‘Do not waste your time upon this, it is sad trash’
Mary Shelley now emphasises the lack of nurturing in this opening chapter; without any supervision, he disobeys his father and engrosses himself in his studies, and becomes fired with enthusiasm to find the elixir of life. He later then states if instead his father had taken time to explain that alchemy had been disproved then, it was possible that Victors’ train of ideas would never have lead him to the fatal impulse that led him to his ruin. (This negative parenting leads Victor to devastating affects which he regrets later.)
As Victor is sent to the University of Ingolstad in Balvania, before he leaves, his mother dies having caught a disease, he feels that a child should never have a chance to bury their own parents and believes his mother dieing was pure evil.
‘Why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel…’
Shelley here uses the novel Frankenstein to express her feelings of her mother dieing, this is also used in the novel, where Victors’’ mother dies. Therefore Shelley could be seen to be saying through her novel, that parents love alone is not enough for a Childs healthy development, unless love is produced together with discipline and guidance, the child is then able to develop into a well rounded adult. She also stress here that mothers are the main individual for nurturing, so I believe that if Victors’ mother had been alive she would not have led Victor to his ruins.
When Victor succeeds infusing the frame he has constructed with life, the monsters dull yellow eyes open and it breathes. While we may expect Victor to be exultant he is immediately filled with horror and disgust.
‘…now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, breathless horror and disgust filled my heart’
The description of the monster may suggest the appearance of a new born baby, where many would say their new born child is beautiful when mostly it isn’t, every parent perceive there child as perfect and beautiful where as Frankenstein does not express these feelings like a true parent and shows the lack of nurturing, but there is also the emphasis on the unnatural which reflects the moment it was created. The sorrow of the monsters situation is suggested by his out stretched hand. Victor immediately proves himself irresponsible by abandoning the child in horror. Driven on by the excitement of creating life scientifically rather than naturally he believes he can repair evil by able to bring his mother back to life as he feels his mothers death was pure evil ( god like role having the power to decide who lives by bringing them back to life) .
When Victor sparks life into his experiments he is immediately disgusted by it and describes it as a;
‘Wretch’ and ‘filthy demon’
This is completely the opposite of the reaction of a normal mother to her newborn baby, so Victor is clearly failing as a parent. This brings up the subject of abortion, and the question of whether parents have the right to abort their babies if they are imperfect. Here Victor clearly believes the answer is yes, and deserts its child, failing to nurture or make any contact with it just because of the deformity of its aspects. Here also Victor fails to nurture its child by not giving it a name not teach it hence I believe that Victor fails to parent this child.
When the monster kills a member of Victors’ family Victor recognises who was responsible.
‘Instantly informed me’
This shows that he recognises his child instantly because of how much work he has put into it; he then believes this creature is not a child nor human when he states ‘every human being was guiltless of this murder’ when actually it is. He sees his own child as a monster because of its physical appearance (or not its natural child) and judging his own child on looks. However this is a bit ironic this is because if Elizabeth and Victor (who both are perfect- visually) were to have a child and was deformed/ unappealing Victor would not abandon it which then again brings up the matter of abortion.
As Frankenstein realises the consequences of his actions, he begins to take responsibility of its child.
‘I, the true murder…………..I was sized with remorse and a sense of guilt’
Even though he feels guilty of what he has done, instead of nurturing it or taking all the responsibility of his child he begins to hates his child even more. I believe this is unfair as it was Frankenstein’s own ambition which caused all of this. What also caused this was the lack of nurturing as the child was not born evil hence I believe the lack of nurturing caused this murder. However I believe it is not entirely all Frankenstein’s error as the negative reactions gained from the people to the creature and not being nurtured turned him evil.
Frankenstein started to progress his role as a father when the creature explained why he was a murderer.
‘I compassionated him… buy when I looked upon him my heart sickened’
Victor’s role as a father had become much clearer when he began to feel sorry for his child, like a true father, however this did not last long when Victor once again glanced at his child face he senses hatred. It is this barrier of the creature’s appearance that is holding Victor back, making him a failure to be taken upon a father’s role.
In Frankenstein Mary Shelley strongly shows that nothing is born bad, but is the lack of nurture that decides whether a child is brought up to become either good or evil. This is shown when the creature discovers how to produce a fire, then nurtures it self that it can be used to warm itself. However due to the lack of nurturing he uses this fire for the wrong reasons such as using it to light the cottage. But the prime example of the concept of creation and nurture Frankenstein creating an monster, not realising the out come of this ambition to bring the dead back to life, then also to failing to nurture this creature and as a result brings unhappiness to this world. Mary Shelley proves that even though Frankenstein was a scientific success, he didn’t nurture its child hence it is claimed as a parental failure.
