In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley makes many references in regards to parenting and education. She seems to be sending a message that without discipline and guidance, as well as unconditional love, a child cannot reach their full potential.As a result of his early childhood where he was indulged and spoiled, his adolescence where his parents were not very interested in what he was doing day to day, and his mother's death, Victor Frankenstein lacked the sense of responsibility and maturity to realize that dealing with eternal life is wrong. He then forces the creature to have a similar childhood which ends in destruction. In the first chapter, Victor Frankenstein recalls his childhood. His mother was significantly younger than his father, and they were very much in love. He was an only child until he was five years old and his parents doted on him when he says "I was their plaything, and their idol."(16),. It could be said that Victor was indulged and spoiled by his parents, as shown when he remembers "my mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure."(16) As he was growing older in Geneva, Frankenstein says "My temper was sometimes violent and my passions vehement,"(19) and only Elizabeth could "subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness."(20) Victor is left to his own devices without much direction from his parents, which is shown when Victor recalls his father "looking carelessly at the title page"(20) when he discovered a book by Cornelius Grippe about alchemy. Victor says that if his father had explained to him that alchemy had been disproved, then "It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin."(21) He also describes himself "to a great degree, self taught"(21) It seems that his father is not interested enough in what his son is studying, and takes little notice of what he is doing.
