Frankenstein makes clear of Frankenstein’s artlessness before everything becomes tragic. The reader is shown his mostly happy and privileged childhood. his inculpable compulsion with cognition. and how he arrived at analyzing what would shortly go his ruin. When Frankenstein creates the monster the immediate consequence is his letdown and exhaustion. He is sickened by his ain work and regrets the creative activity from the minute he saw it in the manner everyone else will see it. Frankenstein is our tragic figure but the effects of his tragic defect do non stop with his ain agony.
A few old ages after the dark when the monster began to take a breath. he murders Frankenstein’s brother in Geneva. The feelings evoked by this action are much stronger than Frankenstein’s ain suffering—not merely due to the increased magnitude of the action but besides because William was guiltless. Frankenstein had brought his ain agony upon himself. yet William. and the many others who suffer from his death—including Elizabeth who blames herself—have done nil to merit such a destiny.
The persecution of the inexperienced persons does non stop with William. Jeanie. Henry. Frankenstein’s male parent. and Elizabeth all come to go through every bit good. With each extra decease more and more emotion is evoked for the guiltless and less and less sympathy is given for Frankenstein’s ain agony as everyone who he loves is taken from him. This is partially due to the lost chances to stop the anguish and besides due to the guiltiness of Frankenstein. He is the indirect ground for all these deceases ; he is the cause of all this calamity.
Frankenstein as a novel would non be about as emotion evoking—and therefore non about every bit successful of a tragedy—if the agony had merely been Victor’s. Although non wholly just. the guilt is assigned to him along with the monster for the many deceases and unhappiness. Henry’s dreams of future work. Elizabeth’s dreams of a happy matrimony. and William’s childhood were all taken away as a consequence of Victor’s undertaking. The tragic vision of Frankenstein is far greater as a consequence of the “divine lightning. ” as Northrop Frye calls it. since there are strictly guiltless victims.
