In the final chapters of Frankenstein, the monster goes
through some crazy experiences that further his development as an individual in
to the human world. First, he learns how to read and expands his knowledge of
the language that he has been observing with the cottagers. He also accepts the
fact he is completely different and the only one of his kind. But instead of
using that as something to be held back by, he uses it as power in an effort to
be accepted by his creator, Dr. Frankenstein. Upon studying Felix, Agatha and
Safie (the cottagers) the monster reads the book Paradise Lost and compares himself to being both a son of Adam but
also a counterpart to Satan. The monster is yearning for someone he can share
his knowledge with and I believe that that is partially why he was so motivated
earlier by violence and the urge to kill Dr. Frank that he ended up killing his
little brother, William. When the monster told us of how he went on a rampage
after finding the letters written by Dr. Frank describing his disgust in his
creation, you almost have to feel a sense of pity for the monster. Only because
in every aspect of his life he has been shunned, he has NO ONE else to care
about him and no one to care about. I do think his actions went a little
overboard by strangling William but he was in the right mind to be completely enraged
by learning of this. I think that he wanted not only revenge against
Frankenstein but humans as a whole as he has been accepted by none of them.
Feeling a sense of loneliness, he implores Dr. Frank to create a female monster
to keep him company. He believes that having this female companion could reduce
his urge to kill and he could finally have someone to share his life with,
something that he has been yearning for for a very long time.
Let’s focus on Victor for a while. He is nothing but
tethered to this monster as he is responsible for its creation and has nothing
but bad fortunes because of it. He agrees to make this female monster hoping
that its formation will solve all his problems. Soon he is knee deep into the
new monster when he thinks “what if they reproduce?” The thought of this
frightens him so much that he destroys all his progress. The monster finds out
about this and becomes enraged, vowing that he will see Victor on his wedding
night. I honestly now feel really bad for Victor because it seems like every
move is a bad move and no matter what he does, he cannot escape this nightmare
that he is in. The monster becomes responsible for killing Henry (close friend
of Victors). Victor is completely over whelmed with guilt and can think of
nothing else but the horror that is to come upon the night of his wedding. The
day soon arrives and Victor and Elizabeth are happily married, however, Victor
is preoccupied with the promise of the monster. He soon realizes that the
monster wasn’t set on getting even with him, but destroying every aspect of
Victor’s life to the point where he is completely and utterly alone, just like
the monster. With that said, the monster now murders Elizabeth.
Victor is now so completely alone and filled with guilt as
he knows that all of these murders can be linked back to him. He vows the rest
of his life to getting revenge on the monster and destroying it completely. I
believe still that the monster is another subconscious to Victor. However, it
took a dramatic turn and flipped Victor’s life around to the worst. That in
someone teaches a lesson. You should just be okay with being who you are and
not trying to force something upon yourself that is too drastic as it can destroy
every aspect of your life as we have seen here. To conclude, I really liked
this novel, even though it was really weird. It had an ending that wasn’t all
happy and something that you don’t see every day, and something that I found
very interesting.
The next section of Frankenstein that I have read is quite
sad. After Justine is executed for the assumption that she killed William (when
in fact she truly was innocent), Victor becomes completely overwhelmed with
guilt because he knows that the creation of the monster is to blame for her
death. He becomes extremely depressed and even contemplates suicide, but
decides against it for the sake of Elizabeth and his father. His father notices
this depression in the overall morale of the family and decides to go on an outing
into the wilderness. Victor’s grief and guilt are soon turned around by a sense
of surreal nature. I believe that this nature takes him out of the funk that he
was in because it is so opposite to what he has recently become responsible
for.
Sadly, Victor’s happiness is sort lived as he is almost
mauled by the monster. All of a sudden this thing starts talking and you’re
just like what?!?! He can talk?!?! For the first time, the monster seems human;
he has emotional and verbal qualities that you would never think something that
hideous sounding could ever possess. To me Victor’s real fear now is that this
monster could possibly be smarter than him. As the monster is telling us of the
hardships he has had to overcome since his creation, I felt bad for the guy. He
was created out of some sick experiment and has had nothing to live for and no
one to care for him. Not to mention everyone screams and runs when they see
him, don’t tell me you wouldn’t take that personally haha. Even with that said,
the monster (ironically enough) blames Victor for all the evil things he has
done, “remember, that I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am
rather the fallen angel.” Is he telling us that he believes Victor to be his God?
Which I think is somewhat weird because if the monster is this opposite subconscious,
that last quote makes no sense. Unless he was implying that he makes his own
rules to life or something like that… I’m not really sure.
Further into the novel, the monster’s story becomes somewhat
ironic. He tells us of how he had to learn every human quality from scratch and
once knowledge is gained it cannot be erased. “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.” I think that this is mentioned here to further compare the
ironies of the monster to Victor. For instance, Victor has gained all this knowledge
of life and how to create it, and because of this he has become completely powerless
to control his urge to act upon it. Furthermore, he cannot get rid of this knowledge
that I think deep inside he wants nothing more to do than erase it all so he
had no chance of building the monster. In contrast, I can infer that the
monster wants to gain knowledge of the human race so he can feel one with
someone, and not so alone. To sum up, that opposite characteristic to me
solidifies my belief on this evil twin thing going on with Frankenstein.
The next section of Frankenstein portrays the mood change of
the novel from what was once an informative diary to something with a little
bit more tragedy and horror. Victor pursues his knowledge more than any other
aspect of his social life. He gains all the knowledge he can get before his
curious mind takes over. After that, we learn that Victor isolates himself from
the world for several months becoming completely obsessed with his creation
that his overly eager mind had conjured up. This monster that Victor pieces
together, I believe it to be an evil twin to his subconscious because he lived
this pretty much picture perfect childhood and this thing that is created is
something so opposite from him and anything human in general. When Victor
finally decides to spark this puppy to life the result terrifies him and is
utterly horrifying. He tries to go to sleep but is haunted with harrowing
nightmares from the abomination that he has brought to life. I believe the
nightmares to symbolize this opposite subconscious that I was talking about,
Victor can’t handle what he made because it is foreshadowing the death of
Elizabeth (as we find out to be very ill in the future), not to mention the
horror of the whole situation. He awakes with this thing standing over him with
this devilish smile and runs out of his apartment, screaming like a girl I can
imagine. Who can blame him though? Because I know for a fact that if any one of
you woke up with this thing standing over the top of you, you might just freak
out to!
Victor wants to escape from the evil genius scientific world
that he has created. Very quickly, he falls extremely ill. But almost if by
fate, a close friend of his finds him and nurses him back to health, his name
is Henry.
Henry came to Ingolstadt to study science just like Victor
and brings him back into the realm of sciences that Victor was trying to escape
from. This brings back all the memories of the horrific monster that has tormented
him for so long. However, Henry also brought good with him. He brought Victor
back into the social world and is caring towards him. I believe that Henry
would be the foil to Victor for that reason alone.
Further into the novel, we learn that Henry receives a
letter from his sister Elizabeth while he was sick. In this letter she tells us
that after the death of their mother, an old family member has moved back in with
them, Justine Moritz. The story gets a little crazier when Justine is accused
of murdering Victor’s brother William. He goes for a walk to try and clear his
head and sees the monster looming about the location where William’s body was
found. At that moment, Victor knows that Justine is in fact innocent and the
monster must be responsible for the horrible death of William. However, he
doesn’t want to tell anyone this because he is afraid that everyone will see
him as insane. So were just going to have to keep going to see what his reaction
is to help save Justine.
