Creator vs. Creation in Frankenstein
- Submitted by: Zach
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 05/02/2011 02:25 PM
- Pages: 3
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Within the novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, she portrays Victor Frankenstein as a person with strong desire for power. Not political power or power of wealth, but power over another person. Along with the want to be able to control another person, Victor also wanted the power of knowledge. Not just any knowledge, but the knowledge to the secret of life, the knowledge behind the power of what makes living things live. After several years of education in Science, Victor succeeds in discovering the secret after making weird chemicals and reanimating stolen body parts to create a monstrous creature. So it seems if Victor has also succeeded in his desire for power, or has he?
Many scenes in Frankenstein depict the two main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, in a scene where both take the role of what might be called the “master” and the “slave” in their struggle for power over one another. From their first meeting right after the monster’s reanimation, the novel depicts a struggle for power between creator and creation. The first scene with Frankenstein and his creation is possibly the first time a “master” and “slave” relationship is shared between the two characters in the novel. In the chapter of the creature’s creation, Victor is alone with the progress of his work so far. Even with the body of the creature inanimate, it is clear to see Victor playing this role of master. Without Victor, the body would remain without life, worthless and dead. The body needed Victor for its existence of life itself. Victor eventually performs the “masterful” act of performing the power of adding a life force into the motionless, dead body. Victor grants his slave, the creature, an opportunity to live. He even views himself as the creature’s master when he states, “I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet” (Frankenstein, 60). So at this point in the novel, Victor holds the power in the relationship between himself...
Many scenes in Frankenstein depict the two main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, in a scene where both take the role of what might be called the “master” and the “slave” in their struggle for power over one another. From their first meeting right after the monster’s reanimation, the novel depicts a struggle for power between creator and creation. The first scene with Frankenstein and his creation is possibly the first time a “master” and “slave” relationship is shared between the two characters in the novel. In the chapter of the creature’s creation, Victor is alone with the progress of his work so far. Even with the body of the creature inanimate, it is clear to see Victor playing this role of master. Without Victor, the body would remain without life, worthless and dead. The body needed Victor for its existence of life itself. Victor eventually performs the “masterful” act of performing the power of adding a life force into the motionless, dead body. Victor grants his slave, the creature, an opportunity to live. He even views himself as the creature’s master when he states, “I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet” (Frankenstein, 60). So at this point in the novel, Victor holds the power in the relationship between himself...