Frankenstein's Attempt to Take Over The World

Though seemingly obsessed with creation as an art, Frankenstein’s actual motives seem to be to create a superior race of humanoids to eventually surpass the human race and take over the world.

1. What stands out particularly is his choice of creating a super-human 8-foot-tall hybrid man of hand-chosen parts. Rather than choosing to reanimate a beautiful human, as he easily could have given the scenario, Frankenstein personally chooses individual parts. As such, the creation is not only entirely attributed to him rather than another “god”, but the resulting creation is now individually personalized to his tastes of what an ideal humanoid should be. Note that Frankenstein’s monster also recognizes his own intended superior attributes when he speaks to Frankenstein: “Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power… You are my creator, but I am your master – obey!” (171).

2. Frankenstein then contemplates complying with the monster’s desire of having him create the monster a wife and actually partially finishes the female counterpart before rethinking the idea. On page 170, he mentions “the superior beauty of man”. However, if he had succeeded in creating a being superior to man as intended, both in terms of physical beauty and prowess and lack of susceptibility to illness, would he have created a mate for it without hesitation? He seems to wish that the superior race survive, in the current scenario humans, yet it’s questionable whether he would still find the same case true had he succeeded in his experiment. Rather, on page 55, Frankenstein states, “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.” Given the elated manner in which the statement is conveyed, it doesn’t seem to be a far stretch to say that Frankenstein wished to recreate the world with a new humanoid race of his creation.

3. Frankenstein doesn’t seem particularly fond of humans with the exception of Clerval and Elizabeth as given by the fact that his life “had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic; and this had given [him] invincible repugnance to new countenances” (46). Therefore, it doesn’t seem to be in his interest what befalls other humans besides those two. That further reinforces the idea that his true intention is for his newly created race to take over the world.