Frankenstein (blog3)

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.