Sacrifice, according to Merriam-Webster is "to give up (something important or valued) for the sake of other considerations", what Frankenstein by Mary Shelley revolves around. Science, God, and creation are the main elements that spark the novel into life. Without the sacrifices that Victor makes, the novel would not have the same result. The actions he makes lead him to his end, death. Sacrifices are usually taken with gratitude but can at times have negative consequences. The self motivation to sacrifice such a precious part of yourself needs to be appreciated by the receiver. If no appreciation by the other side is shown, the sacrifice seems pointless. Victor tries his best to decide what he really wants in life and how to balance his love for others and his love for creation. Science sparks creativity in him while love makes him feel complete. The sacrifices will hurt but they tend to benefit in the end, if done in time. Throughout life, the interests and hobbies one has will be sacrificed in order to keep what one really values in life. At a certain age there is a need to isolate oneself away from family and friends in order to find a …show more content…
The values are different for each person but if you really care about someone you will sacrifice all needed to make them happy. Sacrifices made are not fair at all times but if appreciated and noticed they can save relationships. In Victor's case he tended to sacrifice his family over science and creation. Later responding in being left alone, with no family and full of regret and hatred. What once sparked his creation was now what turned off his happiness. Not taking responsibility of his actions and not having a strong word lead him to failure. Having priorities set straight and knowing what to sacrifice and when can make all the difference. If you do what makes you happy, the sacrifices will not fell as harsh and there will not be any
When sacrifices are made, a goal is accomplished by the person sacrificing the object and a life is affected by the sacrifice made which could be seen in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, and Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor. In The Lottery, a community of people stand with their traditions even though it harms their society. In The Veldt, the children sacrifice someone they should love and replace it by a room they love more. In Good Country People, Hulga, a mid age, deformed, and independent, woman sacrifices something she needs for a person she thinks she knows.
In this, Victor brought up things that no mortal should know about, such as: cloning, stem cell research, and IVFs. Examples of these were shown when the author states, “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn… my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical… the physical secrets of the world” (43). Victor is knowingly tampering with knowledge that is essentially too great for man. He is also essentially trying to be like God, which is the original sin, and as a result, he is put in eternal despair.
Selfish Desires Selfishness has caused the downfall of countless characters throughout a multitude of literary works. This selfishness is also what usually precedes a character’s isolation due to the consequences of their actions. One example of this can be found in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when Victor Frankenstein defies the natural order to accomplish his personal goals. Likewise, in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Mariner makes a fatal mistake of performing a selfish action without thinking of the consequences. These works use the character’s actions and the main characters to explore how selfish decisions leads to one’s own isolation and the destruction of those around them.
In fact, it is an integral part of who I am. What the word sacrifice means to you depends on what culture you were raised in. For many Americans, sacrifice goes hand in hand with suffering and pain. It is something they are not willing to do and would rather avoid at all costs.
The novel Frankenstein brings to light many problems and situations that shed light on the faults of mankind. Cruelty was a huge factor in the novel; throughout Frankenstein is cruel to his body and to his creation. When he first makes the creature he runs from it, leaving the creature to fend for himself; even when reuniting with the creature he continues displays cruelty. The creature, in turn exhibits Victor cruelty right back. Within Frankenstein cruelty can be attributed, often affecting both Victor and the creature; serving as a crucial motivator and revealing their anger, pain, frustration till eventually both die.
His experience with death persuaded him to continue on with mindset of creating the creature was best for the benefit of mankind. Without the tragic death of Victor’s mother, he would have not had continued in his endeavor to create the
In reality, he is disgusted by the sight of his creation so he abandons it leaving it all alone in the world without any guidance and runs away to the next room. Victor himself suffered from being a social outcast and now he bestowed the same feeling onto the creature by abandoning him. By treating the creature as an outcast, “he will become wicked … divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations—malevolence and selfishness” (Caldwell). Not only is Victor selfish for abandoning his creature but he is shallow as well. Instead of realizing that he achieved his goal of bringing life to an inanimate body he runs way because of how hideous it is.
Valverde 1 Joseph Valverde Mr. John Salmon Ap Literature October 2014 Volume 2 - Chapter 1: Victor Frankenstein is going through great sorrow and grief as his conscience cannot handle the guilt caused by the death of the innocent Justine. He “wandered like an evil spirit” (Shelley 103) as he was unable to conceive peace. This state of mind preyed upon [his] health” (Shelley 103) as he was unable to cope with the present events and his guilt, this marks the mood at his part of the novel as that of despair and of regret. . Victor is then taken to Belrive in order to find peace, there he pondered about the outcome caused by his actions.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brings his creation to life and has to endure the repercussions of his actions. While Victor is in fact human, the question of whether the creature or Victor is more human still stands. Humanity is demonstrated as compassionate in the book and monstrosity is the opposite. The creature is more human because of his developed personality and desire to be human. Victor, although born into a humane family, evolved into everything bad about humanity; he developed obsession, resentment, and manipulated life to conform to his idealities.
Victor would stop at nothing to finish his project and became so obsessed that he was isolated from his family and friends. His way of collecting lifeless matter for his creation is unethical and morally wrong. Eventually, he is punished for his actions: “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.” (pg.56) Additionally, extreme devotion to the building of his creation caused Victor mental distress due to the fact that he neglected his own needs in order to work exclusively on the creature: “I had deprived myself of rest and health.”
Frankenstein is a book written by Mary Shelley about a man named Victor Frankenstein and his life and how it came to be. He had created a monster and brought it to life by studying and learning natural philosophy. Mary Shelley brought the emotions forward from the main characters by the amount of detail she put into the book. Most of the detail was brought in by the suffering that happens throughout the book caused by Frankenstein’s monster. The monster in this story is a tragic figure that is the main cause of suffering that occurs to everyone.
This brings us back to Frankenstein, Victor 's relationship with his parents friend, and Elizabeth translated by good words, Shelley uses quotes to emphasize the importance of human relationships (especially, family 's relationship) and how important they are to a person 's well-being “My children, my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all?
Responsibility is the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the reader finds many examples of the importance, need, and especially lack of responsibility with characters like Victor and the monster. A reader of Frankenstein sees multifarious examples of Shelley’s theme of the dangers in not taking responsibility even today in the real world. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Shelley’s portrayal of Victor as selfish suggests that not taking responsibility can lead to pain, death, and the suffering of others as we see in the novel which relates to today's society of powerful countries not taking responsibility for the weapons that they create, and the damage that is revealed as a result. Characters in Frankenstein not taking responsibility show the reader the potential dangers of pain and death in numerous situations in the novel.
Victor became eager to learn and master the secret to life, he was fascinated by the human frame, and how to manipulate and control it. However this obsession became more self-fulfillment than social utility, which ended up being his downfall. The creature had intellectual curiosity when it came to his self guided education. He was forced to learn to survive, how to fend for himself, he also learned the dangers of the world. The creature had learned the majority of his knowledge through mimicking the De Lacey family.
Values are those things worth fighting for, and those things worth sacrificing