, for a short period of the time, was also a victim of that.
