Throughout "Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister in England the progress of his hazardous mission. Though successful early on, the voyage is soon thwarted by seas of impenetrable ice and other complications. Walton then encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by a sled across the ice and is weakened by the climate. Walton takes him aboard, nurses him back to health, and is told the incredible tale of the monster that Frankenstein created. Through detailed conversations with Frankenstein, Walton discovers many of his fanatical and unearthly attributes as he learns more about the life and experiences of Frankenstein throughout this novel. Frankenstein proves to have a God-complex in many manners, revealed in his bringing the dead back to life, creating his own Adam, and choosing whether or not life should be continued after its creation.
Frankenstein exhibits God-like qualities through his bringing a dead man back to life. He uses his faith in God to bring a man back from the dead by not only using a body, but also by using multiple body parts to create the monster. Frankenstein recognizes that "darkness had no effect upon [his] fancy, and a churchyard was to [him] merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life" (Shelley 50). This quote expresses how he does not respect the dead and how he believes that they could be taken freely for his own experiments. Later in the novel, the monster that Frankenstein created questions his existence, stating "what was my destination?" (148). He also recognizes that "the path of [his] departure was free" and reveals that he is not comfortable with his physical appearance since he describes himself as "hideous" (148). This quote can be related to God because every person has his or her own expedition that he or she must take that must be journeyed alone in order to fully understand the purpose of the journey.