In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley tries to warn people not
to play the role of God, because someone will get hurt. The main character of the novel,
Victor Frankenstein, plays the role of God by creating a living monster. The monster that
Frankenstein is so proud to create ends up destroying Frankenstein and the people that
Frankenstein loves. Shelley uses irony in her novel to show the distaste of science during
The story of Frankenstein is hubris, or excessive pride that causes destruction of
one's self or others. Victor Frankenstein wants to be a god. "A new species would bless
me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to
me (Shelley 57)." Frankenstein wants to be worshiped like a god, so he creates a monster
to worship him. Frankenstein's monster is so ugly he hates it, and becomes ill from the
thought of creating such a hideous thing. "But I was in reality very ill; and surely nothing
but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life.
The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes,
and I raved incessantly concerning him (65)." Frankenstein worries so much about his
monster, which he was proud of, before it came to life, that he falls very ill. Frankenstein
falls so ill on the search for his monster that he eventually dies. Not only Frankenstein
dies because of the monster, but his friends and family are killed too. The monster
directly kills William Frankenstein, Henry Clerval, Elizabeth Frankenstein, and two other
innocent women. The monster indirectly kills Justine Moritz, Frankenstein's father, and
Victor Frankenstein himself. Frankenstein's pride in himself, by trying to be a god,
caused the destruction of himself and others.
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