History of Ideas: Mary Shelleys `Frankenstein` and sense of family

Becoming Monstrous

A Family Study of Victor Frankenstein and his Monster

Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein is an exploration of the relationship between parent and child . Inspired in many ways by Mary Shelley 's own experiences as a motherless child and a grieving mother , Victor 's tale follows a linear trail of decline traceable to his mother 's death . Up until that point , though fascinated with alchemy and life science Victor 's ideas retain a manner of scientific remove . His egotism is controlled and does not boast a power over life or death

. It is only when confronted with death that the fissures begin to appear and the idyllic scenes from his childhood begin to show the full remove of affection Victor experienced . Unable to deal with this abandonment realistically , he manipulates death to create renewed animation of the body in place of actual life . In his creation of the monster , he assumes the role of mother to child in his single-minded manner but overcome by his own ego and lacking compassion he abhors and shuns his child ' as an abomination . Victor 's monster finds himself thrown into a society for which he was neither prepared nor accepted . His abandonment is immediate but his initial reaction differs greatly from the destructive creationism of Victor . His rage at being ostracized is at first controlled and in a newborn state he recedes into the woodshed of the De Lacey family where he learns of and comes to yearn for a familial connection . Being...