Frankenstein Blog 3

                As Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein progresses, the significance of the theme of death in the novel becomes increasingly apparent. The reader quickly perceives the many roles and influences which death has inflicted on Frankenstein’s life. To begin with, the death of Frankenstein’s grandmother was the direct event in his parents’ life which led to his existence: were it not for the death of his grandmother, Frankenstein’s parents may never have met, fallen in love, and brought Victor into the world. Furthermore, the death of the parents of Victor’s “cousin” Elizabeth was the event which indirectly led to Elizabeth becoming a member of the Frankenstein family. Furthermore, death was one of the single most important factors in leading Victor to begin the process of infusing inanimate objects with life. Victor was incredibly fond of his mother and was therefore greatly saddened by her death. After briefly describing his grieving process, however, he explained that, “My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest, and learn to think ourselves fortunate, while one remains whom the spoiler has not seized” (Shelley, 24). Thus, with this resolution, Victor combined the influence of the death of his mother with his inclination towards natural philosophy in order to create life within inanimate objects. By means of discovering such a revolutionary concept, Victor in more or less admitted that he hoped to possibly preserve life or prevent death. Clearly, death perhaps played a more influential role in his young life and ultimate creation of his monster than any other occurrence.

                Even after the “birth” of his creature, however, Frankenstein continued to be plagued by death. Roughly two years after the success of his experiments and the disappearance of his creature, Victor’s little brother William was found dead in the woods of Plainpalais with the marks of his murdered impressed upon his neck. Upon encountering his creature at the very vicinity in which William was murdered, Frankenstein immediately assumes that his creature was solely responsible for William’s death; furthermore, because Justine Moritz was widely believed to be the boy’s murderer, she was condemned and executed in Geneva for her crimes about a month later. Although Victor was not directly responsible for either of these deaths, nor did he ever intend for his actions to indirectly cause them, he nevertheless experienced the overwhelming burden of insatiable guilt as a result of the loss of these loved ones. Because he believed with absolute surety that the creature had murdered William, he concluded that he was, in essence, the sole reason for the deaths of both of his loved ones and the unending grief of his remaining family members. Consequently, the reader can easily ascertain that death has already played a significant role in the story thus far and will undoubtedly continue to have a powerful impact on the motives of Victor and his creatures as the story continues.