Role of Victor Frankenstein and the Effects of Over Ambitions in Frankenstein

This essay discusses the role of Victor Frankenstein and his over ambitions to conquer power throughout the novel. It explores the effects of his ambitions and the consequences they bring. The essay also touches upon other themes in the novel such as isolation, romanticism, social prejudices, and revengeful psychology.

Running head: ENGLISH ESSAY
English Essay
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Author Note

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Essay proposal
Sample thesis statement:
The following essay will argue about the role of Victor Frankenstein and his over
ambitions to conquer power throughout the novel. His actions and remorse will showcase the
effect of over ambitions in a man’s life.
The quote that can be given by Victor Frankenstein to prove the thesis is “He believes he
will be as important as Homer Shakespeare”. Another dialogue is “Drunk also if the
intoxicating draught”. These lines show his ambition and arrogance as he wanted to achieve the
highest spot through his works.
The following essay will determine on the various things that could be associated with
the different themes of the novel. The main theme is regarding the effects of the over ambitions
of Victor Frankenstein. It is quite evident that his high expectations and ambitions brought about
his downfall. His activities and mastery over science resulted in rising the dead and creating the
monster. This monster killed all the near and dear ones of Victor. Therefore, he realized his
mistake and spent all his life in destroying that monster.
Essay
In the following essay, some of the themes of the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
will be discussed. This is one of the most famous books written in the beginning of the 19 th
century. The book was first published in the year 1818 in United Kingdom. It is a horror fiction
novel. The theme that will be mainly focused on in this paper is that of ambition and fallibility of
human beings in this world. The ambitions of the human beings have been discussed in this book

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by the author (Blumberg: 22). The full name of the book is Frankenstein, or the Modern
Prometheus. There are some other themes in this book as well. These are of isolation from
family and society, romanticism about nature, social prejudices, revengeful psychology of the
human beings, lost innocence and others. Apart from the main theme, some other themes would
be discussed in this essay as well.
Thesis statement: The revengeful psychology and ambition of the characters are a total
reflection of the entire society.
The main characters of the book are Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth Lavenza, Caroline,
Henry Clerval, Alphonse Frankenstein and most importantly the monster. Victor Frankenstein is
the main character in the book that created the monster. His ambition has been reflected all
through the book. He was a scientist and longed for more power so he could control the universe.
He was very much obsessed with creating the human form. However, he created the monster and
became very much afraid of it (Blumberg: 22).
He also got very depressed. This signifies the fact that longing for too much power will
surely lead a human being towards much depression. Therefore he has to be very much cautious
about controlling the creation. One of the main aspects in this context is Victor Frankenstein was
so afraid of his creation that he came to live with his family after abandoning his school. He also
spent his whole life in trying to destroy the similar creation he had created once, the monster.
Through the character portrayal of Victor Frankenstein, the author Mary Shelley has
portrayed the human beings in a very ambitious manner. Besides being deeply ambitious, there
are many flaws in the minds and characters of human beings as well. Victor Frankenstein had the
high ambition that he wanted to bring in several transformations within the society. Also he

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wanted to make the world glorious by their scientific achievements. Fallibility has been observed
among the characters of the novel like Victor and Walton (Haynes: 16). This always happens that
human beings often forget the consequences of their actions because of their joy. The same thing
has also happened in this scenario. They felt that they had achieved glory of scientific
discoveries (Britton: 4).
On the contrary they were also not able to address the consequences that might come up
as a result of their discovery. They created a monster that was on a spree of destruction. As the
plot of the story suggests, Victor was not at all able to fulfill his responsibilities of his creation.
He created the monster and he thought himself to be a God. Therefore, he the amount of
fallibility in his character has been shown only (Haynes: 16). So, it is quite clear that this story
has represented the ideas of narcissism, being falsely proud of one’s own accomplishments and
other things.
The quote that can be given regarding this story from the chosen character of Victor
Frankenstein is ‘Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through,
and pour a torrent of light into our dark world’. In the context of this quotation, the depression
of Victor Frankenstein is very clearly seen (Britton: 4). Through these lines, he has admitted his
sorrowful and miserable condition in their lives. He created the monster to gain control over the
world but he was in such a distressful condition that he was like a father of the devil.
Walton also was a major character in the story where he wanted to go to North Pole but
he turned back from but he later accuses that he did not achieve the glory. This also signifies the
fact that endless desires and ambitions never left the minds of those two people. In turn, so high
ambitions made them almost blind of the practical scenario (Shelley: 10). Therefore, they wanted

