Rhetorical Evil in Frankenstein and the Persuaded Audience

Rhetorical Evil in Frankenstein and the Persuaded Audience

Frankenstein accounts for a scenario where a gifted but misguided student, named Victor Frankenstein, of nature rashly transfers his evil into an incarnation of his own moral grotesqueness, leaving his clueless goodness behind to deal with the ramifications. These consequences led to his lack of readiness for his conscience to manage the mayhem his unleashed evil wreaks upon his life. The monster’s lopsided advantage over Victor’s traumatized ego is what sets up the dilemma: when evil has the rhetorical strength over good, at what point did goodness fail to remain on the same level with evil? If good is always struggling in reality to catch up with evil, when in fictional literature, it ultimately claims victory at the story’s conclusion, how can the real world justify optimism when good only wins in a staged scenario? Therefore, when evil starts to appeal to audiences more than good, it is up to good to compensate for evil’s advantages.

Deviating from the traditional reading of Frankenstein, an apt approach to adjusting to a new perspective would be found in the concept of Viktor Shklovsky’s defamiliarization, where a concept is partially deconstructed to reveal a fresher perspective. Since Frankenstein is traditionally centered around Mary Shelley’s personal life, as her mother died shortly after childbirth and her own traumas with procreation. This new outlook focuses on a more philosophical method of interpreting the text. With rhetoric and a less symbolic reading in mind, Frankenstein can be read as a story of moral relativism’s staunchest observer. Where evil can have more reason than good, it is essential to understand why that is possible or even necessary. Defamiliarizing Frankenstein in this manner requires an intentional glance at the relationship between Victor and his creation, the monster. From Victor’s biased and traumatized perception to the monster’s miserable existence, the interpretation of these two characters rests in the rhetorical conversations between each other as they argue over the fate of each other. This is purely a study on how these two antagonizing persons interact with each other, namely how their expressed morality impacts each other and the audience who reads their dialogue.

To fully appreciate and recognize evil rhetoric, it is essential to understand the kind of person who would be willing to partake in this activity. Villains are usually antagonists who provoke the main character by morally, physically or socially challenging the protagonist. In a moral sense, the villain must have a contradictory worldview to the protagonist, assuming the story is centered around a heroic character. The villain most respected here is a compelling one, with an ideology that is nuanced and mature with few erroneous beliefs based in logic and experience. Because of psychology’s research and advancements, a villain that is adequate also must be beyond a simplistic lunatic but a complicated and paradoxical individual more reasonable than the naïve hero. In the essay about Villains and Villainy, “the function of appearance in villainy begins with identification”, conveying the sentiment that “this is the one you have to hate, be afraid of, warn against, etc.” (Fahraeus 11). This is counterintuitive to the notion that the villain must be sophisticated, yet it does shed a light on why a villain’s external features influence the opportunities available. In the monster’s case, it adds an extra twist when he eventually learns to speak and articulate his worldview based on the unfair and prejudiced treatment he was given. It proves that the villain’s scariest asset is not the ugliness on the outside but on the inside. When it comes to Victor, it stands consistent as well. Victor’s abhorrent treatment of his creation after he spent so much time and effort in his passion to create his magnum opus, only to unleash revenge incarnate. It catches up against Victor when he is being pursued by authorities after the murder of his best friend, Henry Clerval. Being treated like a villain when Victor knew who the real villain was is a testament to the importance of appearances and identification, but in a more abstract fashion, as in this case, it was being a suspect in a murder. Caught vulnerably, Victor is unable to exonerate himself without condemning himself on another level. The turmoil in Victor’s head may have been looming but it doesn’t explain his lack of conviction or inability to match wits with the monster.

