Notes on Victor Frankenstein (unfavorable. spoilers)
A. Victor Frankenstein is an idiot
B. I can’t believe he created his monster and then abandoned it
⁃ there are ties here to child rearing. what happens if you do not help a child safely navigate the world, do not support them in finding a place for it
C. Frankenstein has no sense of consequences
⁃ if you abandon this creature you made, it is still going to exist and it is going to take on a life of its own.
⁃ If he’s killing people he’s probably going to kill more people.
D. When Frankenstein returns home, his family keeps trying to resolve his malaise without ever actually touching the heart of it
⁃ he is not just melancholy because he’s melancholy, he’s melancholy because his creation is killing those he loves and threatening him and is still at large. How is he meant to move forward from his pain if the risk of it still remains and the creature still exists? His ignorance of the problem of the creature throughout the book is what creates all the strife he endures. Don’t be so self absorbed by your own feelings, look to reality and repair it. You cannot play pretend.
E. Throughout the whole book Victor is trying to pretend the monster does not exist while also contending with the consequences of its existence, like, come onnnn
F. Be a little rational Victor, please. Use your brain, or talk to people who can use their brains
G. Only once the monster has taken everything from him does he stop pretending that he can somehow evade him, and then he is consumed by revenge
I. But I understand the horror of feeling powerless in having your whole life stripped from you by something you have created which feels insurmountable
K. His emotions alternately power or incapacitate him
L. Once the vestiges of his life are stripped away, Victor assumes his true fate which is to destroy his creation, whatever the physical toll. He was always going to wind up there, but everything that could distract him had to fall away first. Like flowers cut for a vase, his family was dead as soon as he created the monster, it was only a question of when their death would come
M. It feels unfair to call his creation a monster, yes it has agency, but it did not initially desire to be evil. It was turned to that course by society's rejection of it, of which Victor was a key part. I find Victor more monstrous in his thoughtlessness and carelessness. Ignorance and neglect.