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1Characters found in ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}''.
2----
3[[foldercontrol]]
4!POV Characters
5
6[[folder: Victor Frankenstein]]
7[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frank_monster_making.jpg]]
8The protagonist of the novel, a young and ambitious Swiss scientist who becomes fascinated with the concept of creating life after his studies, managing to give life to an artificial creature of his own. However, Victor comes to regret it when his ambitiousness and arrogance by meddling with nature leads to tragedy.
9----
10* AmbitionIsEvil: Victor warns Robert Walton not to be as ambitious as he was.
11* AngstComa: Does this several times throughout the book after something bad happens.
12* ApocalypticLog: [[spoiler: The entire story that Victor dictates to Walton is a verbal example of this, as it does end with Victor's death in a horrible situation that had been escalating for a while.]]
13* BrainFever: Victor has two bouts, one of which was brought on by [[BrownNote seeing his own monster]].
14* ByronicHero: Victor's dangerous experiments with science and very troubled past made him this. However, Victor's lack of compassion and responsibility for his Creation, who desperately longed for his love and affection, rather throws him off from being a redeemable character who is just misunderstood by society.
15* CannotSpitItOut: Victor keeps the monster a secret, justifying this by saying that people wouldn't believe him anyway or call him mad. He still refuses to divulge the truth when Justine is tried for the monster's actions and eventually executed.
16* CassandraTruth: His justification as to why he did not speak up for Justine during her trial and execution aside from his own refusal to take responsibility, as he assumes that his testimony could also be taken as the ravings of a madman and wouldn't have saved her anyway.
17-->''A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine; but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.''
18* CharacterTitle: The title of this book is Victor's surname, ''not'' the name of his Creature, who actually [[NoNameGiven doesn't have a name]]!
19** Indeed, an alternate name for the novel is the Modern Prometheus. However, the case could be made that Victor is the one who is actually responsible for much of the suffering that occurs due to his mistreatment of the Creature, which could, in a way, be considered his son. Thus, Frankenstein could be either one, and they could both be considered the villain for their actions.
20%%* ChildhoodFriendRomance: With Elizabeth.
21* {{Determinator}}: Becomes ''totally'' obsessed with making his creature. It turns out badly. Later, he [[spoiler: dedicates what is left of his life to tracking down and exacting revenge upon his creation.]]
22* DitzyGenius: A deconstruction. He created ''sentient life'' while still in college but has no idea how to control his creation. His [[PoorCommunicationKills communication]] and [[IdiotBall decision-making]] skills also leave much to be desired. These facts together [[spoiler: result in the deaths of many innocent people.]]
23* DrFrankenstein: In the novel where he originated, Victor Frankenstein is originally characterized as a medical student with ambitions of artificially CreatingLife. Victor comes to resent his creation and after abandoning the latter, blames his creature for his subsequent troubles when in fact he could have warned people of his own creature's existence and avoided a lot of bloodshed.
24* FatalFlaw: [[NeverMyFault His refusal to take responsibility for his actions.]] He fled the monster as soon as it arose, causing the monster to spend its first hours alone and confused. When the monster framed Justine, Frankenstein still refused to admit that the true criminal was his creation.
25* FinalSpeech: [[spoiler: The majority (about 75%) of the book is Victor relating his back story to Walton, who transcribes the story into a letter to his sister. Victor talks an awful lot for someone about to die from being acutely weakened by coldness and exhaustion.]]
26* {{Foil}}: To his Creature. Unlike his Creature, Victor has family and friends who love him, lives comfortably in an upper-class lifestyle, obtains a higher education, and has a tendency to isolate himself from the people who care for him. However, both Victor and the Creature are [[ByronicHero Byronic Heroes]].
27* ForScience: Victor's initial motivation for the Monster's creation, though mixed with personal motives due to the recent death of his mother.
28* FreudianExcuse: The untimely death of Victor's mother coupled with Victor's fascination with the sciences probably inspired him to discover the mysteries of creation and make his Creature. It probably didn't help that many of the scientific figures in his life (including his father) dismissed his scientific progress at first, fuelling a desire to get it right or to prove himself to them.
29* HerrDoctor: He is of Swiss descent (hence his German surname) and is obsessed with the mysteries of creation and discovering them through the sciences. However, Victor never receives his doctorate in the book, and his actual native language is French.
30* IdiotBall: Of sorts. Victor interprets the Creature's threats as intention to kill him on his wedding day. If he had just realized that the Creature ''needs him alive'' in order to fulfill his desires, Elizabeth may have survived...
