Finish one of the sentences and then elaborate on your thoughts and ideas:
"If Victor has become GOD, then . . . ."
"If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said . . ."
“If Victor has become God, then God has been redefined yet again.”
It seems as though everyone has their own unique opinion on religion, morality, the existence of God (or the lack thereof), and, for that matter, even the very definition of what “God” really is. For some, God is everywhere, omnipresent in all aspects of the natural world. For others, he is merely the creator of all things, who now plays a rather limited role in daily occurrences (the context of the completed sentence above suggests its author to believe in this definition of “God,” even if they don’t believe in his existence). Yet for many others, god doesn’t exist at all, so they simply don’t bother to define him. Given the immense variety of opinions on the topics of religion and morality as well as the fact that seemingly simple clerical matters, such as defining what “God” truly is, cannot be agreed upon, it is no surprise that philosophical debates frequently turn into heated arguments. So the next time you are about to rebut someone else’s deeply held moral beliefs, you should at least stop to check if you’re even talking about the same thing.
Nietzsche would have said to Victor something which he had stated prior, which is "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you".
Victor dedicates the remainder of his life to the capture of his own monstrous creation. The arduous task consumes him, having already cost him all of his beloved friends and family. In the end, he is killed by the passion of his search, having been overcome by illness and desiccation. Victor's isolation drives him into a terrible state of obsession and animosity, thus turning himself into the creature which he swore to destroy. As for the abyss, it is the unknown. Victor stared into the abyss in search of the truth and scientific discovery, but in the end what he found there consumed and destroyed him. It is said that the more knowledgeable we get, the more we come to realize that we do not know. For Victor, the world and family that he knew before the monster is all lost to him; he becomes an alien to the home he had before.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said... To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
The Monster really didn't have any reason to kill himself. Victor didn't pose much of a threat to him anymore, and if he could get into the Arctic that easily, he could have gotten out. Instead, the Monster picked the easy way out, because he couldn't find any meaning in the suffering. With his creator dead, what else did he have to live for? The Monster perfectly fits this quote, the entirety of his short lived foray into our world was filled with suffering and sorrow, and with no apparent reason, the Monster picked Nietzsche; he picked not to live.
“If Victor has become God, then mankind is in store for the recurrence of Noah’s ark, except this time there will be no ark.”
In the biblical account of the story of Noah, God finds mankind has turned from him toward wickedness and sin. “So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.”” An important line to consider from this passage is God’s inclusion of the animals, the birds, and all the creatures that move along the ground. Even those who could be considered innocent were sentenced to perish. We see this in Frankenstein most literally with the condemnation and death of Justine. The other creatures on earth, like Justine, were forced to suffer as a result of the wrongdoing of another. Moreover, God speaks of how he regrets what he has created. God’s want to remove mankind from earth mirrors Victor’s desire to hunt down and kill his own creation. However, in the case of Victor the ark is nonexistent. By destroying the female monster and swearing to never create another, there is no Noah of the monster’s race with whom Victor will ever find favor.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said as he has said before, "Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
When Victor created the monster, the thoughts that he had in mind weren't of the inanimate object he would give life to but rather of the fame and success he would experience at the hands of his creation. When the monster asks him for a female companion after expressing his isolation, Victor destroys the female monster out of fear for the havoc the 2 could cause once together. He does absolutely nothing to help his creation escape its desolation but rather runs away from the monster, who retaliates by hurting those that Victor loved the most. This creation ultimately causes the demise of not only the master/creator but also the subject. Examining Victor's tale, Nietzsche would exclaim that Victor was only in love with the idea of the monster, but he didn't own up to the full extent of the responsibilities that the Monster brought.
"If Victor has become God, God has abandoned his progeny."
