The Noble Savage in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein - Book Report/Review Example

The self-obsessed Victor Frankenstein travels an isolated path to his own destruction by superseding the boundaries of death and by not taking responsibility to nurture his own creation. Casting aside the medical community’s advice and any hindering sense of spiritual morality, Victor fantasizes about “a new species (that) would bless me as its creator…No father could claim the gratitude of a child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (Shelley 43). While Frankenstein succeeds in bringing the amalgamated Creature to life, he fails miserably in his role as Father-figure and Creator.

Victor’s abandonment of the Creature and murder of the female Creature is starkly contrasted throughout the novel by characters nurturing each other—Caroline nurses Name 2 Elizabeth, Clerval cares for Victor, and the Creature aides the De Lacey family. Victor cannot see past the monstrous exterior of his creation to understand the Creatures' layered human potential. Once Victor’s attention refocuses on his family, he still does not acknowledge and reveal the Creature’s existence even to save Justine from execution. . ely embodying Victor’s mad obsession to discover the life principle (Oates 544.) Frankenstein’s rejection casts the child-man Creature into a world of violent alienation that poisons his capabilities for forgiveness, peace, and social harmony.

Even education teaches him to identify himself as “the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed” (Shelley 77-78). Oates finds the rebellious Creature becomes identified with Prometheus, Oedipus, Adam, Hamlet, Edmund, and, ultimately, Satan. The misshapen, man-made creature silhouetted against the pristine Alps and the Arctic visually comments upon humanity’s inability to mimic nature’s genius. Beyond issues of scientific responsibility, Shelley’s thwarted Creature forges a commentary on how society treats Others—a question just as contentious in today as when this novel was first conceived.

Framing Frankenstein and the Creature’s relationship through Walton’s eyes and revealing Walton’s own perspective through his epistolary relationship with his sister Margaret introduces readers to multiple points of view. When Victor disparages the sailors as “faint-hearted” readers immediately sense parallels between Victor’s hamartia Name 3 and Walton’s neglect of his family and endangering of his crew (Jansson XIV). Walton’s exaggerated desire believes he may “discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever” (Shelley 13).

Yet, as the vainglorious Walton learns of Victor’s monstrous transgressions, he considers the merits of his own methods of discovery.