31* IgnoredEpiphany: An interesting case, in that Frankenstein ends up ignoring the epiphany of his own story, which he was telling precisely to warn someone else not to make his own mistakes. Having recognized himself in Captain Walton's desire for glory, he tells the story of his obsessive ambition in order to reveal how he was cured of it and to discourage Walton from his own. At the end, however, when the ship they're on is trapped by ice, the crew refuse to go on any further... only for Frankenstein, now consumed with the desire to destroy his creation, to furiously try to urge them to go in in search of glory. Far from being cured of his obsessive and ambitious nature, he's clearly just transferred it onto his hunt for the creature instead. Fortunately for all, Walton ''didn't'' ignore the epiphany of Frankenstein's tale and overrules him, having realized that no obsession or ambition is worth bringing harm or death to others.
32* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Victor cuts himself off from his family and friends while he's immersed in intellectual pursuits such as making his creature.
33* ItsAllAboutMe: Probably his other FatalFlaw, outside of his lack of responsibility. Victor only ever gauges things with regards to how anyone else will view him and his work. In fact, his flawed interpretation of the Creature's threat of "I'll be with you on your wedding night" as a personal threat against his own life is what gets Elizabeth killed.
34* JacobMarleyWarning: Victor serves as a warning to Walton, who is in danger of becoming as obsessed with his exploration as Victor was with the science that led to the creation of his monster.
35* KissingCousins: With his adopted sister Elizabeth. It should be noted that they were blood related in the first publication of the novel in 1818. After her husband Percy Shelley's death, Mary changed this to non-blood related in the later publications, possibly for the novel to be accepted by a wider audience, as Mary was running into some financial troubles at this point.
36* LonersAreFreaks: He isolates himself from others when he's immersed in freakish pursuits, such as making his creature.
37* MadScientist: The UrExample, beating out [[Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde Dr. Henry Jekyll]] by sixty-eight years. He's a bit too [[{{Determinator}} obsessed]] with discovering [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow the mysteries of creation]].
38* MilesToGoBeforeISleep: By the end of his narrative Victor is miserable enough to become a DeathSeeker, but he promised himself and his dead family that he'd kill the monster first. Unfortunately for him the monster just happens to be really, really good at not being killed.
39* MotherNatureFatherScience: MadScientist Victor creates something very abominable in contrast to Mother Nature's creations.
40* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Immediately after bringing his creature to life and realizing how hideous it is.
41* NeverMyFault: One of Victor's major flaws is his refusal to accept responsibility for the consequences of his actions. If he hadn't abandoned his creature, a lot of tragedy could have been averted, yet Victor only blames his own creature for what happens. Contrast the creature himself, who is capable of feeling remorse for his evil actions.
42* NightmareSequence: Has one immediately after he brings his Creature to life, involving Elizabeth's rotting corpse.
43* PoorCommunicationKills: If Victor had told a few key people about the monster, a lot of trouble probably could have been avoided.
44* PunnyName: The name 'Victor' is actually a sneaky reference to Paradise Lost (a big influence on the story), as Milton often refers to God as 'the Victor'. And then, of course, the Monster equates himself with Adam...
45* RousingSpeech: He gives an epic one to the crew on Walton's boat near the end when he wants them to continue northward.
46* SanitySlippage: Outside observers often comment upon Victor's haggard appearance after long periods of his isolation and tortured determination to a task, such as making his Creature or chasing his Creature across the world.
47* ShadowArchetype: To Robert Walton. He represents what Walton might become should he let his desire for knowledge and glory overcome his better judgment and care for others.
48* SmiteMeOMightySmiter: Homeward bound from Ingolstadt, depressed Victor walks outside into a thunderstorm one night, and ''screams at the sky''.
49%%* StarCrossedLovers: With Elizabeth.
50* SternChase: After [[spoiler: all of his family and friends are murdered]], Victor ends up in a lengthy pursuit of his creation, eventually reaching the Arctic. This is where Walton finds him.
51* SympatheticPOV: Downplayed. He's still presented as wrong in the book, but he's far more sympathetic from his point of view than in a retelling of the events from any other perspective.
52* TheyCalledMeMad: What Victor fears they'll do if he tells people about the monster. They do call him mad eventually, but to their credit, Victor had been delusional with BrainFever for a time.
53* TragicMistake: His decision to abort his attempt to create a mate for the creature results in the creature murdering Henry and Elizabeth, thus causing Victor to pursue the creature until his own death.
