Victor or The Wretch?

I would have to say that I am fully on the Wretch's side. Considering the actions taken by the Wretch during this course of the novel, its no surprise as to why many people may be pro-Victor. However, I believe that the Wretch was completely justified in every action he took towards Victor.

Victor failed the Wretch as a parent/creator. Among the first things that a parent should do for their child, is to take care of them, Victor on the other hand left the Wretch immediately after his creation. "One hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed downstairs." In this scene, we are able to see the Wretch stretching out his hand towards Victor during the first moments of his life, we commonly see children doing this with their parents. Instead of taking responsibly for his creation, Victor fears it and flees the lab. Victor leaves the Wretch, thus forcing it to learn about the cruel world himself. As the story progresses, we come to find out that the Wretch's life was filled with nothing but "loathing despair" and hatred. Alone, angry, and full of despair, the Wretch learns of Victor's life and envies the fact that he has people to love and people to show compassion towards. This enrages him, forcing him to swear vengeance upon his creator. “I have devoted to my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admirations among men, to misery.” The Wretch kills off Victor's loved ones in attempt to make Victor’s life just as wretched as his. The Wretch even admits to having feelings of “agony” and “remorse” after murdering his creator’s companions off, one by one. He had slaughtered the “helpless”, the “lovely”, and the “innocent” because of Victor.

Now, all of this murdering sounds pretty cruel, however, I believe that Victor had this coming. If he had only taken responsibility for his actions, none of this would have ever happened. Victor receives a second chance to make everything better, but it would require him to create a second wretch, for the original one. He accepts this requirement and starts his work, however, as time passes onwards; he begins to grow fearful of his creation and the horror of it all. As a result, he destroys the body of the second wretch and the Wretch strikes back in anger. With this, the Wretch tells Victor, “I shall be with you on your wedding-night.” After destroying the only possible companion the Wretch could have had, he goes on to have his own wedding. This absolutely enrages the Wretch, so he finally kills off Elizabeth, Victor’s wife. Even after the Wretch threatened him, he still continued to have his wedding foolishly.

Victor absolutely asks for everything that happens to him during the course of the novel. If he had only taken care of the monster he created, his life could have been normal, however, he feared the works of his own hands and ran away from it. As a result, the fiend he created became filled with hate, vice, and malice, thus killing everyone Victor had come to love.