Seminar – Frankenstein: Ambition
Presented by: Josh and Jade
Introduction: Often, it is one’s own uncontrollable passions that lead to pain and
suffering as they fail to realize the consequences of their actions.
Thesis: In the novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, various characters are
influenced and directed by their powerful ambitions, revealing as they strive for their own
goals that uncontrollable ambition ultimately leads to suffering.
Criteria:
1. Ambition and Suffering of Victor Frankenstein [Josh]
2. Ambition and Suffering of Robert Walton [Jade and Josh]
3. Ambition and Suffering of the creature [Jade]
Criterion 1: Victor Frankenstein’s scientific ambition, which results in the creation of
the vengeful monster, is the cause of his suffering throughout his journey.
Point 1: Victor is a very ambitious man; leading to his desire to advance the field of
science and humanity itself through his work and the creature’s creation.
Proof 1: Whilst recalling his early years in the field of science, Frankenstein details his
incredible vigor for natural science: “Unless I was animated by an almost supernatural
enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable.
To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death” (Shelley 36).
Explain 1: Ambition is shown to lead to suffering here, for Victor states that it is his
enthusiasm which has caused him to enter the field of science related to life and death.
Said decision then leads to Victor making the monster, the sole cause of all of Victor’s
suffering throughout the novel.
Point 2: The ambitions of Victor further weigh on his shoulders, even straining him as
far as the end of his story.
Proof 2: Victor receives a taunting message left by his creature as he pursues him,
sparking thoughts of rage from within the worn man: “Again do I vow vengeance; again
do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search
until he or I perish” (Shelley 182).
Explain 2: Ambition brings forth pain and suffering, as is revealed here by Victor’s vow
against the monster. Victor has a strong resolve to end his suffering and feed his
vengeance, be it through the destruction of himself or his creation, and such ambition
leads to the scientist straying from the path of peace, and onto the road of miserable
suffering.
General Comment: Therefore, it is ultimately Victor’s powerful ambition that leads to
his own pain and suffering. His unstoppable ambition to create the creature, the root of
his pain, and to later hunt it until one of them perishes only further leads into his own
demise as he is forced to suffer loss and extreme exertion.
Criterion 2: Robert Walton’s ambition to travel north at any cost results in his own
suffering as he loses his passion and friend.
Point 1: Robert demonstrates his unyielding ambition as he reveals that no sacrifice is
too great for the realization of his dreams.
Proof 1: While talking to Victor about his journey, Walton states, “I would sacrifice my
fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life
or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I
sought” (13).
Explain 1: Robert Walton is ready to sacrifice everything and anything in order to
achieve his ambitions, revealing how his ambitions have taken over his life. Walton’s
ambition blinds him to the value of what he is willing to give up, making him happy to
even throw away the lives of others to meet his needs.
Point 2: Eventually, it is this ambition which leads to Walton’s own suffering as he loses
what is important to him.
Proof 2: In a letter to Margaret, Walton writes, “It is past; I am returning to England. I
have lost my hopes of utility and glory: I have lost my friend” (191).
Explain 2: Although Walton does not suffer as much, he still has to suffer through the
realization of the cost of being too ambitious as well as the loss of his hopes and his
friend. After losing his friend and dreams, Walton must return home without
accomplishing his goals which only hurts him and his pride even more.
General Comment: Therefore, it is Walton’s ambitions to travel north and to seek glory
that result in his painful suffering. By endeavouring to go to the North Pole at any cost,
he pays by losing his newfound companion and dreams to an uncontrollable ambition.
Criterion 3: The creature has the unstoppable desire to seek revenge on humanity and
ultimately his creator, Victor Frankenstein, but this desire results in his own pain and
suffering.
Point 1: The monster chooses to get revenge on Victor no matter what, showing how his
ambition for revenge consumes him.
Proof 1: After Victor refuses to make the creature a companion, the creature threatens, “I
will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear
inextinguishable hatred….I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your
heart” (125).
Explain 1: Clearly, the creature’s ambition is to get revenge on Victor and his
inextinguishable hatred reveals just how powerful his desire for revenge is. In fact, his
ambition is so powerful that he will stop at nothing until he has utterly destroyed Victor’s
spirit.
Point 2: However, in the end this ambition only leads to the creature’s suffering as he
regrets the cost of his revenge.
Proof 2: When Walton meets the creature after Victor’s death, the creature admits, “You
hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the
hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of [murder]
was conceived…and long for the moment when…that imagination will haunt my
thoughts no more” (197).
Explain 2: After fulfilling his ambitions, the creature is consumed by the remorse of
causing so much pain and suffering. He deeply loathes himself and suffers under this
remorse and hate, feeling that his awful suffering can be only relieved by the eternal rest
of death which he longs for.
General Comment: Therefore, it is the creature’s powerful desire to make Victor suffer
that result in his own suffering. The very ambition of the creature, revenge, is the direct
cause of his pain as he regrets what he has done in order to achieve his goals. Clearly,
ambition must be controlled or it will lead to a character’s own suffering like it does for
the monster.
Closing Statement: In the end, the unbridled forces of one’s own ambitions can be an
incredibly destructive power, revealing how the desires of the characters in Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein lead to their own suffering. By understanding that the characters
suffer through their ambition, the reader is better able to see that Victor, Walton and the
creature’s inability to control their passions is the direct cause of their own pain and
suffering throughout the novel. When people fail to control their passions, they leave
themselves open to the dreadful consequences of sacrificing everything for one certain
goal, consequences that can only result in sorrow and pain.
Work Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Signet Classics, 2000. Print.