Frankenstein: Responsibility, Society, and the Monster's Fate

This essay offers a deep dive into Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, exploring the multifaceted theme of responsibility. It examines Victor Frankenstein's role as the creator and his abandonment of the creature, highlighting the moral and ethical implications of his actions. The essay investigates how Victor's irresponsibility, coupled with societal rejection, contributes to the creature's monstrous behavior and the tragic events that unfold. It analyzes the creature's quest for acceptance, its interactions with humanity, and the consequences of its isolation. Furthermore, the essay considers the broader societal responsibility in shaping the creature's fate, questioning whether the monster is a product of Victor's actions, societal prejudice, or a combination of both. The analysis includes references to key scenes and characters, offering a nuanced understanding of the novel's enduring themes and moral complexities.

Running head: FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
The paper intends to probe deep into depth of the epistolary novel, namely,
Frankenstein composed by Mary Shelley amalgamating the elements of gothic with science
and social responsibility (Shelley). Victor Frankenstein, the scientist absorbed into his own
creation forgets even his betrothed and invests all his efforts and emotions into breathing life
into a creature. However, with utter showcasing of irresponsibility as a father, Victor does not
feel guilty to abandon the creature in the middle of nowhere. He abandons the creature the
same way it has been treated by others as well. The creature with lack of affection and care
from the fatherly figure like Frankenstein becomes monstrous and starts committing heinous
crimes (Jara et al.). He even pleads for a companion so that he can stay away from all sorts of
destructive activities. However, being new to this world and the society the creature did not
know how to become acceptable to everybody. He was petrified by his own strength that took
a turn to brutality gradually. Therefore the essay tries to find out how much Victor and the
society cumulatively is responsible for the creature to become this hideous.
It is true in every sense that a parental figure has certain responsibilities towards the
children. Responsibility implies duty and fulfilling some accountability that one has for some
people and objects. It is not necessary to have responsibilities only towards an animated
being but also it involves taking care of inanimate objects such as books and other
possessions. The creature was Victor’s brainchild and the result of its intense passion and
effort therefore it was his duty and responsibility to protect him from any anticipated danger
that could touch him or that the latter could have caused upon others. Victor is shown to be
morally liable to the creature from the very beginning because he has created the latter
(Walker). However, as the story unfolds gradually it becomes clear that it is the creature that
learns to emote and adapts intellect but Victor loses it to the least amount at the end.
Victor must have experiences two different stages of responsibility that is to create the
creature at the first place, which makes him responsible for the latter’s existence and the other

2
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
one is to initiate certain responsibilities to and for the creature at the same time. The very
creation of the creature makes Victor go through these two stages where he had be
responsible for the actions of the creature by keeping everybody safe from its attack and
responsibility to the latter by teaching it morality and making it aware of how one should
behave in front of other people and how one can become a social creature. Victor with his full
sense makes the creature and he has been fully certain about the fact that he wanted make
something like this although he fails to take responsibility of the creature. Initially he was all
excited and enthusiastic about the very existence of the creature because he thought it would
bring bliss and blessings to his life. Later, he presents himself to be an irresponsible father
who just participates in the process of giving birth to the child but does not really care what
happens next with the child (van den Belt 10).
Victor is always at fault because he has not shown any sense of responsibility as a
father. He is not only an utter failure as a father but also a coward man to have run away from
what he has done. He never accepts that he has made such a creature that has never generated
any impulse of hesitation in him (Botting). Initially he was a little hesitant but this did not
stop him from breathing life into that creature. He just left the creature without any formal
training of how it should behave in a civilized society. Hence, accepting a creature to behave
politely is evidently wrong. It is Victor who has wronged the creature. The creature is just
like a new born baby who is not aware of social attributes and it was completely unwelcomed
by the society because of its unusualness. Although Victor intended to resurrect dead bodies
into life once again and the invention of the creature was planned for this purpose only yet it
did not result in the same way as he had thought it to be (Dougherty).
The plot unravels in a way where Victor is literally scared of the mere presence of the
creature itself. He should have considered that his research might have evoked a turbulent

3
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
vicissitude in the facade as well as the internal wall of Victor and the society he belongs to
(Robert 21). However, once the creature was made it cannot be undone but it could have been
mended and taught and educated with manners and etiquettes so that it could not grow as
devastating as it had been. When the creature is seen to have opened his dull, monstrous,
yellow eyes, Victor slips into nights full of nightmares. He envisions his betrothed to be a
corpse changing from the state of a healthy woman. This compels Victor to run away from
the creature which in reality was the opposite. The creature escaped from him where Victor
had to run from it because he had no power of facing the brutal and agonizing reality. Victor
is afraid of blaming himself to have caused this situation (Goswami 215).
The whole affair of murdering William, the brother of Victor has been an act of
vengeance by the creature that reveals how Victor has lost his sense of moral responsibility
towards humanity. With the act of creating the creature he should have been more responsible
rather he started acting like an escapist, running away from all his responsibilities. Justine, a
family friend of Victor was charged for the murder where she was completely innocent but
knowing the truth about who had killed William, Victor remained silent. He did not speak a
word in order to safeguard himself (Halpern et al. 50). This shows how he has declined as a
human being. One thing has to be understood that the society reverberates the fear of law in
every citizen. Hence, Victor was so scared of getting convicted for creating the creature that
had caused the murder; he silently saw how injustice is bestowed upon an innocent woman.
Although Victor fails to take any responsibility for creating the creature yet he firmly
believes that it is he and his decisions regarding making the creature and abandoning it
abruptly have caused such humdrums in life and the society. The society can also be claimed
to be responsible for the fate of the creature (Conley 251). When the creature was abandoned
by the God who has created it, he was not even accepted by the rest of the society. The
society was not ready to accept it because of its unusual and unacceptable presence. The

