Character Analysis of Victor Frankenstein

I know you have probably seen the movie, but that does not mean that you already understand the book, or the character of Victor. The purpose of this paper is to explore the character of Victor Frankenstein. By doing this, you will better understand what Victor does throughout the rest of the novel.

Prewrite: Using the first five chapters of the novel, and forgetting about letter four, list the following information about Victor.

1. What does Victor look like when he is young? It is true the book does not tell a great deal, but there are some things about which you may make an educated guess.

2. How do other people (parents, Elizabeth, friends) treat Victor when he is young? When he is a student (Krempe, Waldman)? Do they spoil him? Coddle him? Is anyone very rough with him? Does anyone ever make fun of him, and think he is being silly?

3. How does Victor act towards Elizabeth, his mother and father, Henry Clerval, and his professors at school? What acts of kindness does he do for them? How does he talk to them?

4. What does Victor think about most of the time? What does he not think about?

5. After you have written all this down, choose five good describing words that best sum up what kind of character Victor Frankenstein is. Following are some suggestions.

Caring Selfish Determined Oblivious Superficial Elusive

Loving Curious Hard-working Candid Philosophical Friendly

Loner Courageous Cowardly Disgusting Intellectual Passionate

Writing: Your essay can be three to five paragraphs long. The purpose of the essay is to describe the kind of person Victor is and to suggest what will happen later in the book, based on his personality. Choose three to five traits and list the proofs of those traits from the book. I have given examples based on Robert Walton's character to help you.

First Paragraph: Mention the book, the author, and the character. Then state what kind of a person Victor is and how you know he is like this. Do not use much detail, just refer briefly to your proof.

Robert Walton is a caring adventurer who, even though he wants to conquer the North Pole, stops long enough to rescue another man.

Second Paragraph: Elaborate on your proof of one of Victor's character traits. For example, if you said he was selfish, list the proof. If you said he was a good student, find the proof. If you said he was intellectual, find the proof.

Robert Walton is a caring person. He proved this when he rescued Victor, and when he protected Victor from the curiosity of his crew. He also proved this by writing so often to his sister so that she would not worry all the time.

Third + Paragraphs: Just like the second paragraph, prove another of Victor's traits.

Concluding paragraph: Based on what you have discovered about Victor's personality, predict how he might act when faced with a serious crisis. That crisis may be the creation of life, or the death of a loved one, or some new challenge in life. How will Victor react?

Because Robert Walton has shown that he cares about other people, he may not go any further towards the North Pole at this time. He is beginning to see the dangers, and he may decide to not risk the lives of his men any more.

Name________________________Date_________

Rubric for Character Analysis

Content:

_____/_____Introduction. You have clearly stated several character traits of Frankenstein.

You referred to your proofs, but you did not give too much detail. You were

interesting and made me want to read more.

_____/_____Body. Each paragraph begins with a topic sentence that lets me know what

character trait you are going to prove. You then quote or refer to incidents

in the first five chapters that prove that Frankenstein did indeed have that trait.

_____/_____Conclusion: You did not begin this paragraph with the words "In conclusion"

because that is very immature writing. You did make a prediction about how

Frankenstein might react to the crises of his life, based on his youthful personality.

Mechanics:

_____/_____Spelling is superb. _____/_____Pronouns have antecedents

and they both agree.

_____/_____Punctuation is peachy! _____/_____Modifiers are next to or

near the word they modify.

_____/_____Subjects and verbs agree. _____/_____There are no fragments.

_____/_____Sentence structure is good, _____/_____Prepositions are used

with no run-ons. correctly.

Appearance:

_____/_____The paper is neat and clean. You have obviously taken pride in your work.

_____/_____The paper is written in ink, on one side only, because you know how important that is to your teacher. And she/he thanks you very much!

Score: First Draft.......................................................____________/75

Second Draft, which is greatly improved, and for which you attended to all of my corrections.......................................................____________/25