Ele Stevens
Mr. Sharp
Eng 3U1
Thursday January 17, 2013
Ones actions throughout their life define whether they live a life of happiness or a life of regret. In living a life of regret and shame it can lead to hatred and aggression. California psychologist, Aaron Kipnis, said “shame is masked behind much of what we see as senseless violence.” In the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the short story “Regret” by Guy De Maupassant both protagonists first feel regret and then shortly after feel hatred. In saying this one could say that the feeling of regret leads to the feeling hatred.
In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein created a monster that he could not be responsible for. Victor fled from the monster and in doing this set his own creation after him. The monster was upset that his creator had left him and decided that he would get revenge on him by taking away everyone he love to make him feel as lonely as he had. Victor had wished that he “had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt the sensation of hunger, thirst, and heat. “ (Shelley 85). After the monster had taken away all of his love ones Victor wished that he had never left his home town and never felt loneliness, and despair. His guilt and despair was making him so ill he was on his death bed. It was then that he realized life was too short.
In the short story “Regret” by Guy De Maupassant Monsieur Saval reached the age of sixty-two and was an old bachelor. He spent his days pondering his life for he knew that he would not live very much longer. Savel had many regrets in his life. If his “life had been complete! If he had done something! If he had adventures, grand pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or another. But now, nothing. He had done nothing, never anything but rise from bed, eat, at the same hours and go to bed again. And he has gone on like that to the age of sixty-two years” (Maupassant). Savel had wished that he had done...