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Miguel 1
English 101 (72100)
Essay 4: Literary Analysis
01 December, 2018
Frankenstein, Dying for Love
Throughout Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” the characters all suffer from a psychological
social need. This need is evident in many ways, to have companionship, to be accepted, to have a
role in a family or group. The story depicts a fear of loneliness from most of the characters,
including, Walton, Victor, Elizabeth, Henry, and the monster himself. Is this a gothic horror
story of a horrifying monster? Or is this a sad, depressing story of the need for love, acceptance
and companionship?
Mary Shelley starts her novel through letters written from Captain Robert Walton to his
beloved Sister Mrs. Margaret Saville. These letters are Walton’s way of staying connected while
on voyage to discover habitable land. During his journey he is extremely lonely, he tells this to
his sister in his letters “But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the
absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend,
Margaret………I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes
would reply to mine. I have no one near me” (Shelley 31). Captain Walton continues his letters
to his sister, and during his expedition he finds a very ill and dying Victor Frankenstein. He
nurses Frankenstein to health, and feels that he is the companion he has been longing for.
Frankenstein tells Walton his unbearable story and passes away shortly after.
In the story Victor Frankenstein has a decent childhood, his father, Alphonse
Frankenstein, is a loving man, when his dear friend Beaufort passes away, Alphonse takes
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Beaufort’s daughter, Caroline, as his wife. He cherishes, cares and loves her dearly even though
there is wide age difference. Caroline is a wonderful mother to Victor, she is very loving and
courageous. She adopts little Elizabeth to save her from poverty and to satisfy a desire she has to
have a daughter. According to Victor, “No human being could have passed a happier childhood
than myself” (Shelley 45). When Caroline falls ill and passes away, this happiness ends and
begins a journey of loneliness and desire to have acceptance and companionship. As Victor
reluctantly leaves for school, this loneliness sets in, “I, who had ever been surrounded be amiable
companions, continually engages in endeavoring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone”
(Shelley 51).
Why does Victor decide to create his Prometheus? Is it because he longed for
companionship? Victor goes mad with desire to create life, he focuses only on his studies. As
