Frankenstein: irony

"No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their beign to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption." (page 32).

This quote simply made me laugh. I guess I missed the irony in this phrase when I read these chapters the first time. When I came back and reread the first half of the book, I noticed this and was astonished. I find it incredibly ironic that Frankenstein talks about how he would "be blessed as its creator source" if he made a body structure come to life. When Frankenstein really does create the creature, he is blind to the fact that he was blessed as its creator. However, without getting to know the creature, Frankenstein ran away from his creation and neglected it. I also found the line after that ironic. Mary Shelley scribes "many happy and excellent natures would owe their beign to me" (page 32). Later in the chapters, the creature brought upon destruction and made Frankenstein's life miserable. Frankenstein created the creature thinking that he would be happy and could save others' lives. However, the creature did anything but this. Continuing on with the quote above, Victor felt that the creature would "renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption." I find this ironic as well. Victor created the creature, hoping that the creature would bring about cures to illnesses to save people from dying. Victor did this because he was miserable when his mother died. However, the creature did not renew life. If the creature really is the murderer of William (and many others, I presume), then the creature is annihilating life and destroying it. In the creature's defense, he doesn't know any better. All in all, Victor created the creature in hope for happiness and cures, but things didn't exactly go the way he planned. Although the whole plot of recreating a human being is unrealistic, this theme is very realistic. Things don't always go the way we plan.............