When the monster discovers a copy of Paradise Lost, he identifies with Adam as the abandoned son of God (a creator who had invested painstaking effort in crafting a child in his own image before banishing his creation into a cruel existence characterized by suffering). Much like God, Victor crafts his creation for reasons outside the scope of the monster’s understanding – the pursuit of unexplored scientific ground – but abandons his creation to suffer without protection or guidance. Shelley’s symbolic representation of Victor’s relationship with the creature parallel’s God’s relationship with Mankind where Man exists isolated in the universe, suffering in large part from famine, disease, and natural disaster. In comparing Victor to God, Shelley may be suggesting that God has acted unjustly in granting man existence in a world where he is doomed to fail. In Paradise Lost, God remains entirely aware of Satan’s attempts to fool Eve to consume an apple from the Garden of Evil, but punishes his creations regardless of their relative innocence given their circumstances. Similarly, Victor creates the monster and condemns him to a life of suffering by demonizing the creature because of his ugliness. When the monster sins by causing the deaths of William and Justine, Victor assigns blame to the monster although it was his aesthetic mistakes in the creation of the monster that caused the creature to be hated and, thus, hate man. In this way, Victor not only abandons his ‘son’ during ‘birth,’ but also fails to admit the creature’s lack of culpability in Victor’s final journey to avenge the deaths’ of his family members.
“If Victor has become God, then the monster, the creation of God, symbolizes man.” Although this may seem obvious, it is important to note the comparison between the monster and man. As John Locke believed, people are born as blank slates. It is the environment that they grow up in that dictates his nature. Though the monster begins its life with infantile curiosity and good intention, the prejudice and violence against him by those he looked up to soon turned him into a murdering fiend. The monster becomes violent in nature to any that cause him physical pain, through a wound, or emotional pain, through prejudice. By comparing the monster to man, Shelley is likewise commenting on the violent nature of man against any who he views wronged him. Shelley’s inclusion of the once peaceful but now violent monster acts as a comparison to people and the environment in which they grow.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” When Victor created the monster, he took on a task that even the smartest of men should know would have complications. His entire existence is dependent on the whereabouts of his creation and Victor becomes completely consumed. All that mattered before falls at the wayside. Take for instance his family, more specifically Elizabeth. Before chasing after the monster, Victor had intense (slightly perverse, let’s be honest) feelings for his sister, referring to her as his gift. “she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish.” However on their wedding night he leaves her alone! Honestly, come on Victor. You can bring the dead back to life but you’re not smart enough to keep an eye on your wife when you know a monster is coming?! When distracted with chasing the monster, Victor completely loses his wits, which was pretty much all he had going for him. In addition, he becomes completely loathsome and just flat out horrible company, never seeming pleased no matter how much others take care of him. In all honesty, the monster has better intentions that Victor ever did. And any misconduct on the monster’s part was Victor’s fault anyway for not taking responsibility as a father figure. As for the abyss, in the beginning Victor’s passion was the abyss and the unknown. The unexplored territory that he was eager to tread. But when he went so far as to push the boundaries of nature in order to shed some light into that bottomless pit, he found that knowledge and science would end up altering his nature instead.
If Victor has become God, then once again, he will grow disappointed in his creation and cast it out of the Garden of Eden. Victor and God both made their creations in their images and were unhappy with each result. Adam disappointed God by sinning, and similarly, Victor was disgusted by the monster's appearance and later angered that he killed everyone close to him. Because of that, Victor decided to unleash his wrath on the monster and punish him by taking anything that could make him happy away from him. The monster was basically cast out of a different type of Eden. Victor and God are both the same in that they are denying their creations carefree, painless, happy lives to punish them for their sins.
"If Victor has become GOD, then the future of mankind is doomed. Victor made a creation and immediately abandoned it. Not only did he abandoned his creation, but he deliberately upset his creation. With this in mind, there is no one to guide the monster he created, and the future of those created. These creations will learn that abandonment is normal and become bitter towards humans. Victor is really the only connection that these creations can have with the real world. There is not even a possibility without Victor's help for these creations to interact positively with the humans. Therefore the future of mankind is at risk because these new creations and humans will not be able to live in a world together and these creations are much more stronger than the humans.