Although psychology can be an aid in identifying a villain, it is not a priority. Because “writers and moviemakers rarely write or film for psychologists, or for any specialized elites,” the fact that villains are this sophisticated at all is astonishing (Fahraeus 17). That means rhetoric is at the center of how villains are made presentable and appealing. Without a focus on trying to impress the experts, villains are still created with impressionable traits and ideas. Rhetoric makes the villain, and makes it ready for the masses to consume as a plausible bout of good and evil. The audience is the biggest judge available for a villain to be assessed for worthiness. However, just what for would worthiness serve the audience if the villain wins and the hero loses? It promotes a dystopian bleakness and is devoid of any hope for inspiring real solutions. For what possible reason is the audience rooting for the villain anyhow? Is there a secret fantasy of the audience to wish for selfish success at an immoral scale? Or is there a despondency for the heroic cliches that a compelling villain has bred antiheroes, and antivillains being more realistic? The grey morality of reality tends to lean that way.

However, the question remains: why bother? Why should villains be written about at all? Religion has enough evil to ponder for the rest of human history, so why add to to the collection? In “The Enduring Influence of a Dangerous Narrative: How Scientists Can Mitigate the Frankenstein Myth”, “The narrative approach advocates the idea that humans are natural storytellers, constructing and sharing personally meaningful and significant stories about themselves as a way to find unity, purpose, and meaning for their lives and identities” (Nagy). People seek plausible reasons for the evil that is done so they can have an excuse for doing it themselves. Trauma, preventative measures, extralegal activism, all of these motivations drive antiheroes to risk being outright villains and only avoid doing so barely at times, by desiring and achieving results for the greater good. Villains are defined by their selfish and harmful desires and plans while they either perceive themselves as misunderstood or in the worst case, amoral or downright wicked. The former lacks self-awareness but also total malevolence while the latter possesses total self-awareness but also complete ill will. This renders morality uncertain most of the time if evil and good are interchangeable based on the intention or circumstances. This shouldn’t make it arbitrary, despite the apparent confusion. It should only prove that redemption and corruption are constant forces fighting for control over the conscience.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been traditionally read as a personal allegory. However, the overwhelming presence of the monster, morally and scientifically, demands a tangential angle at the case study of Victor Frankenstein’s failure of humanity. As though the toil taken on Victor as he wrestles with the monster resembles the self-awareness of the horror he has let loose upon the world, his failure is expressed in his erratic behavior among Robert Walton and his crew. With “an expression of wildness, and even madness”, Frankenstein absorbs the reality of the monster’s terrifying existence and relays it back to the first witness that isn’t out to arrest him (Shelley 11). This could be due to the monster’s traumatizing confrontations upon Victor so that when “anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up”, detailing the cynical effect the monster has impacted upon Victor (Shelley 11). If the only redeeming action Victor is to be praised for doing is warning Robert Walton of his wicked ambition, then it speaks to the notion that the corruption of good is ill-equipped to deal with the newly acclimated evil that easily adapts to the inadequately prepared response good has to offer, namely in Frankenstein’s instance. Victor’s obsession with the dark secrets of nature were already troublesome to tolerate in respecting his motivations and rationale for his evil. His stubbornness and willful ignorance of legitimate science blinded him from the predictable downfall he avoidably succumbed to in his account. It is reasonably expected that Victor should want to die, taking these experiences to the grave with him but Robert Walton’s treatment changes his mind, one of the few wise choices Victor makes only after creating the monster.

In order to understand why Victor is such a failed hero, one must trace his origins. After reading into Victor’s youth, it is tragically apparent to witness the factors of his moral and human failure. His preference of alchemy and the ancients who have been disregarded in favor of contemporary and more mainstream scientists is a chilling signal of what his darkness is ultimately fated to be. Frankenstein’s insistence on this path indicates a toxic inclination towards obsolete knowledge as he ignored his elders and “was indifferent, therefore, to [his] school-fellows in general” (Shelley 18). The unscientific isolation from his colleagues leans toward the charge that Victor did not care for a peer-reviewed experiment, which rings a vibrant red flag in his character and ambition. If Victor did not care for scientific society, then it is not so far a leap that he would let ethics and regulations stand in his way of completing his self-ascribed destiny. Especially, when he disregarded the admonitions of his professors who cautioned him against his choice of influences, such as Cornelius Agrippa. This compromises Victor’s moral legitimacy against the monster who was born out of Frankenstein’s obstinacy and incorrigible determination to see it through. Since unnecessary methods were employed to create the monster, Victor’s right to fight the wrath of his unloved brainchild was vastly diminished. The monster’s rhetoric was always going to be at a substantial gain considering what transpired up until the point of the monster being able to articulate himself. When Victor’s personality is shaped by his flawed attitude towards education, namely that his “temper was sometimes violent” and his “passions vehement”, they were directed more at his selective areas of knowledge, desiring the “secrets of heaven and earth” (Shelley 18). In spite of this, the emotional work Victor put into his project provides a foreshadow of his finished product.

