Victor Frankenstein as God

If the character Victor Frankenstein, from Mary Shelly’s most acclaimed disturbing novel Frankenstein, is to be perceived as a God-like figure then Shelly gives a most grim and unsettling suggestion that God is neglectful, scared, horrified, and ashamed of his creation. Throughout the entire novel Victor runs away from his creation and curses him whenever in contact with the matter which he made living. Shelly also conveys the idea that God is superficial and judges on the looks of things and fails to look beyond and deeper into that which he gave life to. If in fact Mary Shelly did intend for Victor to serve as a metaphorical God, then her most famous masterpiece serves as a piece of writing to tear down the foundations upon which all religious belief is built; that God is the great omnipresent sin free sacred soul that all man should aspire to please.

Before fully engaging one’s mind on this topic by using the actual text of the novel its self it should be important for the reader to consider two things. The words from John Milton’s Paradise Lost that appeared on the original cover of Frankenstein when it was first published in 1818 were: “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I Solicit thee f

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Victor answers to this destroyed world by dying. This was the reason that Victor became disgusted with his creation, its looks. Here Victor rejects and is disgusted merely by the looks of something, and so therefore refuses to accept him. A more deep and poignant argument can be made from the two things that appear on the original cover page mentioned earlier.

The book begins with a man by the name of Robert Walton writing letters to his sister describing his sailing journey as the captain of a vessel aiming for the North Pole. Both creations question their births, and both make it clear that they feel that their creator has forsaken them. rom darkness to promote me?”(Taken from a copy of the original title page which appears in the 1992 Penguin Classics copy publication of Frankenstein) Most important however is the alternate title given to the book, “The Modern Prometheus. The significance of this is that it is a tale about a Godly possession being given to humans and it backfiring. If this was Mary Shelly’s intent when writing Frankenstein then at least there is one frightening element to it; God hates the world that he has created. If staying with the theory that Victor is a God figure, then this scene shows the goodness of him, and how he can cure the madness of isolation by giving his companionship.

By examining who Robert Walton is and who the Creature is one is able to see how Victor is merely a superficial pseudo God. ” Prometheus was a god of fire according to the Greeks. “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which the were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips” (p.

Approximate Word count = 1259
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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