This deep dive covers Stage 1: ABANDONMENT — The Original Sin (Chapters 5–8) within Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment for GCSE English Literature. Revise Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment in Frankenstein for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 2 of 15 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🔬 Stage 1: ABANDONMENT — The Original Sin (Chapters 5–8)
Shelley positions Victor's flight from the Creature in Chapter 5 as the novel's original sin — the act from which all tragedy unfolds. Victor creates and immediately abandons. He flees to his bedroom, the Creature disappears into the night, and Victor congratulates himself on a fevered sleep. The parent has refused the child at the moment of birth.
Shelley reinforces the parental frame deliberately. Victor's own upbringing is presented as its opposite: Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein are models of attentive, loving parental care; Elizabeth's adoption into the family is described as a gift, cherished. Shelley places this loving family in Victor's backstory so the reader can measure exactly how far Victor fails his own creation. He knows what a good parent looks like. He refuses to be one.
The Creature is left without language, without a name, without guidance or love. Shelley structures this abandonment as the novel's moral starting point — not the act of creation, but the act of flight that follows it. Responsibility was possible. Victor chose otherwise.
Quick Check: Shelley places Victor's loving adoptive family (Alphonse, Caroline, Elizabeth) prominently in his backstory. Why does she structure the novel this way?
Shelley uses the contrast deliberately: by establishing that Victor has experienced attentive, loving parenthood at first hand, she removes any excuse from his abandonment of the Creature. He cannot claim ignorance of what parental responsibility looks like. Shelley structures the biographical detail to make Victor's flight in Chapter 5 a moral choice, not an accident — which is the novel's central argument about responsibility.
Practice questions for Theme: Responsibility & Abandonment
In the Creature's final speech (Chapter 24), which word does the Creature use to describe himself as something cast off and unwanted — connecting his state directly to Victor's act of abandonment?
How does Shelley present the act of abandonment in Chapter 5 of Frankenstein? Write about the technique she uses and its effect on the reader.