An alternative look at Victor is had he been evil himself, what would have been the consequences? Furthermore, “how might Victor have behaved worse?” (Robert) Victor Frankenstein possessed many negative traits such as egotism, secrecy, lying, irresponsibility, etc., yet outright evil does not fit among them according to the text. How this affects his appeal is in the fact that Victor recognized his sin against nature and repented. He did not embrace the actions of the monster’ wrath but that was not enough to warrant vindication for Victor.

A study linking a character’s morality and how likable they were was conducted by a coalition of universities. The Gordion Knot of Disposition Theory: Character Morality and Liking was an experiment set out to determine the correlation between the two variables. They were asking how independent is a character’s morality from being liked. They concluded that their disposition theory is “intricately” linked between the two variables (Grizzard). What this means for rhetoric is that there is a fine line between agreeing with somebody’s questionable rhetoric and being captivated by it to the point where one feels like they are being mind-controlled by the overwhelming appeal of the reasoning. Additionally, the factor of still finding favor with the rhetor who challenges the latter of being logically overpowered is the most essential element in approving a villain. If the villain is too insistent on being believed, then the rhetoric is being visibly forced and the magic is gone. The key to a compelling villain is lack of blameworthiness. Mitigating it or avoiding blame completely helps a villain’s case by far in comparison to making excuses and rationalizing with foolish self-righteousness. How well the villain hides his or her self-righteousness paves the way for the hero’s difficulty in parsing the subtlety of the villain’s mind games. In Victor’s case, there was an initial incline and then a steady decline as the story progressed and liking Victor was less tolerable as his character worsened. It almost makes Victor the outright villain had it not been for the monster’s rampant destruction and malevolence.

Further on this topic, is a term called moral disengagement, which is “when the perpetrator of the act is well liked, individuals may be motivated to excuse or justify the bad behavior” (Krakowiak 181). Mostly through entertainment contexts or when there is a disconnect between real harm and virtual immorality, moral disengagement affects the objective evaluation of a crime or evil act that would otherwise be judged harshly. In a fictional context, the horrors a villain commits is less reaction-causing as opposed to the daily news in real life. Rhetorically, this compromises the hero-villain dynamic when in actuality, evil people rarely have compelling reasons for the crimes they commit. Because of the imaginative nature of fiction, superior rhetoric can be planned out to bolster the villain’s appeal. A real villain in society generating that caliber of evil rhetoric tends to make history at the expense of a culture or more. On the other hand, if one has “altruistic motivations for performing immoral actions”, then the rhetoric is tolerated that much more (Krakowiak 183). The catalyst for that success seems to be the promise of a better outcome despite tribulation in the meantime. Victor’s intentions may have been somewhat altruistic, but his ambition was more selfish than selfless, seeking what should not be sought, at least with Victor’s attitude.

Dual use is a term coined by ethicists and scientists, which “refers to the notion of a technology’s being invented for a benign or even good purpose but its being used or abused for more malignant ends” (Robert). Applicable to rhetoric’s ambivalent usage, for manipulation or persuasion, dual use in Frankenstein as the monster’s potential for good was erased as Victor abandoned him in his time of need. Victor’s original intent for the monster, to erase death, became an ironic failure, as the monster became the opposite. Then, when it came to the monster’s moment of accountability, the blameworthiness fell on Victor still as the monster’s culpability could have been averted had Victor been a better person.

