Victor Frankenstein is a young scientist who becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life. He spends years working tirelessly on his experiment, neglecting his basic needs such as sleep, food, and rest. His obsession consumes him to the point that he neglects his own health and well-being, becoming ill and weak.
What does Victor become obsessed with in Frankenstein?
In Chapter 4 of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein's obsession with science and with overcoming death finally culminate as he finishes his studies and starts his life's work. This lesson will focus on the summary of Chapter 4.
Victor Frankenstein, who incidentally was a medical student and not a doctor, was very disturbed when the creature he created killed his friend Henry Clerval. Unable to sleep, he dosed himself with laudanum, perhaps the Victorian era's most popular medicine.
Neither was he a "mad scientist." Victor Frankenstein was a university student who from a young age had been obsessed with a search for the secrets of heaven and earth. He voraciously read the works of the great alchemists like Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus who tried to find the secret of everlasting youth.
These two writers teach Victor more about science than school ever did, even though their work has been discredited by the time Victor stumbles upon it. Victor's interests in those years include looking for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, raising ghosts and devils, and death.
Frankenstein is More Horrific Than You Might Think | Monstrum
What did Victor become obsessed with in Chapter 3?
In his quest for glory, Victor begins to isolate himself, which sets an ominous tone for the rest of the novel. His obsession with natural philosophy leads him to neglect what used to be most important to him—his loved ones—which prompts the reader to wonder if his fascination is healthy.
What is the obsession and revenge in Frankenstein?
The theme of monstrosity appears as their hate-based obsession with revenge turns the creature and Victor both physically and psychologically monstrous. On his journey to kill the creature, Victor dies of pneumonia.
One of the more contentious issues in Frankenstein is the creature's demand that Victor provide him a mate: “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.
Why does Frankenstein create the Monster? Frankenstein believes that by creating the Monster, he can discover the secrets of “life and death,” create a “new species,” and learn how to “renew life.” He is motivated to attempt these things by ambition. He wants to achieve something great, even if it comes at great cost.
His motivation for making the beast was to gain personal glory. He was obsessed about creating something that would worship him and his intellect. But he made the Monster lost in his identity issues. Later Victor denies that he is responsible for the creature and the death of his loved ones.
Having lost everything, Victor is now motivated by nothing more than a blind longing to avenge his family's suffering. While readers might expect that Victor's longing will die with him, his appeal to Walton suggests that the cycle of revenge can last beyond death.
Seeking revenge on his creator, he kills Victor's younger brother. After Victor destroys his work on the female monster meant to ease the monster's solitude, the monster murders Victor's best friend and then his new wife.
What does Victor's monster symbolize? Victor's monster represents the hubris of thinking one can replace nature. The Creature is a grotesque creation which begins as Adam symbolically, but eventually sees more of Satan in himself.
He is unable to face his creation and is unprepared for the creature's independent existence. As the story progresses, Victor's initial emotional reactions to seeing the creature come to life—disgust and horror—are substantiated by the creature's actions.
What is Dr Frankenstein obsessed with and what does his give up or ignore to pursue this?
He isolates himself in an obsessive quest to create life from death, and as soon as he succeeds, he rejects his creation for the dubious sin of being unattractive, abandons it, and takes to his bed in a fit of emo pique. As soon as he achieves his obsession, he rejects the accomplishment, and catastrophe results.
While Victor initially created the creature to resolve the neglect he received as a child, his over-ambitiousness ultimately prevents him from empathizing with his creation, so he subsequently abandons it. Furthermore, Victor abandons his creation because of his realization of what the creature personifies.
How has the protagonist Victor's obsession caused the death of his loved ones?
Walton shares a similar obsession with knowledge, as he is desperate to find a path on the ocean to the North Pole. However, both plans backfire, creating danger for both men. Victor rejects his creation, which causes the monster to murder some of Victor's loved ones.
Victor believes he deserves to die for creating a dangerous creature and letting it loose to terrorize people. Victor ultimately concludes that to kill himself would be even more selfish because he would be leaving the monster to continue harming people.
Victor contemplates suicide but decides against it due to his love for Elizabeth and his family. He fears that if he were to commit suicide, the creature could get them also.
One night in his laboratory, Victor starts to fear that his new creation might not stay away from humans, or that the two creatures might breed a "race of devils." At this moment he looks up and observes the monster "grinning" at the window. Overcome by repugnance, Victor demolishes his work.
The language, actions, and characteristics of Victor Frankenstein and the monster suggest that Victor Frankenstein is a paranoid schizophrenic who is battling his alternate personality whom he believes is the monster of the story.
Once he learns that Victor is dead, the creature feels that he no longer has a purpose. He both hates and pities Frankenstein and knows that ultimately he cannot live without his creator, no matter how much the two of them hated each other.
What does the monster say at the end of Frankenstein?
The monster begins to tell him of all his sufferings. He says that he deeply regrets having become an instrument of evil and that, with his creator dead, he is ready to die. He leaves the ship and departs into the darkness.
