AP Lit: Frankenstein Test

identify three characters that left home. where and why.

Victor - to go to college

Henry Clerval - to help Victor in college

Captain Walton - to find the North Pole

why is it ironic that victor is seen as a terrible parent?

He had dreamed of saving humanity from death, but instead he brings about only destruction

name 2 more ironic moments in Frankenstein

He abandoned the creature that he created

He destroyed the creatures partner before she could ever be brought back to life.

identify three innocent victims in Frankenstein and explain who is to blame

William, Elizabeth, and Justine. Victor is to blame because he created the monster that killed them.

Victor Frankenstein

the main character, a man driven by ambition and scientific curiosity. His quest for absolute knowledge and power will eventually end in his own ruin.

Elizabeth Lavenza

Victor's bride. Elizabeth is presented as being angelically good and incomparably beauty: she represents ideal womanhood and its promises of love and comfort.

Caroline

Victor's mother, a paradigm of motherly concern and generosity. Her death provides the catalyst for Victors desire to transcend death. It is her last wish that Victor and Elizabeth get married

Alphonse

Victor's father; yet another shining example of kindness and selflessness. His happiness depends on the happiness of his children. If they fail, he does as well; thus, their deaths precipitate his own.

William

the youngest son of the Frankenstein family. His death at the hands of the monster renders him a symbol of lost and violated innocence

Henry Clerval

Victor's boyhood friend, who nurses Victor back to health in Ingolstadt. He is Victor's interllectual opposite. He will be murdered by the monster too. He is perhaps a symbol of destruction of Victor's own goodness and potential

Justine

servant in the Frankenstein Household, but more like a sister to Frankenstein and Elizabeth. She is executed for William's murder, and thus becomes yet another martyr to lost virtue and inncocence

The Creature / The Monster

The work of Frankensteins hands, the creature is his double, his persecutor, and his victim. The lives of him and his creator are ewtwined

Robert Walton

The reader's representative in the novel, he is the person to whom Victor relates his story. He has much in common with Victor: ambition, drive, and the desire for glory.

De Lacey

The head of the household observed by the creature, he has been robbed of his fortunes as a result of his own kindness. His blindness makes him capable of recognizing the creature's sincerity and goodness despite his hideous appearance.

Felix

the son of De Lacy, he is devoted to his family and his mistress, Safie. Though noble, he drives the creature from the family cottage with stones. He thereby symbolizes one of the basic flaws in the human character: the hatred of difference

Agatha

the daughter of de lacy, she is an example of selfless womanhood, caring for her brother and her father despite their poverty and her own sadness

Safie

The betrothed of Felix. She is presented as exotically beautiful, and is racially fetishized for her Turkishness. The de Lacey family wishes to marry her to Felix and convert her to Christianity.

Peasants

A family of peasants, including a blind old man, De Lacey; his son and daughter, Felix and Agatha; and a foreign woman named Safie. The monster learns how to speak and interact by observing them. When he reveals himself to them, hoping for friendship, they beat him and chase him away.

Beaufor

a merchant and friend of Victor's father; the father of Caroline

M. Waldman

The professor of chemistry who sparks Victor's interest in science. He dismisses the alchemists' conclusions as unfounded but sympathizes with Victor's interest in a science that can explain the "big questions," such as the origin of life.

M. Krempe

a professor of natural philosophy at Ingolstadt. He dismisses Victor's study of the alchemists as wasted time and encourages him to begin his studies anew.

Mr. Kirwin

The magistrate who accuses Victor of Henry's murder.