Another angle to look at the monster’s compelling effect is sympathy, “as studies have shown “perspective-taking” can enhance a person’s sympathies for another person” (Bokma 30). When the monster recounts his traumas, they far outweigh Victor’s. In doing so, the monster’s evil as a result of being expected to be evil adds a tragedy “to the Creature and that he is not just limited to being the narrative’s villain, but is also, at times, its greatest victim” (Bokma 31). When one is able to sympathize for the villain, the black-and-white morality usually applied gets lost in the grey murkiness of uncertainty. Since the monster’s evil can be traced back to a result of abuse and persecution, the motivation for the monster becomes more reasonable and understandable than a criminal mastermind who feels like committing evil simply for gratification. If the sympathy weighs in the monster’s favor, then Victor’s villainy is more readily exposed at the point where his actions are more intentional and his traumas and emotions are less pitied. First, Victor fails to foresee how composing the monster with grotesque materials will garner something the world will welcome, so he flees at the realization of what he has produced. Irresponsibly leaving the newly animated creature to his own devices that later turned out to be a very regrettable and disastrous choice, Victor worsens the situation by teasing the monster with fulfilling his demands for a bride, destroying her would-be life at the last minute. Refusing to negotiate with his own mistake, Victor loses sympathy by the minute, the same sympathy he had established with Robert Walton. Whereas Victor “starts and ends the story as a victim”, he doesn’t merit the same respect as the monster he created (Bokma 34). Victor’s choices from the beginning of his career were disconcerting and foreshadowing the kind of failure he would amount to in the aftermath of his mad experiment. As long as the monster’s horrors were traced back to Victor’s failed conscience, Victor would never be free of his own horrors. Sympathy for a devil such as Victor’s monster compels one to recognize that “Frankenstein is a classic example of a novel which adheres to the rhetoric of surprise” (Bokma 35). From the beginning the book has the audience sympathizing for Victor, but by the end, that would not likely be the case still. Victor’s negligence being the most egregious towards the monster had to be the final straw. His regret of the monster’s existence is of shameful abandonment and proactive suppression of a scandal so potent if infamous would mean that Victor was doomed anyway.

Evil characters in literature, such as Frankenstein or his monster, have to justify their behavior and beliefs to survive the scrutiny of the reader. To outwit the hero, the villain must possess a sophisticated rationale that satisfies the reader’s criteria for sympathy as well as confound the hero’s possibly simplistic conscience. The monster accomplished this when he supplied his own solution for his plaguing existence, that he exile himself with a bride Frankenstein was to provide for him (Shelly 92). Assuming the hero is confused by the villain’s cleverness, this only urges those who claim to be good guys to improve their own worldview and exercise their conscience to build stronger moral muscle and replace the weak. In doing so, they raise themselves to the same level the villain is operating on, and only then can they compete adequately with the villain. If Victor had been compensating for his moral flaws with the appropriate ideas, then he would have fared better against his monster’s demands. Instead, Victor’s unprepared pushback only agitated his creature’s wrath and worsened his fate.

The audience is susceptible to sophistry where a good protagonist is forced to measure up to the pragmatism of the evil character. In Frankenstein’s case, Victor was pressured to provide a bride but the best response he can muster is to destroy the would-be mate of the monster without a righteously powerful retort that can satisfy the wrath of the monster. The monster was not shy about threatening more acts of malevolence to encourage Victor to follow through with his demands (Shelley 92). This is an interesting effect the villain has on the audience, where transparent evil is more respectable than veiled maliciousness. This is why if the audience leans more towards the villain, then not only has the hero failed, but so has the most popular viewpoint of good. As for the bride of the monster, this leaves everyone to wonder if the monster truly had good intentions that would have been verified by the bride’s existence. Victor’s repeated failure to combat his own evil calls for a higher power to rescue Victor’s overwhelmed good nature to redeem himself from his own mistakes. Since Victor neglected his moral health for favor of selfish ambition, his good rhetoric suffers from a lack of credibility and robust defenses against competing ideology. A higher good to defeat the monster’s superior appeal and thoughtfulness would have to have come from outside Victor’s contained circle of secrecy, namely himself. Maintaining the monster as a secret was a scandalous mistake on Victor’s part, as exposing evil to the light rarely benefits evil when the artificial light itself is seeking anonymity.

