This paper examines the themes of ethics and morality as embodied in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Shakespeare's Richard III. Drawing on definitions of ethics as conscious reflection on morality, the paper analyzes how Victor Frankenstein's abandonment of his creation represents a failure of ethical responsibility, while the creature's revenge stems from a moral vacuum caused by isolation and neglect. In contrast, Richard III is portrayed as a figure who fully understands right from wrong yet deliberately chooses evil, driven by a lack of conscience. Together, both works illuminate the consequences of moral failure — whether through ignorance or willful disregard.
The paper uses a definitional framework — establishing what ethics and morality mean before analyzing the texts — as the backbone of its comparative argument. This technique ensures that every claim about character behavior is anchored to a shared conceptual standard, making the analysis more rigorous and the comparisons meaningful.
The paper opens with definitions of ethics and morality, then provides plot summaries of both works before moving into thematic analysis. It analyzes Frankenstein first, examining both Victor's ethical failure and the creature's resulting moral confusion, then turns to Richard III, focusing on conscience and the deliberate abuse of moral knowledge. A brief conclusion ties the two works together around the theme of moral failure.
Literature has provided mankind with entertainment for centuries, and through it authors have been able to express their deepest thoughts. Two works that raise profound questions about ethics and morality are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Shakespeare's Richard III.
Ethics is defined as "a conscious stepping back and reflecting on morality" (University). Morality, on the other hand, refers to behaviors and beliefs about human decency — right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper. An analogy with music and musicology helps clarify the distinction: morality is comparable to music, while ethics is comparable to musicology. Just as musicology is "a conscious reflection on music," ethics is a conscious reflection on morality (University).
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, tells the story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, an intelligent young man whose obsession with scientific knowledge — particularly with the mystery of giving life — consumed him entirely. Working alone in his laboratory and spending all his time in isolation, he created a being assembled from the organs of dead men. Not fully grasping the consequences of his experiment, Victor Frankenstein brought a monstrous being into the world, and was so appalled by its repulsive appearance that he abandoned it.
According to Joseph Kain, Victor Frankenstein was so blinded by his pursuit of knowledge that "he cannot perceive any of the warning signs of his own obsession… in such a state, how could he possibly consider the morality or the consequences of his actions?" (par. 5). As the daemon's creator, Victor had an ethical and parental responsibility to initiate it into the world and to teach it right from wrong. Yet when he deserted his creation, he felt no such obligation: "even after Victor flees from his living creation in horror, he makes no mention of any feeling of responsibility — not towards the Creature, and not towards the society upon which it has been released. Victor inwardly becomes a monster himself" (Kain, par. 5).
The daemon that Frankenstein created was initially gentle and sensitive. Like any child, it was curious about the world and yearned to be loved. However, these early characteristics were transformed by isolation and cruel encounters with humans. Because of its hideous appearance — which all humans feared — the monster was forced to hide itself from society. It yearned above all else to feel that it belonged to someone or some group, yet its appearance prevented it from establishing any meaningful human connection.
This profound loneliness drove the daemon to become vengeful toward its creator. The desire to make Victor feel the same isolation it endured led the creature to kill the people most dear to him. From the daemon's perspective, this revenge was right and proper — it remained true to its own moral code. Yet because nobody had ever taught it what was right and wrong, the daemon had no access to a universal ethical framework. It acted solely on what it believed to be moral. In a deeper sense, as Kain suggests, the truly monstrous being in the story is not the daemon Victor created, but Victor himself.
Both Frankenstein and Richard III demonstrate, in markedly different ways, the consequences of moral failure. Victor Frankenstein failed ethically through neglect and a blind pursuit of knowledge, creating a being he then abandoned to a world without moral guidance. His daemon's destructive revenge was ultimately the product of that abandonment. Richard III, by contrast, knew precisely what was right and chose wrong anyway — his evil was deliberate, calculated, and unconstrained by conscience. Together, these two works offer a rich literary exploration of ethics and morality, revealing how the absence of moral responsibility — whether through ignorance or willful disregard — leads inevitably to destruction.
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