Nietzsche believed in transcendence--rising above obstacles in the attempt to become an Ubermensch (superman). Ironically, although he believed strongly that "that which does not kill us makes us stronger," he was unable to "transcend" the syphilis that eventually lead to his death. Regardless of whether or not his theory has any merit, if this late, German philosopher would have heard Frankenstein's story, he would have been disappointed. It seems that Victor's obsession with creating a monster would have been evidence of Nietzsche's theory of The Will to Power. Almost entirely motivated by self-interest, Victor's creation is the physical manifestation of his academic accomplishments and mental superiority over his peers. At this point, Victor is well on his way to becoming the Ubermensch. However, he lets his feelings for his family get in his way to the transcendance of human ideals and morality, something which Nietzsche would reject. His philosophy required the pursuit of The Will to Power, unhindered by the problems of others. It was Victor's job to transcend typical human relationships. Instead, Victor allowed his feelings for his family obstruct his path towards self preservation. It is this unselfishness that leads to his death, and Nietzsche would argue that this is his greatest weakness.
If Nietzche met Victor he would have said "a pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love"
Nietzche essentially meant to say that sometimes it takes a bit more looking into to who someone really is, to understand and find love in them. If Victor had looked deaper into who the monster was, his status as victor's creation, his childlike innocence(early on), perhaps he could have found some aspect of love in the monster stronger than his appearence.
If Victor has become God, then God is no longer holy or pure.
Victor not only abandons his creation, but abandons the way to spiritual health as well. Though he created the monster to be beautiful and perfect, he is appalled by it and leaves. And though he feels alive and whole when he is in nature, he repeatedly turns back to his desolate and dark room. In this way, he has become more satanic than godly. If he has become God, then humanity is doomed to be watched by an unholy and impure god, closer to Satan.
If Victor has become God, then faith itself may be in question. Religions are based off of the stories (whether they are viewed as believable or not is up to the person interpreting them) in which we don't have clear scientific proof of. People can choose whether they believe in God or not and for those that do, they may begin to question their beliefs. If Victor - a human - someone who had a humble upbringing and fairly ordinary life just like the rest of us could create life, belief in a higher power may no longer exist. If a human could make life, who's to say there isn't someone else out there with the same technology and mindset to create life as well? Followers of all religions and other faiths may begin to decrease drastically or maybe a new faith may emerge from revolving around Victor. Religions may not change but the people who follow them can based on what may influence them.
If Victor has become God, then God hasn't changed too much. DON'T KILL ME YET. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding of the stories, God created Adam and Eve, but threw them out of the Garden of Eden when they disappointed him. Victor ran from the creature on sight and refused to be a positive part of it's life. I'm not very familiar with the Bible stories, but I don't see God around much today, or anywhere throughout history for that matter. So Victor is like God in the sense that he created life, but abandoned it when it failed to meet with expectations. I'm not saying God has abandoned us, or that He's not real. I'm just saying that if He's up on a cloud somewhere, He's taking a more passive role with us. But I can see some parallels between Victor and God, and at least in the beginning of the story, Victor shows many similarities to Him. I suppose this means that He'll wind up chasing us down for our sins, like Victor chases the creature down near the end of the novel.
If Victor has become God, then he failed in his role as creator. Idealistically, a God should ensure that his creations are nurtured and cared for until they can take care of themselves, but Victor abandoned the monster the second he gave it life. Without anyone to help guide the monster, both physically and emotionally, its life turned to chaos and self deprivation. Not only did Victor cause this chaos by failing as a self proclaimed God, he doesn't even take responsibility for the murders that are committed by the monster after it can no longer control its emotions. Victor failed as a God because he didn't make any attempt to support the monster or give it any sort of chance at surviving, emotionally and physically, in a human world.
If Victor has become God, then the future for mankind looks quite bleak. God always promised to look after his creations, not matter who the person is or how terribly they have acted. Victor however completely rejects the monster even after he has done nothing wrong. Due to this neglect the monster is forced to grow up on his own and eventually turns to revenge to quell his lonely feelings. Victors irresponsible actions lead to the death of many people he holds close to him. If Victor is God, then all of humanity is alone with out and superior force to look up to or help them. Victor is only similar to God in his ability to create life. His rushed process and lack of care for his creations would lead the world into turmoil and destruction.
