Dr. Frankenstein vs. Plain Old Victor

How does Mary Shelley establish a complex attitude towards Victor's work?

Shelley is able to establish a complex attitude towards Victor's work immediately; after all, Victor's work is not an everyday job. It is thrilling, unnatural, and complex stuff. Shelley starts out by describing Victor's initial feelings about his task--he is anticipatory and excited to create a new species. He is thrilled by the thought of a species that owes its very existence to him. That feeling of supreme power and godlike authority clearly excites Victor greatly ("A new species would bless me as its creator and source"). So, at first, Shelley describes Victor's work as exciting and innovative.

However, Shelley develops a complex attitude towards Victor's work by shifting and showing Victor's slow loss of his initial thrill. Victor grows unhealthy, thin, and pale--still barely clinging to his goal. He spends all of his time working on this crazy project of his; it becomes an undeniable obsession ("I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit"). Victor is in a "trance", so blindly consumed by his ungodly task. So, by adding this low to the initial high, Shelley establishes a very complex attitude towards Victor's work.

To add to the complexity, Shelley writes graphic sentences describing Victor's work process to create tension in the story. Victor does unspeakable things just to get materials for his work. He steals dead bodies from graves and proceeds to dissect and mutilate them. Shelley calls Victor "profane" and refers to his work spot as a "cell". These harsh words are creating tension. There is also tension between the obsessed Dr. Frankenstein and the human being, Victor: "often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased..." The two very different halves of Victor Frankenstein are pulling away from each other, and the reader is able to sense this disconnect.

Thus, Mary Shelley establishes a complex attitude towards Victor's work by describing his initial reaction, showing his gradual downward spiral, and by creating heavy tension.