Frankenstein
...led over for fifteen years. Perhaps Shelly knows a thing or two about obsession herself. Why would she leave the climax of her story, the very subject of her story to a mere sentence? Did she not have the medical knowledge to pull off so great a feat? Perhaps she felt the sewing of rotting body parts to a human torso too explicit for her weak-stomached nineteenth century audience. The answer may well be that she did not think this scene pertinent. Her message is “whether we should,” rather then “whether we could.” This part of her story she realizes is too fantastic to be believable and instead poses the problem of what we should morally to do in such a situation. The scene speaks for itself and being a gifted author, Shelly leaves much up to the imagination of her reader. The novel reaches a climax a point at which the tone of the text changes and the foreboding in the first half of the story comes to a dramatic reality. Before the animation of the creature Frankenstein is intoxicated with the idea of creating life, “None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of (this) science.” He has not yet stopped to think about whether he should create life; he only wrestles with the notion of how to create life. One might wonder if he has not become a little afflicted by his drive, at one point he claims, “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.” Perhaps Victor has developed a “God complex,” Leading up to the fateful scene, Victor does not think of the man he will be animating, he only lusts after the knowledge to do so. This narrative represents the figurative scaling of a mountain, with the peak in sight. Like a deranged man Victor climbs the large precipice only to find a sheer drop into oblivion awaits him on the other side. On that fateful November night as the creature opens his “watery” eyes, Victor Frankenstein also opens his eyes. So consumed has Victor been that it is not until this moment that he fully appreciates the horror of his endeavor. Words like “wretch, miserable monster and demonical corpse” begin to fill his narrative. The slow dawning realization of what he has done proves too much for him and he rushes from the laboratory. It is as if he feels like running away may make the monster disappear. He will not have to deal with the horror of his creation. Here Victor regresses into a child, not wanting to take the responsibility for his two-year toil, closing the door on his mistake, hoping it will just go away. In his bed chamber, Victor tries to sleep, but is “ disturbed by the wildest dreams.” He sees his fiancée, Elizabeth walking the streets of Ingolstadt, but as he embraces her she slowly turns into the worm-ridden corpse of his mother. Shelly has chosen this sequence to demonstrate that Victor has sidestepped the natural process of live. He has delivered life into what was dead and in doing so; he has circumvented the need for woman. Shelly depicts this as a demise of all the women close to him and perhaps foreshadowing what will become of his fiancé. Victor is awoken by the creature in his bedroom. Again, Victor chooses to flee rather than take responsibility for his creations. It is this final act that puts in the motion the terrible fate that awaits Frankenstein. The creature appears to mean him no harm. He is as lost as a newborn infant completely unable to comprehend the world around him. Victor could have addressed his problem in the bedchamber and possibly found some answer, some moral solution to his act of playing God. Herein Shelly’ protagonist mirrors another great figure from literature in his complete inability to act. Victor flees into the night, is swallowed up by this dreary night and is alone with his thoughts. Shelly gives her character the time to contemplate, to ponder on his repugnant act and to put right the acts he has set in motion. Instead he is haunted by his creation. As he “hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about,” Shelly uses this language to suggest a dream likes state. Victor is rushing through the streets of Inglestadt “Like one who, on a lonely road, Doth walk in fear and dread. And, having once turned around, walks on And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.” Frankenstein mutters this poem to himself while he is walking. Shelly borrows this passage into her story from Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which makes reference to a person who wanders the streets with a dem...