If Victor has become God, then the future for mankind is quite like Zoe mentioned. Victor has no previous knowledge in how to care for his creation. Or rather, he chooses to ignore all he could have learned from his mother as his mother always knew how to properly care for a person and often found pride in her ability to nurture others back to health. Essentially Victor chooses to attempt to ignore his creation's existence, and rather than becoming a proper role model, he completely neglects being part of his creation's life. This leaves the monster with a hole in his life and he is never taught the proper ways to act, so he acts completely on impulses. Imagine a world where everyone always acted on impulses.
If Victor has become God, then mankind has been betrayed. Victor gives the monster life but immediately decides that it is too hideous and monstrous so he abandons it. If you create something you should take the time, patience, and love to nurture it and make it perfect in your eyes. Victor does just the opposite of what any creator should do. He abandons it completely, tries to run away from it, taunts and angers it, and tries to destroy it. Victor should have stayed loyal to his creation and tried to teach and nurture it. If Victor was responsible for all creation who knows what else would go wrong because of Victor’s lack of ownership and responsibility, it could all end up like the monster. Victor has a responsibility once he creates this life to take care of it and protect it much like a parent would and since he denied those responsibilities he failed his creation.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said "There are no facts, only interpretations." Shelley allows the reader to contemplate the monster's innocence, or lack there of, through the complicated situation it was created into. The monster's incompetent creator immediately recoils from any of his responsibilities after the creation. Because of Victor's negligence, the monster comes to learn of the cruelties of the world without anyone to understand him. This incites a thirst for revenge in the monster, which ultimately ends in the deaths of multiple people, including Victor and the monster himself. On the other hand, the monster persecuted Victor by killing off Victor's friends. Essentially, Shelley leaves the reader the ultimate verdict on the innocence and corruption of both the monster and his creator.
If Victor has become God, then mankind has been abandoned. At almost every opportunity Victor has to interact with the monster, he runs away and tries his best to avoid the creature. He leaves the monster to his own devices, basically upstream without a paddle. The monster was left in charge of trying to understand the world, usually the role of a parent, and in this case specifically, a father. It does serve to provide a parallel to the way that mankind developed through time. When humans were first present on Earth, they had to figure everything out for themselves. It has taken thousands of years to progress to point that mankind has today. Imagine the monster trying to put the pieces together, but in a matter of a couple years. Victor neglected to give any guidance to his creation, which inevitably leads to not only to the monster's downfall, but his as well.
If Victor has become God, then God is a mad scientist and we are his monster. Victor created the monster and tried to make him beautiful. However, when the monster comes to life Victor is repulsed by him. Victor refuses to take care of the monster or be near him. The monster ends up living alone outside. This could be compared to God's creation of man. He created man in his own image and with good intentions and high hopes. Eventually, God is also repulsed by his creation when man sins he sends him out of the Garden of Eden to fend for himself. Man is God's monster that is he repulsed by.
If Victor has become God, then god has completely failed man. Victor chooses instead to be an absentee creator who wants to sever all ties with his creation. The monster continually pursues Victor, only to be rebuffed every time. If Victor didn't want to responsibility of guiding his creation, he shouldn't have played creator in the first time. The tragic elements of the story could have been avoided if Victor had fufilled all of his obligations as God. He is not simply God because he can create, but he has to develop and nuture his creation as well.
If victor has become God, then god is dead. If man could be capable of creating life, it would cast serious doubt on a divine creator who would be the source of that life. Indeed, how could both the divine and less than divine be capable of creating life. Why would a God share that kind of power? Victor's creation of life represents his ascension to the role of his own God. In Frankenstein, once man is free from his obligation to the morality of God, both man and his creation are able to define his own meaning and morality. The horrific crimes of the monster would suggest that the morality he has fashioned for himself is an ineffective one. Frankenstein, however, is slightly more moral by dedicating his life to destroying the destructive force he let loose on the world, just like the biblical God did with the flood.
“If Victor has become God, then God has been redefined yet again.”
