Preview

Mental Illness in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1450 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mental Illness in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Mental Illness In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mental Illness In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Abstract
Mental illness is a prominent problem in today’s troublesome world. Each day many people are diagnosed with a mental illness, most commonly depression. The human mind becomes tarnished when a person has a mental illness, and often the illness takes over a person’s life completely. Mental illness is a serious problem and often goes untreated or misdiagnosed. The darkness within a person’s mind is one of the toughest aspects of life for people to conquer and many lose themselves in the fight. To further understand mental illness, it would be easiest to peer into the life of someone with one of these illnesses. For example, taking a closer look at the lives of actor Heath Ledger, and fictional character Victor Frankenstein, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can help humans gain insight into the mind of a troubled soul.

Mental Illness In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
In the world today, there is hardly a patch of land that has not been explored, examined, and put into the archives of human knowledge. There is one place however, that continues to be a clouded region of mystery even in the eyes of experts, this place being the human mind. Although countless experiments, studies, and examinations of the mind have been conducted, and humans may have made enormous advancements in knowledge of the mind, there continues to be a cloak of shadows in the way, concealing some of the brains most hidden secrets. This becomes even more mystifying when considering how unique each individual person is, in other words, each human mind contains secrets that no other human possesses. It is enchanting to think about the knowledge one could gain simply by being able to peer into the mind of another with the ability to comprehend their thoughts, memories, and subconscious. When speaking of the human mind, however, it may not be as light-hearted as one may think. All people have the



References: Pendlebury, R. (2008, Jan). Drugs,depression and a lost love - the truth about the lonely death of heath ledger http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-510066/Drugs-depression-lost-love--truth-lonely-death-Heath-Ledger.html Shelly, M. (1831). Frankenstein. New York: the Modern Library. Thibeult, H. (n.d.). The Psyche of Victor Frankenstein - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com. Retrieved February 03, 2013, from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-psyche-victor-frankenstein-5052380.html?cat=38

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Internal struggles are common enough that everyone has experienced it at some point or another throughout their lives. Whether a person deals with an internal struggle alone or if they find an outlet is based on the individual. Many people, however do search for outside assistance rather than struggle with the problem on their own. There are some, though who chose to keep the internal struggle to themselves. Moreover, building a solitary confinement with which to keep themselves in. Solitude has negative effects on an individual with internal struggles, however proper support and guidance will alleviate it.…

    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The most obvious part of Frankenstein’s personality is his misery. In his August 13th letter, Robert Walton calls Frankenstein a “broken spirit” who appears “destroyed by misery” (23-24). Frankenstein’s expression is often “expressive of a calm settled grief” (24). Frankenstein himself tells Walton, “But I—I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew” (24). Shelley relentlessly reminds readers of Frankenstein’s utter hopelessness and despair. However, she also shows Frankenstein’s lighter side. He loves the wonders of the world deeply; Walton says that “no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature” (24). Indeed, Shelley makes it seem like Frankenstein’s love of the world around him transcends everything else in his life. She says about him, “Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures” (24-25). Shelley also stresses Frankenstein’s singularly keen mind. Walton tells his sister,…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the novel, Victor Frankenstein hides in constant fear of the creature he has created. However, he had one opportunity to live his life free of this constant fear. That was to simply create a partner for his creature and the creature promised to leave him alone forever. He took the agreement and began making the partner. However, in the middle of the process, he betrayed his creature’s trust in him. He destroyed what he had created and vowed to never create another creature ever again. This betrayal of the creature’s trust is what prompted the monster to continue his monstrous rampage and is what led Victor to live his life in constant fear. This one simple act of misdeed, due to the fear instilled into Victor by the creature, allows…

    • 144 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For many people, seeing someone who is different may be hard to accept. In Frankenstein, a plethora of characters mentioned were unable to accept that the monster was, for want of a better word, a person. There is an innumerable amount of traits that make a us human and the monster appeared to have many of them. The qualities that make us human include the ability to care, intense emotions, the ability to tell right from wrong, and competence. Examples of the monster portraying these traits are spread out through the book.…

