The Morally Ambiguous Character In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley tells the tale of the protagonist Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Both Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s creation’s questionable actions lead them both to be considered morally ambiguous figures. Victor is ambitious with good intentions, but his ambition leads to bad results. The Creature is an innately kind and compassionate person who commits abominable actions due to how others treat him. Their moral ambiguity is significant, as it reveals that an obsession with ambition distorts one’s morals.

Frankenstein’s creation was lost in the world with no one who could have understood him . It felt sorrowful and unfulfilled emotions as seen in this quote. Betrayal by Victor leaves a large impact the monster carried, which, turned into a monster full of hate and dissatisfaction. Victor’s creation was not a monster , but new born baby in a grown horrific body that was not to be called his own . It becomes a monster both mentally and physically, who will be feared by all . Victor not giving him the love he needed gets the monster enraged, which leads the monster to cause series of events that affects Victor unforgivably. .

A morally ambiguous character is a character whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as either purely good or purely evil. The creature brought into being by Victor Frankenstein is the principle morally ambiguous character in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" which is demonstrated through the sympathy that the reader feels at the moment of his creation and instantaneous abandonment, his present but questionable morals, and the feelings of immediate hatred that the reader has towards him as he slaughters everyone that Victor cares about. The creature, or monster as he is referred to in much of the novel, has guilt piled

Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein’s triumph as he reanimates a dead body, and then details his guilt for creating such a thing. When the creation realizes how he came to be, and is rejected by mankind, he seeks revenge on his creator’s loved ones. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley portrays Victor Frankenstein as the true monster of the story through the use of literary devices revealing the characteristics that Frankensteins and monsters share, and shows how Frankenstein’s irresponsibility leads to his monstrous labeling.

In Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein the creature created by Victor Frankenstein is often misunderstood and mistreated because of his appearance. The people around him around him hurt him and make him filled with anger, causing the creature’s character to flip and out lash and swear vengeance on anyone he sees. This makes the reader see the creature as a morally ambiguous character because he constantly switches between both categories of good and evil. The creature being an ambiguous character helps support the meaning of the work as a whole which is good character can be manipulated by outside forces.

In the story of “Frankenstein”, Victor Frankenstein creates a creature. When the creature awakens Victor is so disgusted in his creation, he runs away and becomes severely depressed.. The creature searches for Victor, but ends up finding a little boy who turns out to be Victor's little brother, William. The creature kills William, and Victor comes home for the funeral. This is how the creature finds him. While reading the book you notice that all the Creature ever wanted was for Victor to love him. He kind of saw him as a god, and as his creator he must have to love him. The Creature soon realizes that Victor despises him. So he proposes a deal, Victor creates a wife for him and he’ll leave. In the process of creating his wife victor stops, he tears all the pieces apart. The creature slowly ruins Victor's life. When Victor is on his deathbed the Creature comes to him and cries. The Creature ends up killing himself shortly after. Throughout the book we learn to understand why the creature did what he did. He hurt Victor because Victor hurt him. He just wanted to be accepted by Victor, above anything else. We see the story through Victors and The creatures perspectives. Victor hated that he created the creature and he thought that he was his biggest mistake, and the creature just wanted to be

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is an incredible novel that is as popular as it has ever been, despite being written in the 1700´s. One of the main reason for its notoriety is how well Mary Shelley was able to develop the main characters in the story. The story focuses around Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, who are uniquely presented as to leave it up to the reader to decide who the good guy in the story is, and who is the villain. Each conducted many actions that were beyond reason and unjustifiable, but also had instances where they appeared to be the victim or were trying to better the lives of others. I do believe though, that the creature had more justifiable actions throughout the entirety of the story. The Creature was the result of Victorś insane desires, was left abandoned and forced to go through the world without any knowledge, and whose mind was poisoned by the humans he interacted with.