Frankenstein’s monster seeks validation from his master, Victor, but his vindictiveness towards Victor’s rejection provokes a disconcerting rationale for the ill will he propagates towards Victor. Maybe because he isn’t being self-righteous but owns up to his evil while Victor is in denial of his own failures, while rushing to overcompensate for them. This is the most pressing issue dealing with good and evil, when the good is overpowered by the cheating might of evil. The power of evil is mostly flexed in the idea of relativism, where absolute good suffers from a famine of proof. Unstable circumstances dictate the applicability of good by allocating where good fits into the situation and evil fits better. Can the reformation of relativism offer hope to the underdog that is good? What if relativism, in its ideal version rather than the current form, operates in a more objective fashion? If relativism is more convenient to the villain, then perhaps the hero should focus on recalibrating it towards his favor.

Frankenstein, as any fictional outlet for one’s outlook, is a story. Stories are used as a safe platform for exploring these issues without reality being affected negatively. Fiction allows for an example of evil to be contained in a controlled setting so that its nature can be investigated. This is necessary because fiction fails to be quarantined from real influence as people defer to classical villains for justification for their own decadent ideologies. However, evil in fiction is not so isolated from evil in reality. The basic impulse at the root of any evil is to distort the initial good and mutate it into a tainted caricature. So that means any rhetoric the villain has going for him can be reverse engineered by the hero and rectified without any malicious implication. Victor failed to do so when destroying the monster’s bride (Shelley 107).

When a myth fails to teach the audience how the world works, it ceases to function. Because:

Myths teach people how to deal with the unknown and paradoxical and dissolve the conflicts of human existence. Myths in this sense combine facts with fantastic concepts and narratives, enabling people to make speculations and models regarding the world (Nagy).

As a scientific myth, Frankenstein has an obligation to the scientist to warn what may come if one is too much like Victor. While being fictional, it has the benefit of avoiding real harm while helping prevent it. This can be how good outweighs evil rhetoric, through the ultimate consequences of pursuing evil rhetoric’s advice and wreaking havoc because of it. “I told you so” moments may be condescending but effective also as listeners hardly enjoy being scolded for avoidable mistakes. As for producing models, the more specific the good rhetor is at explaining the fallacies of evil as one attacks the merits of engaging in such harmful endeavor, the more fruitful it is. Both sides are then connected through a medium where simulated ramifications can be taken out of the way. This allows for a more streamlined discourse where obvious choices are ignored in favor of uncharted ones.

On a more realistic note with scientists as rhetorical villains, such as the mad scientist archetype, when justifying their research amidst similar motivations behind nuclear arms, artificial intelligence, evolution and their potential harms, have a better opportunity to raise objections to being vilified as having the same ethics as Victor Frankenstein. For staying ahead of Victor’s folly, “in order to change the lens through which people perceive and approach science, we need to gain a better understanding of how the ‘victims,’ the scientists, think and feel about the Frankenstein myth” (Nagy).

When the science is out of the scientist’s control, and it impacts the rest of humanity, there is little room to maneuver between self-righteousness and vindication. Improving the quality of life is the best defense for the clumsy efforts of advancing uncharted knowledge of nature. This is why it is essential for the hero to have a robust argument for the traversing in grey morality at the risk of slipping into amorality and scoring points for the immoral through losing by default. When the heroic protagonist can justify soundly for the questionable decisions that cause doubt in their moral competency, it invokes hope if life can imitate art and fiction can translate into reality.

When science fiction is adapted into a reality, “while scientists are likely to be pictured as gifted individuals unlocking new knowledge and creating novel technology, they are also seen as controversial characters who may be blinded by their own scientific curiosity and commit transgressions” (Nagy). This should urge scientists to be mindful of their audience and how they are being perceived. Being watched as a form of entertainment may or may not alter behavior, but being under scrutiny for potential mistakes surely informs future actions.

