In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the author employ’s several different themes to suggest a tone of tragedy. Those include abandonment, tragic flaw, and the punishment exceeds the crime. The two main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his monster, are deemed as tragic heroes in Shelly’s novel. Webster defines a hero as “a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life.” Frankenstein and his monster each have their own levels of tragedy. Shelly also supplies each character with flaws and imperfections. The punishments for creating the monster are greatly harsher than the crime of creating it. Abandonment is the first main theme in the novel. Abandonment is defined as “to give up completely and to desert”(Webster 1). Both Frankenstein and his creation go through several different episodes of abandonment. Frankenstein abandons his family, his creation, and his homeland. The monster abandons his non-evil state of mind, and then society. Young Victor abandons his monster because of its wretchedness. What began as a man ends up a mockery, and a “hideous being of gigantic structure”(Tropp 62). Victor barely even thinks twice about leaving his creation. The shear ugliness of it took over all thought of whether it could be good or evil or if it needed anything. The monster had “no father [to watch his] infant days” and, “no mother to bless [him] with smiles”(87). The monster was a “poor, helpless, miserable wretch,” with no one to turn to (72). When the creation woke up Victor instantly left the building. The creator never saw his creation after that until he was detained by it. The creation was left to “struggle with a child’s blindness, added to a student’s thirst for knowledge” (23).Frankenstein’s next episode of abandonment tears him ...
