Ashton Post #1

Frankenstein's Destiny

(I decided to combine a couple of the prompts because there was a reoccurring theme of rebellion and discontent to Victor in the first 70 pages of Frankenstein that I really wanted to talk about).

Victor's picture perfect upbringing leads to his rebellious and curious nature in his adult life. He longs to stray from the beaten path and walk only in the footsteps of inventors rather than assimilators. Shelley creates an idea of destiny through Victor's obsession to create something that resembles who he is inside; something that has been lacking since his childhood. Victor is searching for something more than his perfect childhood, Swiss heritage, and Geneva. "I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self" (20). He soon falls in love with chemistry and the fact that it can produce somewhat wild and dangerous results. He says, "The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favorite authors, the fulfillment of which I most eagerly sought" (22). In looking at Victor's upbringing, one wouldn't assume his presumed destiny would be anything less than a straight path. He recognizes this and follows his interests rather than his heritage. When Victor finds science, something that inscribes and calls his name, he enjoys the fact that he is rebelling against what everyone back in Geneva thought he would become. His refusal to fall pray to others' opinions and interests is a second motif to the book, evident when Professor Waldman tries to praise him. "M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences...He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death" (43). Victor is incredibly protective of his new identity and pursues his own other worldly interests. In this way, Dr. Frankenstein's creation of "Frankenstein" is not only the product of his recalcitrant nature, but also the product of a rebellious child-like human being escaping from his past and his destiny.