Victor Frankenstein vs. the Creature: Compare and Contrast Essay Example

Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein details Victor Frankstein’s life and his groundbreaking discovery in science. Victor Frankenstein discovers a way to put together dead body parts and revive them into a person. After finding this out, he impulsively creates a creature without thinking ahead. Then once the monster is created, Victor gets scared of his creation and abandons the creature leaving him to survive by himself in the forest. The creature gets declined from society multiple times and wounds up living in a hut in the woods. From here, he learns and observes how society works. While doing so, he becomes extraordinarily lonely, and when Victor refuses to make a companion for him, he vows to seek vengeance on Victor. On the surface, many may think that victor is good and the creature is foul, but through deeper investigation. Victor Frankenstein’s obsessive, irresponsible, and self-centered attitude makes him the villain. The creature is a corrupt person, but he is also a thoughtful person and still shows he is a much better person than Frankenstein.

Throughout the novel, Victor Frankenstein often becomes wildly obsessed with specific tasks. During these times, he isolates himself from society and has no regard for anything but his mission. Victor expresses his focus on his study and disregard for all else when stating, “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime” (Shelley 47). While creating his monster, he was so focused on the advancement he had discovered that he stopped thinking of his well-being and became a sick wreck. Victor also neglected that leaving a gigantic creature to live on earth with humans will have many drastic consequences. He also doesn’t care that other people may be affected by his creation, which leads to the next point of Victor’s self-centeredness.

Victor struggles with empathy and thinking about other people throughout the novel. He rarely takes a second to think about the effect his actions could have on others because he’s too worried about himself. He perfectly illustrates this mindset when Justine gets sentenced to death for a crime she didn’t commit. Victor says, “A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.” (Shelley 75). Victor could save the life of Justine by speaking up, but he was too worried about people thinking that he was insane. Another instance of Victor’s self-centered attitude is when he has thoughts of playing god by creating a race of creatures that would worship him as their creator, stating, “Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. 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” (Shelley 44). Instead of using his power responsibly, he only thinks of ways he can best benefit himself. There are many more instances where Victor abuses his power in selfish and destructive ways, which goes into the last trait of Victor’s irresponsibility.

Victor’s constant irresponsibility throughout the novel is the eventual cause of his downfall. Victor expresses his lack of preparation when he says, “breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep” (Shelley 49). Victor’s mental inability to mentally cope with what he did made him refuse the responsibilities as the creator of the creature. The abandonment of the creature stemmed from Victor’s irresponsibility and inability to think ahead. The abandonment of the creature was also the main reason the creature turned evil, which ended up being Victor’s downfall.

Much differently than Victor, the creature was a very kind and thoughtful person, most prevalent in his interactions with the cottagers. In the beginning, he was stealing from them, but once he realized that they were poor and in poverty, he completely changed from stealing to helping them as much as he could. He expresses his thoughtfulness when he states, “I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (Shelley 109). The creature recognized the cottagers’ struggles and helped them so that they would have less work to do during the day. This is one of the key differences between the creature and Victor because if Victor were in this situation, knowing that giving the cottagers help doesn’t benefit Victor, he wouldn’t do it. 

The creature had a couple of bad experiences with humans, and eventually, he cracked, changing from the kind and thoughtful person he was to a corrupt person who seeks vengeance on all humans. The creature’s true feelings reveal themselves when he says, “This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind” (Shelley 142). The creature will not be kind to humans just to be treated poorly in return. Also, since he is mad at Victor for refusing him a companion, he has decided to kill Victor’s friends and family.

Taking all of these points into account, they are both terrible people, but Victor Frankenstein is the true villain of the novel. Victor was a selfish and irresponsible person with not one good trait about him throughout his life. The creature is a corrupt murderer now, but he was a friendly, thoughtful, and sympathetic person before that.