Frankenstein Crime And Punishment Analysis

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Predators go after prey instinctively without thought as to the victims feelings, but as humans our instinct and conscience responds and acts different when it comes to death. When we see someone hurt direct from our actions, our response is guilt and remorse. So then why is there a gap between our responses compared to responses given by animals? Why do we need to have that voice in the back of our mind telling us the morality of an action? While people will continue to argue the laws of morality, we all have one thing in common: a conscience. Diving into different works of literature can show more insight and answer the questions we have about the human psyche and how we respond to our conscience. In “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly, the …show more content…
Irrevocably, the creature kills Victor’s loved ones and demands that Victor make a partner for itself. Even with Victor’s life in the balance, his guilt keeps him from repeating mistakes and saves humanity from a possible demon race. This accountability is shown throughout so many books, one very key example is Raskolnikov from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”. He is a mentally troubled and impoverished former student trying to make ends meet. His desperate financial situation leads him to find ways to justify in his mind, the crime of killing a local pawn broker. After the crime was committed and covered up, there was one thing he couldn’t cover up so easily-guilt. This spirals him into insanity and his mind wars over good and evil, highlighting the emotions we all feel when struggling to decide on the path to take. Eventually he gives in to the feverish
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Department of English Spring 2014 Course Descriptions Essays

means to think within this framework. Next, we will explore the Age of Darwin, who understood man as an animal. To see how this transformed the belief that man was superior to animal, we will look at nineteenth-century novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and some of Darwin himself. Finally, we shall read novels and films that suggest that man must cohabit this planet with other animals. Novellas like Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, and films like the recent…

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