54* UnreliableNarrator: Victor portrays his family as the perfect happy family at first, but if you pay attention he contradicts himself in a few places and the Frankenstein family doesn't look so happy after all.
55%%* WellDoneSonGuy: Victor with his father, depending on how you interpret him.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder: Frankenstein's Creature/Adam Frankenstein/The Monster]]
59[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frank_a_grim_realization.jpg]]
60The creation of Frankenstein, an ArtificialHuman given life by ambiguous means, but who was rejected by his creator due to his hideousness. After wandering alone through the wilderness, discovering his identity and being shunned by society, the creature eventually grows to blame Victor for his misery and settles for revenge.
61----
62* AdaptationalDumbass: While unable to speak upon his birth, the creature soon becomes eloquent and intelligent in the original novel. The various film adaptations often keep him in the brainless stage and never moving on, to the point he's more well-known for being a lumbering brute who barely understands speech.
63* AdaptationalUgliness: A complex example; the Creature in the book wasn't the hideous lumbering brute that the Universal films depicted, but he wasn't traditionally ''pretty'' either. He was made to be handsome and, to an extent, he was--however, his eyes were a strange shade of yellow, and his flesh made him viscerally horrifying to behold (which is to be expected from a creature made out of dead body parts) - his skin was very pale, covered in stitching, and almost translucent according to Victor’s narration, as he could see the movement of muscles and arteries beneath his skin. The original illustrations in the book made him quite the PrettyBoy, though.
64* TheAloner: Right from the very start of his existence, the Creature is doomed to live a solitary life, though he only wants companionship. The closest he gets to achieving his goal is during his time living near the De Lacy family, where he learns about humanity through witnessing their lives.
65%%* AntiVillain: To the point that many sympathize with him much more than they do with his creator.
66* ArtificialHuman: A humanoid creature created by a MadScientist.
67* ArtificialZombie: In virtually all adaptations, he was pieced together from dead tissue by some (poorly-defined) means and given life. Questionable in the original novel, as Victor never states ''what'' he did with the gruesome research materials he gathered.
68* BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad: He tells Robert Walton that "evil became my good".
69* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Averted with the Creature, who started out a hideous but well-intentioned individual and only became villainous because of constant mistreatment.
70* BigBad: Adam causes most of the damage in the novel in his pursuit of vengeance.
71* BlankSlate: Is born without properly working senses, let alone the abilities to speak or write or any maliciousness towards humans.
72* BornAsAnAdult: He was created as an adult but with the mind of a child.
73* BrownNote: When Victor first sees him, the Creature's monstrous appearance makes Victor have BrainFever.
74* ByronicHero: LikeFatherLikeSon. The Creature is incredibly eloquent, brilliant, and persuasive in his best moments. He is also filled with characteristically Byronic anguish and despair due to being cut off from humanity as a result of his unnatural birth (or creation, depending on how you look at it). Some literary critics have interpreted the Creature as Victor's dark side.
75* CallingTheOldManOut: The point of the Creature's meeting with Victor is to do this. He also pulls another one after Victor backs out of his promise to make him a companion.
76* CardCarryingVillain: He repeatedly compares himself to {{Satan}}, and tells Robert Walton that "[[Literature/ParadiseLost evil became my good]]".
77* CycleOfRevenge: Adam seeks revenge on Victor for abandoning him, causing Victor to hate him in return. Basically, one act of hate leads to the other retaliating in kind until [[spoiler: Victor dies a miserable man and Adam is so horrified by what he had become that he commits suicide]].
78* DarkIsNotEvil: Essentially a {{Deconstruction}}; the creature was not inherently evil, and could have ended up good (and almost certainly would have, if not for extremely unfortunate timing), but his mistreatment by mankind lead him to become exactly what they thought of him.
79* DeadpanSnarker: Upon hearing Victor say "Just go! I cannot bear to look at you any longer!", he covers Victor's eyes with his hand and says "Now you don't have to look at me."
80* DisproportionateRetribution: While humanity doesn't exactly acquit itself very well with regards to how it generally treats the Creature, a case can be made that his obsessive hatred and eventual willingness to murder it is somewhat disproportionate. In most of the bad experiences the Creature has with humans, from the perspective of the humans a terrifying and barely-literate malformed creature made of dead people and nightmares appears to be attacking one of their loved ones, thus making it not unreasonable that they would lash out against it.
81* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: At the very end of the book, he tells Walton he will commit suicide for being an abomination and having caused Victor to die. That said, he is never seen doing so, causing some to doubt whether he will actually go through with it.]]
