Shelley's Complex Attitude of Victor's Pursuits

In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley truly constructs a complex attitude towards Victor’s work early on.  Mary Shelley portrays Victor’s actions as misguided and allows those actions to blind him in his pursuit. Victor’s actions throughout these two paragraphs illustrate how his simple goal transformed into an obsession. Shelley demonstrates this by forcing Victor to disregard and ignore any last minute hesitations. Instead, these hesitations of uncertainty are filled with haughty desires to achieve obsessive success.

Throughout the first paragraph, Mary Shelley constructs a complex attitude by trying to state the reasoning and justification behind Victor’s intent. His actions are justified because Victor believes he will be “pouring a torrent of light onto a dark world.” Shelley establishes Victor to have a god-like personality through the idea that Victor will be blessed “by a new species as its creator.” Victor becomes so blinded and engulfed in his very own mission when he believes to have the ability to “renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.” Thus, throughout the first paragraph, Victor’s justification and motives are outlines.

This complex attitude is furthered when Victor acknowledges, yet ignores the mental and physical harm of his own pursuit. This “unremitting ardour” is used to once again highlight Victor’s obsession; Victor is swept into a “frantic impulse [and] urged forward” despite his work’s detrimental personal effects. Lastly, Shelley adds complexity through Victor’s mention of “who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil.” This statement illustrates that, at the time, Victor cannot foresee any ramifications of his actions; however, in reality, it sets up the remainder of the novel and pushes Victor to look back at his obsession with regret. 

By the end of the two paragraphs, Shelley has certainly constructed a complex attitude. Victor’s misguided haughtiness, justification of his obsession, ignorance of the effects his work has on his body, and foreshadowing of the book all constitute Shelly’s beautifully formed complex attitude.