The scientific progress that is the monster is, in fact, an insightful almost human being, who is a victim to a society unwilling to accept outcasts and it is in this way that scientific progress is dangerous not to people, but to the monster itself. ‘ He dashed me to the ground and struck me violently’ you may expect this to be a scene in which the monster kills someone but it is in fact what a human does to the monster. In contrast to the harsh verbs used in this extract (‘dashed’, ‘struck’, ‘violently’) the monsters attitude is of a caring nature ‘sympathised with and partly understood them’ he describes people as insightful human beings who he perhaps envies, he has a thirst for knowledge comparable to that of Victor, his creator. Yet the monster does not want to live ‘Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live.’ The repetition of ‘cursed’ only ensures that the message of the monsters own longing to never have been created and bear such prejudice. The scientific progress of Victor’s creation does not account for nor expect the prejudice that the monster will face and leads him to self-destruction, indicating that only God should create life.
It is not only the monster that suffers from Victor’s experimentation, for Victor himself is affected, not by prejudice, (although Victor may have felt to be an outcast at times) but by the outcome of his own saneness and happiness. At not fully understanding the extent to which his experimentation will affect not only himself, but also the monster and the people around him, disorder pursues, in a similar way to the problems that will arise from cloning and could create similar problems of disorder. Only God has the awareness to distribute life. ‘This was the commencement of a nervous fever, which confined me for several months’ Victor has only just created the monster and yet he soon becomes sick, indicating that already the extent to his experimentation is taking its toll on Victor. Victor’s happiness with Elizabeth soon comes to an unexpected end with her murder, which affects Victor deeply. ‘Revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure; it moulded my feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion’ This quote includes alliteration ‘calculating and composure’ and ‘delirium or death’ which promotes Victor’s despair and his need for vengeance.
An inevitable outcome of scientific experimentation is one of the main themes throughout the book- death. Death is to be expected and is necessary, as the tragic death of the main protagonists is needed to restore the harmony and tranquillity that there was before the experiment. The monster has to kill Elizabeth, as the monster believed that if he was unhappy then his creator was not entitled to happiness either. ’Dared to hope for happiness; that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me, he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was for ever barred’. The grudge the monster feels towards his creator is only highlighted once again at the threatening tone when the monster talks of the fact that Victor ‘dared to hope for happiness’ and the alliteration only assists in adding to the off-putting views the monster has of his creator. ‘ for ever barred’ is yet another negative phrase that demands pity from the reader and encourages the reader to engage with the outlook the monster has, almost as if the monster feels the need to justify his jealousy.
Crime increases in ‘Frankenstein’ from the time the monster is created, mainly in the form of the murders and the violence that takes place and this is all attributable to the monster, whether it was violence caused to the monster, or murder originating from the monsters loneliness and abandonment by his creator. Crime is first bestowed upon the monster as he views crime as ’a distant evil’ perhaps indicating evil was not originally in his nature and that it was the turn of events regarding humans inability to accept the monster that led him to this ‘distant evil’. The first real brush with violence is when Felix attacks the monster. ‘he dashed me to the ground, and struck me violently’ the harshness in the sentence really emphasises the brutality the monster faces, when he has done little to deserve such a greeting. the monster himself does not attack Felix yet realises he could ‘have torn him from limb to limb’, the monsters first encounter with violence could have led him only to despise the human race for it’s prejudice and in turn suggests the immorality of scientific discovery of this kind, as it only leads to violence, murder and various other forms of crime.
Immorally, Victor does not take responsibility for his creation. Throughout the book, he knows that the monster is causing havoc (at the expense of Justine and the murder victims) but he does not attempt to prevent more murders and does not fully accept that the problem is his fault. Instead he disowns the monster and selfishly seeks his own happiness, thus the monster feels resentment and resolves to ‘punish’ Victor. ‘ But where was mine? He had abandoned me: and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him’. The language used causes sympathy for the monster, and also creates an analogy of a defenceless young child, the word ‘abandoned’, and ‘heart’ only reinforcing this. The rhetorical question also suggests self-pity and bitterness, but also vulnerability on the monsters part, you begin to appreciate the monsters resentment. Victor brushes aside any guilt he may have, he may say, he had metaphorically ‘suffered living torture’ but if it was so, he would have admitted to the monsters existence, or in some way attempted to put an end to the destruction the monster could, and would cause, not only for Victor himself but furthermore to his family and wife.
Only God can create, and the tragic ending for the monster and for Victor, both of whom were the main protagonists throughout the book only succeeds in emphasising this. The moral being that attempting to take over God’s role can only cause commotion, to not only yourself, but to everyone else. The use of cloning and scientific exploration may evolve, but at the price of others lives, it should be destroyed. Therefore, Frankenstein is largely a book illustrating a view, which has relevance to us even now.
