Religion In Frankenstein

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The idea of the creation of life has often fascinated people. The long debated topic of religion has left people with the general consensus that only God, or a higher power, has the ability to give a human life. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it is shown that there are disastrous consequences when man attempts to usurp the power of God. Victor Frankenstein, a man from a well-to-do family, becomes obsessed with natural philosophy and the idea of giving life. This leads him to eventually put together various pieces of human remains to build a grotesque, seven-foot, creature that he gives life to. Although initially fascinated with the idea of creating this creature and bringing it to life, upon seeing the completed project, Victor is horrified…show more content…
He takes it upon himself to create the creature and then downright abandons it: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” (Shelley 40). The creature begins as a blank state and develops his hatred for…show more content…
I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous”. Victor created his creature and now is leaves him in solitude and misery when he knows the one key to his happiness is a female. The creature has already claimed that there will be less ruin and destruction in Victor’s life should he choose to do this, because the monster will choose to be benign again. When he is contemplating creating another creature Victor goes on to say, “As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse”. Victor Frankenstein’s thoughts are that a female monster would be more horrible and malevolent than the current one, and he thinks of the idea of the creature procreating and creating a race of such beings and tears the unfinished project to shreds while the monster looks on. Shelley displays the creature’s very human responses of anguish and rage: “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not distinguish the spark of existence which you so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge” (Shelley 125). This act in turn causes the creature to do some of the most horrific and monstrous acts of the novel. By this time
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