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... that remain. (p. 189) Victor's father died of grief. He could not live with the horrors that accumulate around him in the last couple of days of his life: "He was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms" (p. 189). His love for his family becomes all that he cares about, which in turn causes him and Victor severe pain and suffering. The creature is another character that suffers from the desire to be loved. The creature wants to be loved so much that he digs himself deeper and deeper into his obsession, which causes him great heartache.
He first learns about love when he stays with the family of cottagers' in the first part of his life: "Their happiness was not decreased by the absence of summer. They loved and sympathized with one another; and their joys, depending on each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took place around them. The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved my these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition. " (p. 126) The creature's suffering first starts when he realizes that it is not normal to have no one in your life to love you. He has no family like the cottagers', nor can he remember ever having someone to look after him: "'But where were my friends and relation?
No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing'" (p. 115). This realization soon makes him want revenge on his creator for not taking responsibility for him, or showing any kind of love and affection for him. His quest to make Frankenstein's life miserable is based on the suffering he experiences because he does not have anyone to show benevolence towards him. The creature's desire to be loved causes a lot of anguish to many of the characters in the novel, including himself; Victor and all of Frankenstein's loved ones. Although wanting to be loved, or having deep love for someone else is an ethical and noble moral, in some cases if there is too much hunger for love, it can cause suffering and misery.
The obsession for knowledge and love in the novel are not the only morals that result in agony and heartache for the characters. The most important moral value that is demonstrated to have too much desire for is ambition. Shelley portrays many of the characters in her novel to be driven towards their goals by extreme ambition, but has them all meet with failure which they can not cope with. Used as an introduction to the novel, it is apparent from the beginning that Robert Walton is an extremely ambitious and persevering individual. In his first letter to his sister, Margaret Saville, Robert writes: I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight.
Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has traveled from regions towards which I am advancing gives me a foretaste of those icy climbs. (p. 15) In this statement it is extremely clear that Robert is filled with anticipation of his forthcoming journey. In Robert's case, his failure is the fault of two things -- the weather and his crew. During his journey to the North Pole, Robert encounters frigid weather, which causes ice to form around his vessel. Although he is not willing to give up, and wants to wait out the cold, he is forced to allow his crew to return to England. As if to show his bitter disappointment in his crew, the weather, and even himself he writes: "The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed.
Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice with patience" (p. 204). These few sentences are the writings of a man broken by defeat. Robert suffers extremely for he feels as though he has failed. His ambitious attitude towards his journey makes it even harder for him to turn back, resulting in agony and misery.
The creature is another character that experiences great agony due to his strong ambition to be accepted. The newborn creature spends countless days observing the family while trying to learn rudimentary words and actions. The creature obviously has a great thirst for knowledge, although it is most likely for the use of destroying his mortal enemy and his creator; Victor Frankenstein. That is, actually, partly inaccurate because the monster himself states "'If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold'" (p. 139). It is also true that the monster starts out with perfectly good intentions, and gives the human race a more than fair chance for salvation. As all of the characters in this book have one major goal that they attempt to accomplish, the monster's goal is a simple one: acceptance.
He searches for refuge anywhere he can find it. He comes to Victor in the hour of his birth, but is brutally rejected; he later attempts to seek solace with an old blind man, but is soon discovered, and cast away again. After many other attempts to become friends with a human, he finally gives up and vows to get vengeance on Victor, but not before he gives him one more chance to make him happy. He proposes to Victor: "'You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being'" (p. 138). The creature is very ambitious once he becomes educated about responsibility and love. Although he has a good reason to seek revenge on Victor, he makes himself miserable in the process.
The creature is so determined to follow through with his quest, he does not realize that his ambitious ways are causing him severe pain. Victor Frankenstein is the character that suffers the most from his ambitious desire to succeed, and be looked up to. It is true that Victor's life revolves around discovery, or the effects of his discovery, and he makes it clear in his first few pages of dialogue with Robert Walton that he wishes to stretch the boundaries of science. At first thought, it seems that Victor wants to discover something for the benefit of mankind, more specifically to bestow life on the dead, but with further understanding, it is apparent that Victor yearns to achieve something much more simple. All that Victor ever wants is to be accepted, envied, and looked up to. He states this himself while creating the monster: Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
A new species would bless me creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. (p. 52) From this it is obvious that Victor begins with only the best intentions for his creation. He appears to have plans of raising his creation as if it is his own child. The story takes a strange and unexpected twist when the monster comes to life, because suddenly Victor wants only to quit himself of the monster's presence. His values are suddenly reversed, and from that point on he has a new goal.
His new goal is a fairly brutal one, but Victor sticks with it until his dying day, and that is to rid the world of this foul creature. Victor is very determined and ambitious from the time he is introduced to Agrippa, Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. In the beginning, it is only for the good, but as the experiments start to take shape, he becomes enveloped with his success that causes suffering and despair to Victor and his loved ones: Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believe that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised my self both of these when my creation should be complete. (p. 55) Victor goes far past the point of ambition, he enters the realm of utter obsession.
To be determined to reach your goals is one thing, but when a person becomes so ambitious that they think only of what more they can do to succeed, it turns into an obsession that results in severe pain and suffering. There are three different moral values presented by Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein that result in pain and failure. Although knowledge, love and ambition are all good moral values to have, if there is too much desire for them, it can result in agony and suffering for the characters. To want something so bad that it turns into an obsession is not the right way to go about achieving your goals.
Everyone has to be aware of what is happening around them before they get so caught up in their goals that they cannot see the anguish and pain that they are causing to themselves and others. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Moral Values In Frankenstein
