Frankenstein 2

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

As Frankenstein describes his upbringing, he gives the impression that no life could have been any better. His life was so good when he was a child that this might as well be true. He was the sole focus of his very loving, and understanding parents for years until the adopted his beautiful and radiant "more than sister" Elizabeth Lavenza (Shelley 18). He states that from the moment he met her, he meant to cherish and protect her till the day he died. These words that greatly resemble wedding vows, display the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth and foreshadow how that relationship grows with their own maturity. The foreshadowing of Victor's imminent doom begins with the death of his mother. He states that, "the first misfortune of my life occurred- an omen, as it were, of my future misery" (Shelley 23). His mother dies from the same fever that Elizabeth had contracted. This tragedy throws the family into shock. Victor leaves shortly after this horrible incident. It comes to effect him greatly, later down the road, as it is part of his motive for the reanimation of the dead. However, his path his filled with many other great foreshadows. He speaks of the time his father chastised him for reading Agrippa which only peeked his interest even more. There is also the time, when his professor enlightens and motivates him by telling him of how the modern science's can bring about powerful miracles. This theme of impeding doom seems very common throughout Frankenstein.