A Change in Victor

It all starts from after he was born, that Victor Frankenstein recalls his life story by explaining where he comes from, his childhood as well as family. He was some of high class as he states in the first sentence “I am by birth a Genevese; and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic.” His father was “well respected” by everyone who knew him due to his activeness in public business. He spent his younger years serving the affairs of the country until he made the decision of focusing on family. His father was extremely close to a man named Beaufort, who was a merchant. Beaufort soon died because of poverty. Due to this moment of vulnerability, Beaufort’s daughter Caroline and Victor’s father become close and soon marry. Victor was born not to long after.  Around chapter 3, we are introduced to Elizabeth, who soon becomes part of the family as she is adopted and becomes Victor’s step cousin. In this chapter, Victor is much older, seventeen to be exact, and is ready to attend the University of Ingolstadt. But his dreams are soon tested when both his mother Caroline and Elizabeth become deeply ill with scarlet fever which his mom doesn’t survive, she tells Victor and Elizabeth to marry before her death but Victor, with all the pain his heart, ends up going to Ingolstadt.

In a way, I feel like this decision to go to Ingolstadt ended up causing Victor even more pain in the end as he never got to really dwell his mother’s death. When people don’t tend to take their feelings into consideration, it ends up bottling up and becoming more than it was before. Even though, since the age of 15, he was always intrigued by science, in chapter 4 he basically becomes an introvert and blocks himself from the world in order to focus on his work that is a body. I feel like that point in time in his life, it changed him. He lost contact with everyone as his obsession grew. “The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage..” That is what Victor narrates on his feelings on working on the body.

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