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though everyone has their own unique opinion on religion, morality, the existence of God (or the lack thereof), and, for that matter, even the very definition of what “God” really is. For some, God is everywhere, omnipresent in all aspects of the natural world. For others, he is merely the creator of all things, who now plays a rather limited role in daily occurrences (the context of the completed sentence above suggests its author to believe in this definition of “God,” even if they don’t believe in his existence). Yet for many others, god doesn’t exist at all, so they simply don’t bother to define him. Given the immense variety of opinions on the topics of religion and morality as well as the fact that seemingly simple clerical matters, such as defining what “God” truly is, cannot be agreed upon, it is no surprise that philosophical debates frequently turn into heated arguments. So the next time you are about to rebut someone else’s deeply held moral beliefs, you should at least stop to check if you’re even talking about the same thing.
Nietzsche would have said to Victor something which he had stated prior, which is "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you".
ReplyDeleteVictor dedicates the remainder of his life to the capture of his own monstrous creation. The arduous task consumes him, having already cost him all of his beloved friends and family. In the end, he is killed by the passion of his search, having been overcome by illness and desiccation. Victor's isolation drives him into a terrible state of obsession and animosity, thus turning himself into the creature which he swore to destroy. As for the abyss, it is the unknown. Victor stared into the abyss in search of the truth and scientific discovery, but in the end what he found there consumed and destroyed him. It is said that the more knowledgeable we get, the more we come to realize that we do not know. For Victor, the world and family that he knew before the monster is all lost to him; he becomes an alien to the home he had before.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said... To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
ReplyDeleteThe Monster really didn't have any reason to kill himself. Victor didn't pose much of a threat to him anymore, and if he could get into the Arctic that easily, he could have gotten out. Instead, the Monster picked the easy way out, because he couldn't find any meaning in the suffering. With his creator dead, what else did he have to live for? The Monster perfectly fits this quote, the entirety of his short lived foray into our world was filled with suffering and sorrow, and with no apparent reason, the Monster picked Nietzsche; he picked not to live.
“If Victor has become God, then mankind is in store for the recurrence of Noah’s ark, except this time there will be no ark.”
ReplyDeleteIn the biblical account of the story of Noah, God finds mankind has turned from him toward wickedness and sin. “So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.”” An important line to consider from this passage is God’s inclusion of the animals, the birds, and all the creatures that move along the ground. Even those who could be considered innocent were sentenced to perish. We see this in Frankenstein most literally with the condemnation and death of Justine. The other creatures on earth, like Justine, were forced to suffer as a result of the wrongdoing of another. Moreover, God speaks of how he regrets what he has created. God’s want to remove mankind from earth mirrors Victor’s desire to hunt down and kill his own creation. However, in the case of Victor the ark is nonexistent. By destroying the female monster and swearing to never create another, there is no Noah of the monster’s race with whom Victor will ever find favor.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said as he has said before, "Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
ReplyDeleteWhen Victor created the monster, the thoughts that he had in mind weren't of the inanimate object he would give life to but rather of the fame and success he would experience at the hands of his creation. When the monster asks him for a female companion after expressing his isolation, Victor destroys the female monster out of fear for the havoc the 2 could cause once together. He does absolutely nothing to help his creation escape its desolation but rather runs away from the monster, who retaliates by hurting those that Victor loved the most. This creation ultimately causes the demise of not only the master/creator but also the subject. Examining Victor's tale, Nietzsche would exclaim that Victor was only in love with the idea of the monster, but he didn't own up to the full extent of the responsibilities that the Monster brought.
"If Victor has become God, God has abandoned his progeny."
