Whether as a consequence of his aspiration to achieve the superhuman status of constructing a new life or his avoidance of society in which science is generally conducted, Victor is damned in his lack of humanness. He overlooks the secrets of life lingering in natural creation and renews “life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption (314).” Victor’s views of giving life are distorted; he is selfish about what he wants from it and aborts it when it is a product he does not like. Shelley portrays a character who is disillusioned about the “secrets” of creation, consumed by his desire to make a life from death,
Rather than an image of a mother who nurtures and gives love for the sake of loving, Victor’s maternal instinct is one which wants to create life to receive glorification. Frankenstein seeks the feminine arena of creativity but lacks the inherent maternal sentiments. The creator is repulsed by his creation and “when [he thinks] of him, he gnashed his teeth, his eyes became inflamed, and he ardently wished to extinguish that life which he had so thoughtlessly bestowed (351).” Victor then continues later to overlook his hypocrisy as a creator when he mourns Justine accused of killing William by exclaiming:
“to have murdered the son of her benefactor, a child whom she nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if it had been her own! I could not consent to the death of any human being, but certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to remain in the society of men.” (p.354)
Frankenstein seems to state here what the qualities of a humanity are and what is deserved. His speech is loaded with hypocrisy because he is the creator who labors over his own ‘child’ and then consents to its death. Victor dark nature is reflected in his statement declaring Justine’s innocence.
Frankenstein’s creature, the “fallen angel” who becomes “a malignant devil”, refers to himself as the “miserable and the abandoned, an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on (494).” He desires to interact with the world and share in the simple pleasures it holds, but he is buried in self-reproach as his disfigurement and unnaturalness paint him into an isolated world. The creature has very human instincts despite his composition. He feels endeared sympathy, curiosity, admiration, hate, anger, anguish and many other symptoms of humanness when telling his story. He watched and “admired the perfect forms” of a peasant family, describing “their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions,” but when coming to see himself, he was terrified and “filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification (379).” Even as the creature “declares war against the species (403)” as he finds himself utterly rejected and denied company from the world, he recalls the horror with himself; “After the murder of Clerval, I was heartbroken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I abhorred myself (493).” Though physically, the creature is composed in an unnatural and “appalling hideousness” (492), he contains “a heart fashioned to be susceptible to love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred (493)” he did not depart from feeling the depths of torture for his actions. The unnatural creature holds emotions Victor, a natural creature, does not express. The theme abortion wraps itself around the how much life is deserved in the novel. The creature deserves a rewarding life besides his defects, but he receives a life of sharp, fragmented, with manipulated features.
Frankenstein’s monster seeks to share Man’s parody of creation through connection with others. He wants a female companion made to remove his isolation and cries “Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of one living thing (413)!” Victor sways in his thoughts wondering “did I as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in my power to bestow (413)?” In the end not only does Frankenstein recant his promise to his creature, he also denies his creature this companion as he “tore to pieces the thing on which he was engaged (438)” casts the pieces of her out to sea to abort her. The creature in return unmakes Elizabeth on the night of her wedding. The only kind of creation the monster achieves is out of line with the natural order. When he kills William he states: “I too can create desolation; my enemy is not impregnable.” Like his Creator, the monster finds he can create something equally as tragic as creating life from death, death from life.
The relationship of Frankenstein and his creature is severely skewed. The creature is tormented by his alienation and turns to revenge for the injustice that has been fated towards him by his creator. As the creature becomes more conscious of his life, he looks upon “the author of his existence and of its unspeakable torments, who dared to hope for happiness,” and declares:
“that while I accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance.” (493)
The creature is completely alienated from his own Creator. He realizes he is wholly alone and is ravenous to avenge his unjust life and finish his own: “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge (403).”
The motif, abortion, persists as both Victor and the monster articulate their sense of the monster's repulsiveness. About first seeing his creation, Victor says: “I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly made." The monster feels a similar disgust for his self, “the miserable and the abandoned.” Both lament the monster's subsistence and wish that Victor had never engaged in his act of creation.
In conclusion, abortion in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is depicted through the creator departure from natural creation and depiction of human qualities which portray how much life is deserved. The creature is rejected and abandoned. His creator scorns him. Victor upon first seeing his monster decides it does not and abandons it to survive alone among the elements. The theme of abortion also is literally played out through the destruction of a female creature.