4
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
society was scared of the horrifying existence of it and how brutal and merciless it has
become. It kills people and causes damage to human existence making the society scared of
it. However, it should be considered once that if the society has not been tender to it, then
who the monster is; the creature or the society (Van Den Belt 137)?
It is true that Victor is more responsible for hurling this colossal damage to the
prevalent harmony of human existence but the role of society should not also be ignored. The
society has constantly increased the distance instead of accepting and embracing it to be the
integral part of the society. The creature could never taste the essence of love, affection and
care neither from Victor Frankenstein nor from the society (Harris). Has received rejection
and apathy from everyone that is why he has grown into a heartless monster snatching away
peace from everybody’s life.
The creature learns about human emotions and the worth of relationship by closely
observing a human family and scrutinizing the significance of relationship. Victor being the
creative father of the creature was supposed to teach the creature how to deal with emotions
and how to read and speak. The creature was not even been able to express itself but it
acquired the particular skill from developing the efficiency of observation. The duty that
Victor should have acted upon was done by itself all alone (Jackson 7). However, it made out
that there would be no place for it in the human society hence it had to consider every human
being its rival. The fire of destruction and violence was ignited from this unacceptable
rejection of the society and its apparent irresponsible God.
When the creature requests its master to make it its “other” he thought he would have
a companion in this lonely world. The world might be huge enough a space for human beings
but for him it is a place full of hatred, misery and is decorated with thorns of dismay.
Therefore it came up with the idea that a companion might be helpful for it to share its grief

5
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
and pathos. However, the master, Victor refuses and turns down the request because he
thought it would cause more responsibility to take care of another creature when he is already
not successful in looking after the existing one (Carrier 12). Victor is so much under pressure
that he once decided to end everything by killing the creature though he was not successful in
it. The vital point that is made here is an individual must have at least a minimum sense of
responsibility where he had devoted everything unconditionally without worrying about the
end product.
Therefore, it can be concluded from the above mentioned discussion that the
monstrosity of the creature is nowhere the fault of the creature. It is the behavior it had
received throughout from Victor, its creator as well as the society. Victor has been so
irresponsible from the beginning that he could even make some room to tech it how to
express its emotion. He just left his job unfinished by imposing life into it but he completely
forgot that he had some more tasks to perform upon him to make it more humanly. However,
when the situation became out of control, he ran away from taking responsibilities even
though at the end of the novel he regrets for committing such blunder of creating a monster at
the first place. Apart from Victor all the human beings have made it feel how disgusting and
unacceptable its existence is. The society has treated him like it is unwanted everywhere. It
has made the creature understand that it belongs to the filth and cannot have any kind of
similarity with that of the human beings that would make it comfortable around the human
world. Therefore, the creature is subjected to the horrible rejection that made him lose its
sanity and break laws of morality.

6
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
References
Botting, Eileen Hunt. Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child: Political Philosophy in"
Frankenstein". University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Carrier, Martin. "How to conceive of science for the benefit of society: prospects of
responsible research and innovation." Synthese (2019): 1-20.
Conley, Shannon N. "An Age of Frankenstein: Monstrous Motifs, Imaginative Capacities,
and Assisted Reproductive Technologies." Science Fiction Studies 45.2 (2018): 244-
259.
Dougherty, Stephen. "VICTOR'S RESPONSIBILITY AND THE MONSTER'S FAVORITE
BOOKS: ALLEGORY, TECHNOLOGY, AND ROMANTIC IDEOLOGY IN
FRANKENSTEIN." Litteraria Pragensia 28.56 (2018).
Goswami, Debapriya. "‘Filthy Creation’: The Problem of Parenting in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein." Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 10.2
(2018): 210-16.
Halpern, Megan K., et al. "Stitching together creativity and responsibility: Interpreting
Frankenstein across disciplines." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 36.1
(2016): 49-57.
Harris, Kaitlin. "Frankenstein’s Fixations: A Psychoanalytic Evolutionary Approach to
Childhood, Sexuality, and Outsiders." Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal
at the University of Northern Colorado 7.2 (2019): 7.

7
FRANKENSTEIN: A TALE OF MISUNDERSTOOD RESPONSIBILITY
Jackson, Hannah. "Creating a Monster: Attachment Theory and Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein." The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate
Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English 20.1 (2018): 7.
Jara, Jamie, et al. "Science vs Nature: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley." (2018).
Robert, Jason Scott. "Rereading Frankenstein: What If Victor Frankenstein Had Actually
Been Evil?." Hastings Center Report 48.6 (2018): 21-24.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. Penguin, 2018.
van den Belt, H. "Frankenstein, or the beauty and terror of science." Journal of Geek
studies 4.1 (2017): 1-12.
Van Den Belt, Henk. "Frankenstein lives on." (2018): 137-137.
Walker, Victoria. "Victor Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and Prometheus in the Role of
Creator." (2018).