ReplyDeleteWhen the monster discovers a copy of Paradise Lost, he identifies with Adam as the abandoned son of God (a creator who had invested painstaking effort in crafting a child in his own image before banishing his creation into a cruel existence characterized by suffering). Much like God, Victor crafts his creation for reasons outside the scope of the monster’s understanding – the pursuit of unexplored scientific ground – but abandons his creation to suffer without protection or guidance. Shelley’s symbolic representation of Victor’s relationship with the creature parallel’s God’s relationship with Mankind where Man exists isolated in the universe, suffering in large part from famine, disease, and natural disaster. In comparing Victor to God, Shelley may be suggesting that God has acted unjustly in granting man existence in a world where he is doomed to fail. In Paradise Lost, God remains entirely aware of Satan’s attempts to fool Eve to consume an apple from the Garden of Evil, but punishes his creations regardless of their relative innocence given their circumstances. Similarly, Victor creates the monster and condemns him to a life of suffering by demonizing the creature because of his ugliness. When the monster sins by causing the deaths of William and Justine, Victor assigns blame to the monster although it was his aesthetic mistakes in the creation of the monster that caused the creature to be hated and, thus, hate man. In this way, Victor not only abandons his ‘son’ during ‘birth,’ but also fails to admit the creature’s lack of culpability in Victor’s final journey to avenge the deaths’ of his family members.
“If Victor has become God, then the monster, the creation of God, symbolizes man.”
ReplyDeleteAlthough this may seem obvious, it is important to note the comparison between the monster and man. As John Locke believed, people are born as blank slates. It is the environment that they grow up in that dictates his nature. Though the monster begins its life with infantile curiosity and good intention, the prejudice and violence against him by those he looked up to soon turned him into a murdering fiend. The monster becomes violent in nature to any that cause him physical pain, through a wound, or emotional pain, through prejudice. By comparing the monster to man, Shelley is likewise commenting on the violent nature of man against any who he views wronged him. Shelley’s inclusion of the once peaceful but now violent monster acts as a comparison to people and the environment in which they grow.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
ReplyDeleteWhen Victor created the monster, he took on a task that even the smartest of men should know would have complications. His entire existence is dependent on the whereabouts of his creation and Victor becomes completely consumed. All that mattered before falls at the wayside. Take for instance his family, more specifically Elizabeth. Before chasing after the monster, Victor had intense (slightly perverse, let’s be honest) feelings for his sister, referring to her as his gift. “she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish.” However on their wedding night he leaves her alone! Honestly, come on Victor. You can bring the dead back to life but you’re not smart enough to keep an eye on your wife when you know a monster is coming?! When distracted with chasing the monster, Victor completely loses his wits, which was pretty much all he had going for him. In addition, he becomes completely loathsome and just flat out horrible company, never seeming pleased no matter how much others take care of him. In all honesty, the monster has better intentions that Victor ever did. And any misconduct on the monster’s part was Victor’s fault anyway for not taking responsibility as a father figure. As for the abyss, in the beginning Victor’s passion was the abyss and the unknown. The unexplored territory that he was eager to tread. But when he went so far as to push the boundaries of nature in order to shed some light into that bottomless pit, he found that knowledge and science would end up altering his nature instead.
If Victor has become God, then once again, he will grow disappointed in his creation and cast it out of the Garden of Eden. Victor and God both made their creations in their images and were unhappy with each result. Adam disappointed God by sinning, and similarly, Victor was disgusted by the monster's appearance and later angered that he killed everyone close to him. Because of that, Victor decided to unleash his wrath on the monster and punish him by taking anything that could make him happy away from him. The monster was basically cast out of a different type of Eden. Victor and God are both the same in that they are denying their creations carefree, painless, happy lives to punish them for their sins.
ReplyDelete"If Victor has become GOD, then the future of mankind is doomed. Victor made a creation and immediately abandoned it. Not only did he abandoned his creation, but he deliberately upset his creation. With this in mind, there is no one to guide the monster he created, and the future of those created. These creations will learn that abandonment is normal and become bitter towards humans. Victor is really the only connection that these creations can have with the real world. There is not even a possibility without Victor's help for these creations to interact positively with the humans. Therefore the future of mankind is at risk because these new creations and humans will not be able to live in a world together and these creations are much more stronger than the humans.
