This deep dive covers Stage 3: OBSESSED DESTROYER — Victor in Pursuit (Chapters 17–24) within Victor Frankenstein (character) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Victor Frankenstein (character) in Frankenstein for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 14 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 4 of 16 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🔬 Stage 3: OBSESSED DESTROYER — Victor in Pursuit (Chapters 17–24)
On the slopes of Mont Blanc, the Creature presents Victor with a demand: create a female companion, and the killing will stop. Victor agrees — and then, in Chapter 20, destroys the half-made companion when he considers the consequences. The Creature's response — "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful" (Chapter 20) — signals the final phase. What had been conditional violence becomes unconditional war.
Clerval is murdered. Elizabeth is murdered on their wedding night. Victor's father dies of grief. Shelley strips Victor of every person he loves in sequence — not as punishment from a supernatural force, but as the direct consequence of his choices: the original abandonment, the broken promise, the ongoing flight from responsibility.
Victor's final pursuit of the Creature into the Arctic is presented by Shelley as the ultimate irony: the obsession that drove him to create the Creature now drives him to destroy it, consuming him in the same way his earlier ambition consumed his family. He dies on Walton's ship, warning Walton — who was on the same trajectory — to turn back. Whether Walton will is the novel's final open question.
Quick Check: Shelley has Victor destroy the Creature's mate in Chapter 20. What does this structural choice argue about the nature of responsibility?
By giving Victor a second chance — the opportunity to repair his original abandonment through the companion — and then having him destroy it, Shelley removes any possibility that Victor's failures were accidental. The destruction of the mate is a deliberate act of second abandonment. Shelley uses it to argue that Victor's problem is not ignorance or misfortune: it is a repeated, active refusal to accept the consequences of creation. The Creature's escalation to total war is Shelley's demonstration of what a creator's refusal of responsibility produces.
Practice questions for Victor Frankenstein (character)
Shelley's subtitle for Frankenstein is 'The Modern Prometheus'. What does this subtitle tell us about Victor Frankenstein?
Victor says 'How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge' in Chapter 4 — before his experiment. How does Shelley use this moment to present Victor's character? (2 marks)