Victor's Alienation In Frankenstein

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Beating at the heart of Paradise Lost there lies a common theme that Milton’s God controls all. Milton’s God makes the best choices for man and his legion of angels because of his omniscient presence. Due to God’s capacity to create life with an overarching lens, creating a plan with the most favorable outcome for all. Through Mary Shelley purposeful alienation of Frankenstein towards others and his humanity during his creation of the monster as well as the creation’s violent effects on those around him, Shelley validates that man has no right to play God. Shelley initially conveys the consequences of playing God through the parallels of Victor’s life before and after he becomes enveloped with creating his monster or taking up the role …show more content…
Shelley even goes to the lengths of doll-like imagery when Victor’s parents view him as ”a plaything and their idol”, illustrating Victor reaching an un-humanlike visage in his parent's eyes. Through Victor’s role of a doll in his family that can do not wrong, Shelley creates an aura of perfection surrounding Victor’s life before his obsession with creating the monster overtook him, giving his fall an increased amount of prominence. Shelley sets up this perfection only to crush it when Victor’s becomes“inanimated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm”, bringing him to a point where bodies in “a churchyard” mean nothing to him besides “receptacle bodies deprived of life”(52). Using this shift to a detached and scientific tone, Shelley describes Victor as an individual detached from feelings. One of the most fear inducing and emotionally charged aspects of humanity only serves the purpose …show more content…
The wrath of the monster reached another individual close to Victor, his best friend Henry who showed the method of his demise from “the black marks of fingers on his neck”(190). Utilizing this gruesome imagery, Shelley conveys the negative consequences of Victor playing God and the blackness of that sin visually represented on Henry’s body. Again, Victor had no foreshadowing of this sin killing his only and best friend due to his lack of foresight and godly status, causing him to be unable to see the stain his creation would leave on his own humanity and the people around him. Adding to this growing pool of the monster's victims, Elizabeth falls prey to the “murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp”, causing “the breath to [cease] issue from her lips”(213). Shelley continues with the pattern of this dark imagery of the literal bruises caused by the strangulation and the figurative stain of Victor’s sin to emphasize Victor’s capacity to sin and therefore his inability to complete a role assigned to God, the creation of life, without violent consequences. Shelley further develops this growing darkness in the wake of Victor playing God with the dark, heavy diction surrounding the corpse of Elizabeth who Shelley describes as “[languorous]” and “cold”(214). Utilizing this brooding and standstill visual, Shelley highlights not only the loss of life of Elizabeth, but Victor’s inept vision
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