As his creator, Victor Frankenstein holds a significant amount of responsibility for the condition of the relationship between himself and the Creature. The Creature realizes that the people of the world owe him nothing, but Frankenstein, however, owes him a chance for a better life (87). When Victor first completes the being, it is evident that he despises his previously treasured creation. He is “unable to endure the aspect of the being [he] had created,” and unable to take responsibility for his actions, leading him to settle on hating the product of these actions instead (43). Although in his infancy, the Creature better comprehends the responsibilities that Victor should hold than Victor does himself, which is portrayed when the Creature says, “ ‘Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us’ ” (86). The Creature recognizes that a creator is not meant to hate their creation, but rather to love them (86). The Creature’s experiences in his short life have greatly increased his ability to understand complex ideas, however, he fails to make reason as to why Frankenstein would create “ ‘ ‘a monster that even [he] turned from [the Creature] in disgust’ ’ ” (118). The emphasis on Victor hating the Creature demonstrates the hurt he has caused

There is great discussion on whether Victor Frankenstein's creature is evil or not. I have concluded that the creature is not evil for three reasons. Firstly, because of his generous actions. Secondly, because of the simple things the creature enjoys, showing his innocence. Lastly, because of his sympathetic emotions. After reading the next three paragraphs, the understanding as to why the creature is not evil will be clearly understood, starting with his generous actions.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, most people view the monster created by Frankenstein in his attempts to bring inanimate objects to life as the villain; after all, he kills numerous people in cold blood. However, the monster is much more than a static, evil character; he is initially compassionate and has good intentions and kills people out of anger and resentment from the fact that he will never fit in to society. The monster’s character arc in the novel emphasizes two important themes: first, that people are products of society, and second, that society’s emphasis on outward appearance is highly detrimental.

His intelligence and longing to fit in society illustrates his humaneness. Although the creature seeks to find companionship many times, his efforts are only met with fear and hostility. Frankenstein’s creation can only accept the rejection he faces from society and respond with the same attitude his father has for society. By casting away all around him, the creature indulges in evil. The creature’s greatly wishes to be part of society, “if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear”(Shelley 135); and “if I have no ties and affections, hatred and vice must be my portion”(Shelley 137). The so called monster is only responding to Victor’s indifference and apathy. The creature shows the urgency to feel loved and accepted by society and not indifference.

Although Frankenstein was castigated by critics when it was first published, it set the precedent for many gothic novels afterwards. Most characters in novels can be easily identified as either good or bad, but in Frankenstein the personalities of Victor and his creature are ethically equivocal. Their good deeds and bad strike an unsettling balance, causing the reader to be perplexed about who to support. However, this vagueness is what makes the novel distinctive; at the end, the reader is left with conflicted feelings and the need to blame someone, but not knowing who. Moral ambiguity is vital to the work as a whole because it sanctions the reader to see everything in an unbiased perspective, acquire more from the central themes, and

Likewise, Victor Frankenstein allows his emotional senses to give way to a hatred of the Creature without even giving the Creature a chance. After seeing the hideous creation made by his own hands, Victor refrains from taking responsibility of the actions of the Creature, even when his conscious tells him it is his duty to. On the night of the creation, Victor recalls that the creature, who he emotionally describes as a monster, “held up the curtain of the bed … one hand stretched out, seemingly to detain [Victor], but [he] escaped … catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the character of Creature is explored as a monster and misguided individual. Shelley introduces Creature with an unconventional birth and casts him out into the world alone with the abandonment of Frankenstein. Creature’s character then develops through a coming of age-like sequence with the cottagers as guidance and out of that experience he goes off to seek his own creator. After his ventures with Victor Frankenstein the last of Creature’s life is detailed through the end of Frankenstein’s story to Captain Walton and the letters written by Captain Walton. Creature is a complex character not only seen as monstrous but a character that demonstrates humanity through his enduring of hardships and understanding of intelligence and emotion.

In early single story the character is one of the most important parts of the story. The character brings many emotions to the story. Without the character showing some emotion some emotion in the story, the story would come out dull boring and not interesting. A character can be many things. They can be tables, spoons,animals and the list goes on. Some of the things that the character does is they can impact the reader's point of view, and help the reader feel connected with the character. In this story the creature's point of view impacted how the reader understands and relates to him by many ways.