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to be so successful that their glory would go beyond the society. In fact, this is some kind of a
very insane dream that they had seen. It invariably shows that they are very unfashioned entities
within the society and they do not conform to the thought process of the society. The harshness
has been depicted through the activities of Victor Frankenstein (Johnson: 287).
The quote given in the earlier section affirms that Victor had been going through utmost
depression throughout his life after creating the monster. Victor was in deep depression mood
when he went to Lake Geneva to gain some momentary repose from his pain. In later times, he
also went on to attempt for suicide in the silent lake (Shelley: 10).
It is definite that a very clever and intelligent person like Victor could have used his brain
for some other good thing for society. On the other hand, his activity turned out to be a disgrace
for the society. His quick learning skills were very helpful for him to adapt new things. His
decision to study reanimation in one of top learning institutions in Europe proved to be a bad
one. He went on to apply his intelligence in something that would be very much dangerous for
the entire humanity (Holmes: 490).
He was very much ambitious but he had a lot of faith in himself as well. Otherwise, he
would not have been able to reanimate the dead person and give him a new life. His creation of
the monster did not make him a God. Rather he turned into a villain (Beenstock: 407). He is
boundless in his ambition and he is very desperate to achieve his ambitions. So, he could do
anything that would make him achieve his goal (Small: 28). Victor was very overwhelming
regarding about his pride. This is why he had to be very much cautious about the consequences
he might have faced. He knew that he will have to face several struggles in his life to give life to

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a dead person but he continued with his work since he was sure he will be able to achieve it
because of his high ambitions.
The novel opened up at a time when Victor was a little boy and it continued with his love
for science. He was very adept at using science in the best manner. Therefore, he transformed
himself to a guilt-laden man. He became disillusioned with his thoughts of making a new
discovery of raising the dead (Beenstock: 407). His mastery over science was inevitable but he
did not utilize it for the benefit of mankind. Rather his conscience directed him in other ways.
Later in his life, he alienated himself from the rest of the world and concentrated only upon
taking the revenge on his creation, the monster.
Thus this animalistic obsession of Victor was very harmful for him indeed (Harkup: 19).
The hideous monster was very much violent and it killed many people including younger brother
of Victor, his best friend and also his wife, Elizabeth Lavenza. Therefore, it became quite
problematic for him to live alone in a secluded manner. He had to realize that this was the
outcome of his endless ambitions. Two other innocent people also died indirectly by the wrath of
this monster. The father of Victor was also included in the list of those casualties (Putri: 48).
After these sorrowful incidents Victor was completely left alone and his conscience
haunted him with remorse. He was unable to reveal to anyone about the horrific creature he had
created (Tiehen: 65). This is why his only motto in life was to destroy that creature. He felt
shameful and guilty. Thus the paradoxical nature of his life indicated the tragedy that one has to
go through because of their irrational high ambitions in life (Vidal: 90). This had brought upon
his tragedy in life and he attempted for suicide because of this reason as well. He used science

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for destruction of nature and human beings (Putri: 48). He was also paid back for his guilt as
well.
In the concluding section, it can be stated that Victor Frankenstein is one of the most
notable characters in English literature that has been portrayed to show man’s ultimate condition
for being overly ambitious. As his ambitions knew no bounds, he committed some activities that
proved to be fatal for mankind. The creation of a monster through reanimation was not at all
fruitful as it destroyed several lives. Apart from that, Victor’s depression is also notable in this
novel as well. Therefore, it is quite apt that Victor’s tragedy in life was quite inevitable because
of his activities. Every man should commit actions after thinking about its potential
consequences.

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Reference List
Beenstock, Zoe. "Lyrical Sociability: The Social Contract and Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein." Philosophy and Literature 39.2 (2015): 406-421.
Blumberg, Jane. Mary Shelley’s Early Novels:‘This Child of Imagination and Misery’. Springer,
2016.
Britton, Ronald. "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: what made the Monster monstrous?." Journal of
Analytical Psychology 60.1 (2015): 1-11.
Harkup, Kathryn. Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
Haynes, Roslynn D. "Frankenstein: the scientist we love to hate." Public Understanding of
Science (2016).
Holmes, Richard. "Science fiction: The science that fed Frankenstein." Nature 535.7613 (2016):
490.
Johnson, Jeffrey Allan. "Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume? Revising the Popular Image of
Frankenstein." Literature and Medicine36.2 (2018): 287-311.
Putri, Risqi Maydia. An existence of Victor Frankenstein's life in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Diss. UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, 2017.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein-The Modern Prometheus: eBook Edition. Jazzybee
Verlag, 2015.

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Small, Cathleen. Frankenstein s Monster. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC, 2015.
Tiehen, Jeanne. "Frankenstein Performed: The Monster Who Will Not Die." The Popular
Culture Studies Journal 2.1-2 (2014): 65.
Vidal, Fernando. "Frankenstein's Brain:" The Final Touch"." SubStance 45.2 (2016): 88-117.