Frankenstein Character Analysis
Victor Frankenstein
• Victor grows from a young, hopeful boy into a jaded, vindictive and vengeful man driven by a desire for knowledge.
• Victor links himself with Satan, and the analogy between Victor and Satan focuses attention more on Victor's pride and ambition. In attempting to displace God, he demonstrates the same pride as Satan, who had similar aspirations. As Victor comments on his torment of guilt, he draws upon the following simile "Like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell" Victor's hell is within him.
• He creates a creature but abandons him the monster begins to avenge himself on Victor's family, and Victor is persuaded to make him a female companion, which he ultimately rips to pieces.
• Like the monster Victor is an isolated individual; his alienation however is self-imposed. While the monster longs for the companionship and affection he is denied, Victor avoid and rejects the family and friends who love him. He claims this is necessary in order to pursue his quest for the secret of life.
• Victor is rebelling against all human ties, against those human relationships that bind one to a family or community, against familial and sexual love- all relationships that might interfere with the pursuit of his own needs and desires.
• The novel suggest that Victor is a modern Prometheus, who searches after a forbidden knowledge, one of those Prometheans who refuse to accept limitations and are subsequently punished.
• Contemporary critics often consider that, through Victor, Shelley criticises the egocentric and antisocial tendencies of Romanticism. She pushes the Romantic figure of the isolated creative imagination to its extremes and demonstrates the dangers associated with solitude and introversion. Victor resembles the romantic artist in the way he repeatedly claims to suffer for his aspirations.
The Monster • The monster is created and then abandoned by Frankenstein. Spurred and attacked
• Victor grows from a young, hopeful boy into a jaded, vindictive and vengeful man driven by a desire for knowledge.
• Victor links himself with Satan, and the analogy between Victor and Satan focuses attention more on Victor's pride and ambition. In attempting to displace God, he demonstrates the same pride as Satan, who had similar aspirations. As Victor comments on his torment of guilt, he draws upon the following simile "Like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell" Victor's hell is within him.
• He creates a creature but abandons him the monster begins to avenge himself on Victor's family, and Victor is persuaded to make him a female companion, which he ultimately rips to pieces.
• Like the monster Victor is an isolated individual; his alienation however is self-imposed. While the monster longs for the companionship and affection he is denied, Victor avoid and rejects the family and friends who love him. He claims this is necessary in order to pursue his quest for the secret of life.
• Victor is rebelling against all human ties, against those human relationships that bind one to a family or community, against familial and sexual love- all relationships that might interfere with the pursuit of his own needs and desires.
• The novel suggest that Victor is a modern Prometheus, who searches after a forbidden knowledge, one of those Prometheans who refuse to accept limitations and are subsequently punished.
• Contemporary critics often consider that, through Victor, Shelley criticises the egocentric and antisocial tendencies of Romanticism. She pushes the Romantic figure of the isolated creative imagination to its extremes and demonstrates the dangers associated with solitude and introversion. Victor resembles the romantic artist in the way he repeatedly claims to suffer for his aspirations.
The Monster • The monster is created and then abandoned by Frankenstein. Spurred and attacked