    • 174 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a person takes a look at the busy and diverse world that surrounds them, they may wonder why certain things appear a certain way. They may form opinions about certain issues or people not because they actually know what‘s going on, but because of what they see or hear. People judge. Even so, people don't always think about the results of their judgments, and the fact that those little opinions formed could end in complete tragedy.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is written about a man Walton who goes on a journey to the North Pole. Walton’s ship becomes trapped in ice, and this is where Walton sees two men dog sledding. One man, who looks very frail, is invited onto Walton’s ship. The man, who goes by Frankenstein, shares Walton his story how he built this monster. This monster, angry at Frankenstein, kills all his loved ones in revenge for creating him. A main theme in this novel is the struggle between human morality and whether the monster is naturally evil or was it his decisions that caused him to act evil. This is a major concept discussed by two Enlightenment Philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victor Frankenstein’s constant state of illness after something unpleasant occurs is his means of escape, of ignoring the critical mistakes that he slowly realized was the result of his creation. After creating the monster, Victor realized that the monster is terribly gruesome in terms of appearance, focusing on his image rather than his character: “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 52). He subsequently fell ill because he could not confront his failure and tries to avoid his responsibilities: “I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness” (Shelley 52). Victor is weak for being unable to process and accept what he had done. This is continuous throughout the novel, revealing…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, misery and isolation compel the Creature to act rampantly against society’s moral standards. Despite being left in isolation, the Creature manages to hurt people while using misery as a justification for murder.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victor Frankenstein’s monster, appearing in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, represents a sympathetic character. The monster is a sympathetic character because he is in search for a companion: being abandoned by his creator and rejected by society, who misunderstands him. He’s shown the ideal family dynamic through the De Lacey’s, and he shows selflessness to save a girl from drowning, later being shot as a result. This abomination without a name gradually acquires sympathy throughout the text.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the monster suffers from multiple disorders, including bipolar disorder. People with bipolar disorder tend to become irritable. “An episode can include disturbance of mood accompanied by other ongoing symptoms and causing significant stress, disability, or both” (Bruce). “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change” (Shelley, 187). This quote is saying that the monster doesn’t like change, because with him being bipolar change can cause his mood to drastically change. He has bipolar disorder because people with bipolar disorder typically have periods of normal mood that can be very lengthy depending on how serious the disorder is. “A mental condition marked by episode of abnormally elevated or irritable mood” (Bruce).…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Humans are taught principles and morals as they grow older in order to set a boundary as to what people can and cannot do. Despite these morals, people still go out of their way to make their own decisions and make new discoveries, whether it’s beneficial or harmful. In Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein, Victor’s and the Creature’s morals are often questioned considering they were raised in two very different backgrounds. As the creature’s creator, Victor had a responsibility to fulfill the knowledge the creature seeks. Therefore when he chose to abandon and neglect him, the creature had no choice but to educate himself about the world on his own. Through this, he learns to develop his own principles and tries to make sense of everything around…

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Written in 1818 by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein is widely considered to be among the novels that fully exemplify Romantic-era literary achievement. The Romantic movement is a general term used to denote the intellectual evolution in literature and the arts, primarily in 19th century Europe. Substantial facets of literary Romanticism include belief in the innate virtue of humans, the bounds of nature, as well as the polarity of human emotion, all of which are embodied in Shelley’s Frankenstein. Through reading Shelley’s novel, some of the fundamental ideals of Romanticism genuinely become obvious.…

    • 1511 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Doctor Frankenstein continues to use and implement his knowledge, which seems to go against nature and is called ‘dangerous’. This knowledge, when used to create his hideous monster, deeply affects his mental and physical state of mind. Shelley showcases this in chapter four of Frankenstein. In the novel, Frankenstein acquires knowledge, then causes detrimental harm to his mental and physical health.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Most people are familiar with the story of Frankenstein. The story of the mad scientist who created a monster. As the last paragraph of chapter one of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley shows, this madness has been present ever since his childhood. After his parents bring Elizabeth, his adopted sister, home, Victor says that she was his “more than sister, since till death she was to be [his] only” (Shelley 43). His use of the words and phrases like “more than sister” and “mine only” suggests strange and creepy feelings. It is not normal for brothers to be this possessive of their sisters.…

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zmet Analysis

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages

    For centuries, man has been intrigued by the complexities of the human mind. With the social networking boom and the raging debates on privacy, the one thing that we still have total control on is our minds.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays