How Does The Monster Try To Gain Control Of Victor

How the Monster Seizes Control: A Psychological and Strategic Analysis of Power in Frankenstein

In Mary Shelley’s seminal Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation is not a simple tale of a monster hunting its maker. It is a complex, escalating power struggle where the Creature, initially a powerless being, systematically and ruthlessly employs a multi-faceted strategy to gain psychological, emotional, and moral control over Victor. The monster’s quest for dominance transcends mere revenge; it is a calculated campaign to make Victor experience the profound isolation, helplessness, and responsibility that he, the creator, originally imposed. By dissecting the monster’s methods—from psychological warfare and strategic violence to moral coercion and the manipulation of social bonds—we uncover a masterclass in predatory control that ultimately succeeds in destroying Victor’s world from the inside out.

The Foundation of Power: Exploiting Victor’s Psychology and Guilt

The monster’s primary tool for gaining control is his profound understanding of Victor’s psyche, which he develops through observation and the narratives of others. His first act of psychological warfare occurs not with a weapon, but with a demand. After learning to speak and read, he confronts Victor in the Alps, not to kill him, but to issue an ultimatum: create a female companion. This is a strategic masterstroke. It reframes the conflict from a physical chase to a moral and creative burden, placing the onus of future happiness or misery squarely on Victor’s shoulders. The monster states his case with cold logic, arguing that as a being capable of feeling, he has a right to happiness, and that his misery stems directly from Victor’s abandonment. He weaponizes Victor’s own scientific ambition and ethical failure against him.

This tactic forces Victor into a perpetual state of agonizing decision-making. Every moment Victor spends deliberating is a moment of control ceded to the monster. The creature understands that Victor’s greatest weakness is not his strength, but his conscience and his capacity for dread. By framing his demand as a reasonable solution to a problem Victor created, the monster induces a corrosive guilt. Victor’s nightmares and obsessive thoughts are no longer just about the monster’s past atrocities; they are about the terrifying prospect of unleashing a new, potentially proliferating race of monsters. The monster’s control begins here, in Victor’s own mind, turning his creator into a prisoner of his own responsibility.

Strategic Violence: The Systematic Destruction of What Victor Loves

Where psychological pressure proves insufficient, the monster escalates to devastating, targeted violence. His murders are never random; they are precise strikes against Victor’s emotional anchors. The killing of William Frankenstein is the first brutal demonstration of this strategy. By framing Justine Moritz for the crime, the monster also attacks Victor’s trust in justice and his family’s reputation, ensuring Victor’s guilt is compounded by public shame and helplessness.

The murder of Henry Clervor is even more calculated. Clervor represents Victor’s last tether to a normal, joyful life—his “more than brother” and the companion who grounded him. Eliminating Clervor is an act of profound psychological terrorism. It communicates unequivocally: “I can reach you anywhere. I will destroy every source of your peace.” This violence is not for sustenance or blind rage; it is a message. Each death is a reminder of Victor’s failure to protect his loved ones and a direct consequence of his original sin. The monster uses these acts to tighten his grip, ensuring Victor’s existence is saturated with grief and the constant, aching knowledge that he is the indirect cause. Victor is forced to live with the monster’s presence not as a physical threat alone, but as a haunting, inescapable guilt that dictates his every action and inaction.

Moral Coercion and the Threat of the Future

The monster’s most insidious form of control is moral coercion, culminating in the demand for a mate. This is where his strategic genius is fully revealed. He does not simply ask; he bargains, threatening a “wedding” of a different kind if refused. The threat is twofold: he will be with Victor on his wedding night to Elizabeth, and he will “glut the maw of death” with Victor’s remaining family line. This is a chillingly clear contract: comply, and I will leave you in peace (and exile myself); refuse, and I will systematically exterminate everything you love, starting with your new bride.

This places Victor in an impossible ethical dilemma. To refuse is to condemn Elizabeth and potentially others to death. To comply is to risk creating a second monster, a female who may become an even greater threat, and to betray his own moral revulsion at the prospect of blessing a new species that could “breed” and plague humanity. The monster has engineered a no-win scenario. Victor’s subsequent journey to England is undertaken under the monster’s shadow, his creativity now enslaved to the monster’s will. The act of creating the female is no longer an act of scientific curiosity or redemption for Victor; it is a coerced labor performed under duress. The monster controls Victor’s actions, his geography, and his creative energy from a distance, proving that physical proximity is not necessary for domination.

The Final Act: Controlling the Narrative and Victor’s Legacy

The monster’s control extends beyond Victor’s life into the shaping of his legacy and the narrative itself. In the novel’s frame, the monster’s final speech to Walton is a performance of control. He delivers a eloquent, poignant, and self-justifying monologue, positioning himself as the true victim of a callous creator. He mourns Victor’s death, not with remorse, but with the bitter satisfaction of a task completed. “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt,” he says, revealing that his suffering was also his power. His final act is to vanish into the Arctic darkness, leaving Walton—and the reader—with his version of events as the last word.

This is the ultimate exertion of control: authoring the conclusion. Victor dies chasing a phantom, a man consumed by the very obsession the monster cultivated. The monster, however, exits the stage on his own terms, a free agent who fulfilled his grim purpose. He has controlled Victor’s emotions, his actions, his family’s fate, his creative output, and now, the story’s moral perspective. Victor’s life, from the moment of animation, became a response to the monster’s provocations. The creator was, in every meaningful way, reduced to a reactor, a pawn in the creature’s design for retribution and recognition.

Conclusion: The Inversion of the Creator-Creation Dynamic

Mary Shelley’s genius lies in this inversion of power. We expect the creator to control the creation, but Frankenstein

The monster’s ultimate victory lies not in destruction alone, but in this profound inversion: the creation becomes the master, the creator the slave. Victor, driven by ambition and a refusal to accept responsibility, unleashed a force he could neither comprehend nor control. His subsequent attempts to dominate the creature—to destroy it, to flee it, to bargain with it—all played into the monster’s hands. Each reaction confirmed the creature’s power to dictate Victor’s existence. The monster didn’t just terrorize; he engineered a psychological prison, forcing Victor into a state of perpetual reactive suffering, making him the instrument of the creature’s will.

This inversion serves as Shelley’s central critique. It exposes the hubris of the creator who believes power is inherent in the act of making. Victor’s initial power was illusory; it crumbled the moment he abandoned his progeny. The monster, initially powerless and vulnerable, learned the mechanisms of control through observation and suffering. He weaponized Victor’s guilt, his love, his scientific pride, and his fear. He understood that true power isn't brute force, but the ability to manipulate the creator’s conscience, relationships, and sense of purpose. Victor becomes a tragic figure not just because of the monster's actions, but because he allowed himself to be defined and dominated by the very being he brought into existence.

Shelley’s narrative masterfully demonstrates that power is not static; it shifts, evolves, and can be seized by the seemingly powerless. The monster’s control over Victor is complete by the novel's end: he has destroyed Victor’s happiness, his family, his sanity, and his freedom, and now controls the story’s final interpretation. Victor dies a failure, consumed by the obsession the monster cultivated, while the monster departs as the sole author of his own tragic narrative and Victor’s downfall. Frankenstein, therefore, is not merely a tale of a monstrous creation, but a chilling exploration of the consequences of abdicated responsibility and the terrifying potential for the created to claim the power of the creator, leaving the architect a hollow echo of his own failed ambition.