Luke Almeida
Mr. Purificato
ENG 3UI
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
The Real Antagonist of Frankenstein
At first thought, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a symbol of darkness, whose only wish is to ruin lives. He can be viewed as the antagonist, and the element Victor must overcome to restore balance and harmony to his world. But after the novel is looked at on a different level, we become aware that the creature wasn't responsible for his actions, and was just a victim of a misevaluated situation. The real antagonist of Frankenstein isn't the creature, but rather his inventor, Victor. Betraying his creation upon birth, having lack of consideration for others due to his struggle for knowledge, and not caring about the consequences of his creation or future all contribute to victor being the real villain in the gothic novel, Frankenstein.
Although some say Victor would not be able to raise the monster properly, abandoning his creation upon birth greatly contributed to many tragedies. Frankenstein showed no empathy to the monster from the moment it came into existence. He was “unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created” (Shelly 43), simply because its appearance was not to his picture, being a strange mixture of life and death. Frankenstein feared his creation even before it had done anything, and he simply ran when his creation reached out to him. Shelley states that Frankenstein took refuge in the courtyard and listened carefully for any sound indication that his creation would come his way. Frankenstein would not be the one to raise and take care of the creation; it would have to fend for itself in a world where it didn’t belong. If Victor, couldn’t embrace it then the chances of other human beings doing the same were highly unlikely. If Victor had shown the creation the love and compassion it desired above all, then it would have shared that compassion and Victor’s friends and...