82* EvilVegetarian: Averted. At first he's benevolent while only eating things like roots, berries, and nuts. There are a few exceptions; early on in his life, he consumes some cooked meat he found at a campfire after accidentally scaring its owner away, and later when he turns evil, he kills a rabbit so Victor can eat it. It's unknown whether the Creature himself eats animals while he's evil, though. It's also possible that he's a straight-up herbivore and ''unable'' to eat meat, although it isn't made clear.
83* FaceHeelTurn: Initially is born with benevolent intentions towards humans. Turns evil after humans constantly reject and mistreat him.
84* FrankensteinsMonster: The novel originated the concept of an artificially created human being in ScienceFiction.
85* FleshGolem: An ArtificialHuman made from the parts of deceased people Victor scavenged from graveyards and ossuaries, then brought to life through an unspecified method that is implied to be galvanism.
86* {{Foil}}: To Victor. Unlike Victor, the Creature doesn't have any family or friends who love him, is forced to live in the harshness of the wilderness, has to educate himself, and desperately wants to associate himself with the humans who reject him. However, both the Creature and Victor are [[ByronicHero Byronic Heroes]].
87%%* FriendlessBackground: Though not by choice.
88* GeniusBruiser: The Creature educates himself very quickly by spying on a girl's lessons through a crack in a wall, growing into a remarkably intelligent, eloquent, and philosophical man. He is also an extremely powerful physical specimen, resistant to cold and injury as well as immensely strong, fast, and agile.
89%%* GentleGiant: At least before his FaceHeelTurn.
90* TheGrotesque: An unusual case, as Victor had gone to great lengths to choose only the ''best'' parts for each section of the monster's body (best eyes, best hands, etc.) - unfortunately, cobbling together the parts in such a manner meant that once the monster started ''moving'', he fell squarely into the UncannyValley[[invoked]].
91* HopeSpot: After an existence of suffering and loneliness, the Creature will finally have a companion in the female creature Victor is working on, only for said creature to be destroyed by his creator. This cements his transition into villain territory.
92* IJustWantToHaveFriends: When explaining to Victor why he has turned evil against humanity:
93-->''"If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold; for that one creature's sake I would make peace with the whole kind!"''
94* InstantExpert: The creature is a blank slate... essentially a newborn but with motor skills. He learns to speak and read French fluently in less than a year of watching a family teach a foreigner. After just a few months he's already good enough to read ''Literature/ParadiseLost!''
95* LightningBruiser: Of the "Fast-moving Big Bruiser" type. He can easily collect a large pile of firewood without a sweat, and he can easily sprint across an icy mountaintop.
96* LonersAreFreaks: No human wants to interact with him, let alone befriend him, due to his monstrous appearance.
97* MadeOfIron: The Creature can survive much harsher injuries and conditions than a normal human.
98* MixAndMatchMan: Heavily implied by Victor's description of how he made the Creature. Victor talks about gathering materials from slaughterhouses and dissecting rooms, and of "selecting" the features he wanted for his ideal creation. He's deliberately vague as to how he combined all these features, not wanting anyone to repeat his mistakes.
99* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: The creature after causing Victor to die of exhaustion by provoking him to chase him across the world and realizing that he murdered innocent people for nothing.]]
100* NeverGivenAName: Since he was rejected by his creator, the Creature never received any name, though Mary Shelley did apparently call him "Adam" in letters to friends. Nowadays readers may simply know of him as "The Creature" or "The Daemon."
101* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The Creature gets shot in the shoulder for saving a little girl from drowning.
102* ObliviouslyEvil: During the one of earlier moments of his life he breaks into a old man's house and steals his food because it smelt so good. Only later does he realize that taking without asking leads to others' unhappiness.
103* OnlyAFleshWound: Averted; when the Creature gets shot in the shoulder, he faints, and it took weeks for him to recover. And he's much stronger and tougher than the average human.
104%%* ParentalAbandonment: By his creator Victor immediately after he's brought to life.
105* ReluctantMonster: He may look monstrous, but all the Creature really wanted was to befriend and live among humans!
106* RevengeByProxy: The Creature decides to get revenge on Frankenstein for its own wretched existence by making him suffer, so he kills Frankenstein's youngest brother, followed by his greatest friend, and then on Frankenstein's wedding day, the monster strangles his bride.
107* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Towards Victor for causing his miserable existence.
108--> ''"Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you curse the hour of your birth."''
109* SatanicArchetype: A once-noble creature who became filled with pride and wrath and devoted his life to rage against his creator, but still retains a silver tongue that makes those around him tempted to do anything he asks. {{Lampshaded}} when the Monster tells Victor that he read ''Literature/ParadiseLost'' and related to Milton's portrayal of Satan.