ReplyDeleteNietzsche believed in transcendence--rising above obstacles in the attempt to become an Ubermensch (superman). Ironically, although he believed strongly that "that which does not kill us makes us stronger," he was unable to "transcend" the syphilis that eventually lead to his death. Regardless of whether or not his theory has any merit, if this late, German philosopher would have heard Frankenstein's story, he would have been disappointed. It seems that Victor's obsession with creating a monster would have been evidence of Nietzsche's theory of The Will to Power. Almost entirely motivated by self-interest, Victor's creation is the physical manifestation of his academic accomplishments and mental superiority over his peers. At this point, Victor is well on his way to becoming the Ubermensch. However, he lets his feelings for his family get in his way to the transcendance of human ideals and morality, something which Nietzsche would reject. His philosophy required the pursuit of The Will to Power, unhindered by the problems of others. It was Victor's job to transcend typical human relationships. Instead, Victor allowed his feelings for his family obstruct his path towards self preservation. It is this unselfishness that leads to his death, and Nietzsche would argue that this is his greatest weakness.
ReplyDeleteIf Nietzche met Victor he would have said "a pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love"
ReplyDeleteNietzche essentially meant to say that sometimes it takes a bit more looking into to who someone really is, to understand and find love in them. If Victor had looked deaper into who the monster was, his status as victor's creation, his childlike innocence(early on), perhaps he could have found some aspect of love in the monster stronger than his appearence.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIf Victor has become God, then God is no longer holy or pure.
ReplyDeleteVictor not only abandons his creation, but abandons the way to spiritual health as well. Though he created the monster to be beautiful and perfect, he is appalled by it and leaves. And though he feels alive and whole when he is in nature, he repeatedly turns back to his desolate and dark room. In this way, he has become more satanic than godly. If he has become God, then humanity is doomed to be watched by an unholy and impure god, closer to Satan.
If Victor has become God, then faith itself may be in question. Religions are based off of the stories (whether they are viewed as believable or not is up to the person interpreting them) in which we don't have clear scientific proof of. People can choose whether they believe in God or not and for those that do, they may begin to question their beliefs. If Victor - a human - someone who had a humble upbringing and fairly ordinary life just like the rest of us could create life, belief in a higher power may no longer exist. If a human could make life, who's to say there isn't someone else out there with the same technology and mindset to create life as well? Followers of all religions and other faiths may begin to decrease drastically or maybe a new faith may emerge from revolving around Victor. Religions may not change but the people who follow them can based on what may influence them.
ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then God hasn't changed too much. DON'T KILL ME YET. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding of the stories, God created Adam and Eve, but threw them out of the Garden of Eden when they disappointed him. Victor ran from the creature on sight and refused to be a positive part of it's life. I'm not very familiar with the Bible stories, but I don't see God around much today, or anywhere throughout history for that matter. So Victor is like God in the sense that he created life, but abandoned it when it failed to meet with expectations. I'm not saying God has abandoned us, or that He's not real. I'm just saying that if He's up on a cloud somewhere, He's taking a more passive role with us. But I can see some parallels between Victor and God, and at least in the beginning of the story, Victor shows many similarities to Him. I suppose this means that He'll wind up chasing us down for our sins, like Victor chases the creature down near the end of the novel.
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ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then he failed in his role as creator. Idealistically, a God should ensure that his creations are nurtured and cared for until they can take care of themselves, but Victor abandoned the monster the second he gave it life. Without anyone to help guide the monster, both physically and emotionally, its life turned to chaos and self deprivation. Not only did Victor cause this chaos by failing as a self proclaimed God, he doesn't even take responsibility for the murders that are committed by the monster after it can no longer control its emotions. Victor failed as a God because he didn't make any attempt to support the monster or give it any sort of chance at surviving, emotionally and physically, in a human world.
ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then the future for mankind looks quite bleak. God always promised to look after his creations, not matter who the person is or how terribly they have acted. Victor however completely rejects the monster even after he has done nothing wrong. Due to this neglect the monster is forced to grow up on his own and eventually turns to revenge to quell his lonely feelings. Victors irresponsible actions lead to the death of many people he holds close to him. If Victor is God, then all of humanity is alone with out and superior force to look up to or help them. Victor is only similar to God in his ability to create life. His rushed process and lack of care for his creations would lead the world into turmoil and destruction.
ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then the future for mankind is quite like Zoe mentioned. Victor has no previous knowledge in how to care for his creation. Or rather, he chooses to ignore all he could have learned from his mother as his mother always knew how to properly care for a person and often found pride in her ability to nurture others back to health. Essentially Victor chooses to attempt to ignore his creation's existence, and rather than becoming a proper role model, he completely neglects being part of his creation's life. This leaves the monster with a hole in his life and he is never taught the proper ways to act, so he acts completely on impulses. Imagine a world where everyone always acted on impulses.
ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then mankind has been betrayed.
ReplyDeleteVictor gives the monster life but immediately decides that it is too hideous and monstrous so he abandons it. If you create something you should take the time, patience, and love to nurture it and make it perfect in your eyes. Victor does just the opposite of what any creator should do. He abandons it completely, tries to run away from it, taunts and angers it, and tries to destroy it. Victor should have stayed loyal to his creation and tried to teach and nurture it. If Victor was responsible for all creation who knows what else would go wrong because of Victor’s lack of ownership and responsibility, it could all end up like the monster. Victor has a responsibility once he creates this life to take care of it and protect it much like a parent would and since he denied those responsibilities he failed his creation.
If Nietzsche had met Victor, and heard his tale, the philosopher might have said "There are no facts, only interpretations." Shelley allows the reader to contemplate the monster's innocence, or lack there of, through the complicated situation it was created into. The monster's incompetent creator immediately recoils from any of his responsibilities after the creation. Because of Victor's negligence, the monster comes to learn of the cruelties of the world without anyone to understand him. This incites a thirst for revenge in the monster, which ultimately ends in the deaths of multiple people, including Victor and the monster himself. On the other hand, the monster persecuted Victor by killing off Victor's friends. Essentially, Shelley leaves the reader the ultimate verdict on the innocence and corruption of both the monster and his creator.
ReplyDeleteIf Victor has become God, then mankind has been abandoned.
ReplyDeleteAt almost every opportunity Victor has to interact with the monster, he runs away and tries his best to avoid the creature. He leaves the monster to his own devices, basically upstream without a paddle. The monster was left in charge of trying to understand the world, usually the role of a parent, and in this case specifically, a father. It does serve to provide a parallel to the way that mankind developed through time. When humans were first present on Earth, they had to figure everything out for themselves. It has taken thousands of years to progress to point that mankind has today. Imagine the monster trying to put the pieces together, but in a matter of a couple years. Victor neglected to give any guidance to his creation, which inevitably leads to not only to the monster's downfall, but his as well.
If Victor has become God, then God is a mad scientist and we are his monster.
ReplyDeleteVictor created the monster and tried to make him beautiful. However, when the monster comes to life Victor is repulsed by him. Victor refuses to take care of the monster or be near him. The monster ends up living alone outside. This could be compared to God's creation of man. He created man in his own image and with good intentions and high hopes. Eventually, God is also repulsed by his creation when man sins he sends him out of the Garden of Eden to fend for himself. Man is God's monster that is he repulsed by.
If Victor has become God, then god has completely failed man. Victor chooses instead to be an absentee creator who wants to sever all ties with his creation. The monster continually pursues Victor, only to be rebuffed every time. If Victor didn't want to responsibility of guiding his creation, he shouldn't have played creator in the first time. The tragic elements of the story could have been avoided if Victor had fufilled all of his obligations as God. He is not simply God because he can create, but he has to develop and nuture his creation as well.
ReplyDeleteIf victor has become God, then god is dead. If man could be capable of creating life, it would cast serious doubt on a divine creator who would be the source of that life. Indeed, how could both the divine and less than divine be capable of creating life. Why would a God share that kind of power? Victor's creation of life represents his ascension to the role of his own God. In Frankenstein, once man is free from his obligation to the morality of God, both man and his creation are able to define his own meaning and morality. The horrific crimes of the monster would suggest that the morality he has fashioned for himself is an ineffective one. Frankenstein, however, is slightly more moral by dedicating his life to destroying the destructive force he let loose on the world, just like the biblical God did with the flood.
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