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Mary Shelley's |
FRANKENSTEIN | |
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GEOGRAPHY HISTORICAL INFO LITERARY TERMS
STUDY QUESTIONS |
 CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF "DYNAMIC CHARACTERS" Frankenstein has a very complex character change throughout the story, mainly because the story covers his entire life. Because of the inverted time sequence (the bulk of the novel is a flashback and a flashback within a flashback), his character in the book is not in the same sequence as in real life. Through the course of his own life, he evolves from being a happy and loving child with a love of knowledge, to a science obsessed youth, to a broken and "wiser-for-the-wear" man. The various sorrows he endures through his life, and his decade long sense of guilt for having created such a murderous being, wear on him until he is a prematurely aged and sickly man. Most important to mention is his change in philosophy over his development. After all the havoc he unintentionally wreaked on himself, he decides that it is better to enjoy life than to go after fame, glory, and knowledge. After all that he learns, he feels that ignorance is bliss. In essence, Victor carries the moral of the story.
The Creature also has a very important development in the story. Chronologically, he begins life as a tabula rasa (clean slate). He is a grown being, similar to human although horribly deformed. He has ho history, no family, nothing to help determine who he would become. He only develops a personality through the observation of others and books, he has no "God-given" tendencies because he was not created by God. He only has the POTENTIAL for everything. His first loneliness and rejection (initially by his own creator, and then by the inhabitants of the town he finds himself in) makes him feel sadness. He eventually observes the goodness in the cottagers, and he becomes good. But when they - and everyone else - spurn him, his rage and sorrow become unchecked and he begins his revenge. the people he encounters and their meanness toward him teach him meanness (he mentions that he learns about murder in history books). He literally becomes what society makes him. The creature is Shelley's warning to the reader.
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