Research of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Pain, suffering, and havoc are once in a while brought about by invention or innovative creation. Through time, human beings have been on a quest to invent and create some thing different and new. In the process, most of them have ended up disregarding the possible penalties of their acts of creation, to both themselves and others. This can be attributed to their dedication to glory which blinds them from realizing what is or will happen after their creation. Victor Frankenstein is an example of these sorts of inventors. His most controversial invention was of an alleged monster of a human being. The monster was an attempt by means of Frankenstein to understand and create life. He managed to do so but what he created ended becoming his own invented misery. In her book Frankenstein, Mary Shelley attempts to depict the life of Frankenstein. This paper will look into Shelly's depiction of how Frankenstein handled his creation with an aim of understanding why Frankenstein shunned his own creation; this will be achieved through the insight of Sherry Ginn's critic of the novel.


Background
Just like other inventors or innovators, Victor Frankenstein was determined and focused on completing his quest. He had loved science ever since he was a young boy and was always guided by curiosity. His desires received a boost by the pain he felt after losing his mother. He began a conviction to understand disease and death with an aim of establishing a way of safeguarding mankind. In her analysis, Shelley describes Victor's thoughts about death. According to her findings, Victor showed a lot of empathy and compassion to those who had lost their loved ones to death and had been left in desperation. To him, understanding life and death became a way of dealing with his loss. He was always motivated by the thought of one day overcoming death. This conviction became the one thing that Victor cared about (Shelley 2-9). This is where the issue of how blinding an investor's passion can be. Victor was only focused on bringing his dreams to reality without taking into account the possible repercussions of his actions.
Before completing his studies, Victors makes a discovery that completely changed his journey towards understanding life and death. He had learned how to create an ultimate man. To begin his creation, he collects body parts to assemble a human being. Victors states, "Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave" (Shelley 55). Victor did not enjoy collecting the body parts from the graveyards. He was uneasy with the collection and hence decided to create his human in secrecy and in darkness. After completing his creation, Victor realizes that he had developed a nostalgic feeling towards his own creature. He finds the creature hideous and realizes that he had created a monster that was hard to admire, a creature that was created out things that were dead. Victor had not taken into consideration the responsibility that will accompany his hideous creation.
Analysis
In her article Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Science, Science Fiction, or Autobiography, Sherry Ginn vividly describes how Victor's creature came to life and how it began to taunt him until he was rejecting it. She describes how Victor was horrified by the sight of his creation. Victor shuns and abandons the creature leaving him to fend for himself. The creature ends up falling in love with a poor peasant's family but they reject him. After this rejection, Victor's creature decides that he wants explanations from his creator to why he is different and to force him to create him a mate. The creature had faced numerous occasions of neglect and abandonment. Much of this creature's plight is because Victor had not been responsible. His creation was thrown into despair and rage as he did not know why he is facing the segregation from the public, unfortunately, this confusion resulted in several murders.
Sherry's observation is also upheld by Laura P. Claridge in her article, Parent Child Tensions in Frankenstein: the Search for Communion. According to Laura, Frankenstein's story is a typical example of the nature of human beings who have been known to demonstrate failure in regards to being responsible for their offspring. She also believes that given that Victor made his creation as a way of dealing with the loss of his mother his irresponsibility could because of the isolation he felt growing up. She believes that Victor's eventual isolation from his own creation was a repeat of his experience with his own creators; the parents (Claridge14-26).
Conclusion
From an observer’s perspective, Sherry and Laura arrive at a quite accurate analysis and conclusion on Mary Shelly’s story on Frankenstein. As mentioned above, Frankenstein exhibited typical human characteristics of panic and ignorance after realizing that he had created an abomination. His past feelings and experiences then played a pivotal role in this eventual behavior. Had Victor been raised by responsible parents, maybe he would have turned out a better creator.















Works Cited
Claridge, Laura P. "Parent-Child Tensions in" Frankenstein: The Search for Communion"." Studies in the Novel 17.1 (1985): 14-26.
Ginn, Sherry. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Science, science fiction, or autobiography." Conference paper of a proceeding of the 2003, 20th International Literature and Psychology Conference.[Online] http://www. clas. ufl. edu/ipsa/2003/ginn. html [2006, Nov 23], 2003.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: 1818. Intervisual Books, 2010.