Aisne RichardsonMrs. MaloneyAP English LiteratureDecember 11, 2017The Ironic Twist Between Victor and His CreatureIn the famous novel Frankenstein, the English author Mary Shelley explores ironies such as how Victor has surprisingly survived all the challenges he had been through in his life, his spiteful desires, and his creature’s malicious desires, and his obligations to his creature, which reveal how quickly the best-established objectives can untangle. Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist of the novel who is obsessed to form a new being so he gathered different parts of the body from different corpses and confidently combine them all together to create his first creature.   Shelley presents Victor as a man who thinks has survived all the challenges he has been through because he is “destined to live” through all of this and reveals Victor’s personality. For instance, Victor explains “I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him’ (132).” Victor has an undying desire for revenge and wants the creature to be miserable just like how he feels. He wants to seek revenge since he found out that the creature has been attacking the people that Victor loves, and he has been ill for such a long time. Once something reminds him of the monster, he starts to remember everything and feel so much worse.

In addition, Mary Shelley continues to explore the irony and mentions that Victor states, “For myself, there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toils — one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her (142).” Victor also has an undying desire to see Elizabeth, his adopted sister. He thinks that marrying her would end the sufferings he is going through. He also wants to fulfill his mother’s last wish of marrying his sister since he thinks it is his responsibility to do it.

We Will Write a Custom Essay Specifically
For You For Only $13.90/page!


order now

Furthermore, Shelley includes an ironic twist between Victor’s desire, and his creature’s desire of making each other feel miserable when they really should be helping each other. The monster angrily claims, “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence, which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery (125).” The monster questions his existence since he does not look normal at all. No one would want to communicate with him because of his appearance, and he starts blaming Victor for creating him and making him look ugly when Victor just combined random body parts from different corpses.

On the other hand, Victor reflects “And then I thought again of his words – “I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT.” That, then, was the period fixed for the fulfillment of my destiny. In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle (158).” Victor concludes that the monster will never be satisfied, but he’s wrong. The monster will be satisfied once everyone that Victor cared about was dead. From both Victor and the monster’s point of view, both of them wanted each other to feel miserable and wanted the other to feel what they feel when they are suppose to be helping each other.

Lastly, Shelley develops irony by including Victor’s obligations to his creature to make sure his creature had a happy life. For example, the monster demands Victor, “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right, which you must not refuse to concede (134).” The monster asks Victor to make him a companion, so he will not be alone. He thinks that if Victor creates another creature, the new creature and the monster will get along and will honestly understand each other. The monster includes “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred (119).” He compares himself to Satan and how he has friends, but he does not, and it shows how desperate he is to have a friend that can actually talk to him without pushing him away.

He has met a blind man who treated him so well just because he wasn’t able to see his appearance. The monster has learned a lot from the blind man such as speaking and understanding.Overall, Mary Shelley explores ironies to create a special effect on her novels that reveals unexpected events. Frankenstein is an unpredictable novel because of the structure of Shelley’s writing. The irony has made the revealing of the effect of the plot with thrill and suspense because it connects the reader’s excitement to find out the next events coming up. All in all, Shelley explores ironies such as how Victor has surprisingly survived all the challenges he had been through in his life, his spiteful desires and his creature’s malicious desires, and his obligations to his creature, which reveal how quickly the best-established objectives can untangle.

x

Hi!
I'm Erica!

Would you like to get a custom essay? How about receiving a customized one?

Check it out