The passage that I will be focusing on is Victor Frankenstein’s nightmare. The important question I have for this section is why did Victor Frankenstein have a nightmare at this time? After all he did just complete his life’s work which encapsulates his interest in the natural sciences from a very young age. This should be a monumental moment of triumph, but instead his studies and accomplishments are stricken by horror. Victor Frankenstein terror of the monster is what I find interesting. It is not as though Victor Frankenstein never saw the creature before. He had selected every fiber of its being and only chose the best qualities to put into his so called monster. He gave it lush black hair and pearly white teeth, but when the monster finally arose, Victor Frankenstein was scared to death. I feel that the reason for his horror stems from his family which he has distanced himself from. I will answer this, by explaining the meaning of his dream.
Victor Frankenstein’s mother wishes that he and Elizabeth get married as her dying wish. And in his dream, Victor Frankenstein sees, “Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, the became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms” (58). This is a direct reference to the sacrifice of his mother to save Elizabeth from Scarlet Fever. In the hopes to stop any future occurrences of the aforementioned, Victor Frankenstein completely abandons his family and friends in order to devote all of his time to his study of life and death. When he finally accomplishes his sought out task, he realizes all the people he left behind.
His mother’s death took a major toll on him. He idolized her as she is the woman who nursed his future wife back to health from Scarlet Fever. In a way to cope with his sorrow, he tries to understand everything that causes life and death. Just like Caroline gave up her life in order to save Elizabeth’s, Victor Frankenstein is devoting his life to understanding why diseases happen in the hopes that he can stop them. Victor Frankenstein is carrying out this entire experiment to fulfil some grandiose feeling of regret he has for leaving everyone behind. It is only when the monster is created, that he realizes nothing he has done has helped bring his mother back to life. Even worse, he has neglected his mothers dying wish. That is why I believe the entire reason as to why he created a monster can be summed up in his dream. He sees all of life’s beauty in Elizabeth, but once he understands the complexities of life and meddles in its vast greatness does he realize that it can only bring pain, hence the transformation of Elizabeth into his dead mother.