110* SelfImmolation: [[spoiler:How does he plan to commit suicide? By setting himself afire on top of the Arctic Circle. We never see him do so, however.]]
111* ThenLetMeBeEvil: After deciding he's had enough abuse at the hands of shallow people, the creature takes a flying leap off the morality wagon.
112* TorturedMonster: He is fully aware of how much of an affront to nature he is. Thanks to Victor's journal that he finds in the garments he took from his apartment, he also knows that even his own creator hates him and wishes he'd never existed.[[spoiler: In fact, by the end of the book, it causes him to [[DrivenToSuicide consider suicide]].]]
113* TragicMonster: He was abandoned by his creator and left alone to survive in the wilderness mere seconds after being born, and, despite his genuine attempts to help others at first, got repeteadly rejected and feared due to something he never had any control of. While he eventually [[ThenLetMeBeEvil turns into the monster humanity thought he was]], fully conscious and aware of the wickedness and cruelty of his acts, the story leaves clear that the creature's turn to villainy was ultimately tragic and avoidable.
114* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: An example and a subversion. Though the creature does eventually turn on his creator, he only does so after said creator, as well as ever other person he's ever encountered, turns on him. This makes the moral of ''Frankenstein'' less "Don't create life" and more "Don't create life you don't plan to take care of."
115%%* {{Ubermensch}}: What Frankenstein intended for the Creature to be. It didn't quite work out that way.
116* UncannyValley: Invoked, in what was [[UnbuiltTrope a rarity at the time]]. Every aspect of the Creature's body, Frankenstein explains, was chosen for its utmost perfection, in the hopes that his man would be a strong, towering, perfect Adonis; too late he realized that, when ''combined'', they created something so loathsome that he couldn't bear to look at it -- blackened lips, yellow eyes, and extremely pale, translucent skin stretched and contorted over a gigantic frame. And this was before he started to live and breathe, which Frankenstein describes as being ''much'' worse:
117-->"Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Danté]] could not have conceived."
118* WhatMeasureIsANonhuman: Even with his intelligence and (at the beginning) good heart, because of his unnatural birth, his fearsome appearance, and unchecked strength, the Creature is immediately considered evil by not only by his creator Victor, but also by anyone who sees him. Therefore, despite the Creature practically being his child, Victor has absolutely no remorse over his hatred and desire for the Creature to die, simply because the Creature is not really a human (and looks damn scary to boot).
119%%* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Not of the entire world, but of Victor's. Though by the end Adam's hostile towards humanity in general.
120* WouldHurtAChild: At first he wouldn't, but after constant rejection and the coincidental encounter with William, the Creature kills the boy after finding out he's Frankenstein's younger brother and tries to silence his taunting.
121* YellowEyesOfSneakiness: Downplayed. His yellow eyes are two of the many features that make him so disturbing and repulsive to look at. While he is a very eloquent GeniusBruiser, and he becomes evil later on, he doesn't fit the deceptive aspects of this trope. He is very straightforward about wanting to kill people and get revenge on Victor.
122* YouNeedToGetLaid: The Creature requests that Victor make him a female companion, and in exchange he and his Bride will go off somewhere and never bother anyone again.
123[[/folder]]
124
125[[folder: Robert Walton]]
126A failed writer attempting to explore the north pole in hope of expanding scientific knowledge, and the character whose point of view is ultimately the center of the novel. During the voyage, he finds a weak man on the ice, telling his discoveries to his sister by letters.
127----
128* ApocalypticLog: Walton's tale that he writes in the letter for his sister could be this, depending if he and his crew even make it back from the Arctic Circle alive.
129* {{Determinator}}: Well, he ''was'', but [[spoiler:he agrees to his crew's request to turn back from his expedition, contrary to the plan of Frankenstein.]]
130* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: The novel is framed as a letter written by Robert Walton, therefore he serves as first person narrator to the events.
131* {{Foil}}: To Frankenstein. While Victor was determined to discover the mysteries of creation no matter the cost, Walton is determined to reach the Arctic Circle but is unwilling to continue when his crew want to turn back.
132* FriendlessBackground: Walton considers Victor his first true friend.
133* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: He gives one to the Creature at the end, in response to the latter's expressing remorse over [[spoiler:Frankenstein's death]].
134-->"Your repentance is now superfluous. If you had listened to the voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity, [[spoiler:Frankenstein would yet have lived]]."
135[[/folder]]

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