Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Frankenstein Part II - Motivation

"I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race." - Victor, page 121.
The quote I have used above is a great example of Victor's motivation for why he decided not to continue with the development of the second creature.  He had spent so many months traveling Europe and determining how he was going to create the second beast.  He secluded himself on an island and began the process.  Just as the creature was about finished and my anticipation was brought to it's height, he destroyed what was to be the first Creature's companion.  As soon as Victor did this, I wondered, "WHY?!?!"  His motivation/reasoning was because he did not want to leave the world and future generations with a massive problem that he himself had created.  What if the two creatures started their own little family?  There would be a completely new species of monsters on the planet that no one would be able to destroy.  What if the female creature he was about to give life to turned out to be evil?  There would be no way to stop her from creating chaos and destruction.  Basically, Victor realized that although he had an obligation to the creature he created and an obligation to make him happy, he had an even larger obligation to the rest of humanity and to ensure that he not only killed the creature he had originally developed, but also stay away from developing another that could end up even more violent than the first.

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