Frankenstein Importance of Parenting

Importance of Parenting As a parent there are certain responsibilities that you must be accountable for in your child’s life. For example you must love and show your child how to love. Also it is your responsibility to raise and nurture the child; while showing them what is right and wrong. But most importantly you must integrate them into society so that they will not be an “outcast” in a sense. In Frankenstein, Doctor Frankenstein does not give the creature a chance in any way. All the responsibilities of a parent are forgotten and the creature is completely abandoned. This is why if Doctor Frankenstein had given the creature the correct parenting he could have avoided all of the death and changed his life, for not only him, but the creature as well. Going into the experiment he knew he was going to have the responsibilities of a parent, but as soon as he realized what he had done was wrong, he didn’t know what to do or thing so he just ran from his problems. This is not effective and running for something always ends badly. In Victors case it ended in the death of several loved ones. But simple steps should have been taken. The fist thing that Victor should have done was act like a parent and nurtured the creature. Teaching him how to walk and talk like parents do. If he had done that the creature could have fit in easier and understood things rather than just get mad and not know how to tell people how he feels and just display it with his feelings. The next step that should have been taken was to show him the difference between right and wrong. This by far would have been the most important step. But this clearly was skipped otherwise the creature would not have killed anyone knowing it was wrong. As a parent you must discipline your child for doing something wrong or against the rules, while commending them for a good action.
Or rewarding them for doing something they where instructed too. These parenting skills would have taught the creature the difference between right and wring and how to respect your elders or “the hand that feeds you” in a way. The next step would have been the hardest and taken the longest to teach but it would have been extremely important for the creature to learn. This would be love. Loving someone is so important in your life. Without love what do you have? Nothing, you simply feel the same for everyone and that’s not okay. There must be people in your life that you long for and need otherwise why have them in your life at all. The creature yearned for love but did not receive it, he didn’t understand the empty feeling he had in his heart and was never taught how to control what he felt. The creature’s feeling where also another mystery to him. He had all these emotions and no idea what they meant. As a parent you teach your children what sad is and happy and so on. But the creature never had that luxury. He simply felt this pain in his heart and had no idea how to relieve it. So he killed, and killed, and killed some more, trying to make other feel the same as he did. Trying to observe how the so-called “pain” in their hearts affected them. Finally once the creature had mastered his feeling and been raised he could have slowly been introduced him into society. Not trying to cause a scene but to integrate him into the society. Also learn how to deal with all the different types of people in the world. This makes the creature less dependent on him and rather more independent. Parents do this by introducing their children to the school system and daycare providers. This not only introduces the children to new people it also gives them a chance to grow on their own without their parent around. Forcing them to become more independent. During the book the creature make a great point by saying, “Shall I respect men when he contemns me”(Shelley 134)? The creature was never once respected or taught to respect because of the lack of parenting. So he had the right to be mad not knowing any better and acting the way he did. This is also why I believe he didn’t respect mankind and killed willingly. But the key point that is being portrayed is that, parenting in someone’s life are the fundamentals to their success. Without these stepping-stones, the path of life becomes unclear. Not knowing what to do the creature acts out trying to gain knowledge. The creature had the right to do what he did; it was completely Victor’s fault for not being a parent. Therefor Victor should have, and did pay the consequences for his actions in many ways. But it is simple, give your child the correct structure they need in their life and point them in the right direction and nine times out of ten they will fallow the right path. This is why all of the death and chaos though out the story is one hundred percent avoidable.

Work Cited
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Maurice Hindle. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.