When good can keep up with evil, it is a need for study. Scientists who can and should avoid all of Victor’s follies when pursuing groundbreaking breakthroughs have centuries of advantages over Victor as well as more monstrous creations to evade. After all, the audience watching science is a more interactive one, either benefitting or suffering from science’s storyline. The people’s fear of science is well-founded but can be assured in that peer review is something Victor didn’t seek. Because of that:

People often have positive expectations for science, but they also fear that science might harm them. These beliefs reflect one of the fundamental dystopian fantasies about science — its supposed capacity to transform human beings into unnatural creatures or even produce monsters (Nagy).

With Victor Frankenstein serving as a precedent or “as an enduring modern myth of science, Frankenstein has become a readily accessible tool for understanding and interpreting the work of the scientist” (Nagy). Scientists who don’t listen to Victor’s tragedy as a signpost of a path to avoid only serve to be counterproductive in their ambitions to search for whatever secrets they wish to unearth.

One excavated finding is with moral relativism being at the forefront of why the villain has the advantage over the hero, the antagonist over the protagonist. It is no easy task to accomplish as good struggles for stable credibility. If evil can turn the tables at any time, so should good be able to reciprocate. It wasn’t only science fiction that she pioneered but relativism when “Mary Shelley may in fact have created the first future myth — one whose structure was to correspond even more closely with the developments of a later century than with the author’s own, and thus lay waiting for human activity to catch up with it” (Nagy).

If “physicians who show signs of being affected by stress are weak”, then Victor’s aversion to peer review backfired as his strenuous project cost him his social life, as it is noted that doctors who do not ask for help need it the most (Couser). Imagine the superior and healthier specimen if Victor had sought assistance, assuming anyone else would have agreed to such a dark experiment. Naturally, the type of endeavor Victor was undertaking was never meant to be successful, so it is a glowing example of evil succeeding in defiance of probability and necessity. How this makes Victor a greater villain than victim is that he circumvented his scholarly authorities and ignored any urge to seek an audience for scrutiny. His hamartia was rooted in the secrecy, possibly knowing of the intense disapproval from his colleagues and superiors. Then, when it finally does backfire on Victor, he insists on keeping it a secret, giving his monster all the power to wreck his life without impediment. Had Victor taken responsibility and gone straight to the authorities, the monster would not have had that much leverage over Victor. Alas, Victor knew his malpractice was incriminating as well so until Robert Walton appears and shows the desperate and hopeless Victor there was still a chance, secrecy was the tactic. All of Victor’s brainpower went into the monster which is why the monster was smarter and more rhetorically savvy.

With scientists as the audience most in need of persuasion, “narratives, especially science narratives, may allow scientists to reflect upon a wide range of moral and ethical issues around science and technology” (Nagy). As science evolves rapidly, so needs to develop even faster their morality and ethics. The disparity between curiosity and caution is too vast for the latter to be expendable. Too many ignorant successes have harmed the world for science not to learn from its horrendous blunders. However, if scientists won’t listen to themselves or each other, what that leaves is the general public who have the power to control the excesses of science.

Contemporary villains and heroes have adapted to the rhetorical obligation to appeal to the audience. The most notable of which can be found in Marvel Comics who goes by the moniker of Magneto. To be poetic, Magneto even refers to himself as Frankenstein’s Monster in his origin story, X-Men: First Class (Vaughn 2:38). Magneto is the most compelling villain, rhetorically, when paired against his foil, Professor Charles Xavier. A survivor of the Holocaust and experimented upon in Auschwhitz, Magneto is openly evil in his crusade against prejudice. A self-proclaimed realist, Magneto always has the cynical advantage over Xavier on the problems that human nature tends to gravitate towards xenophobia, or mutants in the fictional case. While Xavier touts a more pacifistic approach, he does employ his X-Men to utilize peacekeeping violence to pacify Magneto’s extremist tactics. This is a seeming discrepancy between Xavier’s more peaceful ambition while using violence to stop Magneto’s “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”. Is it only hypocrisy on Xavier’s behalf since he espouses peace or is it more nuanced? Magneto’s main point is to reign supreme over ordinary humans before being a victim of another Holocaust; this is a departure from the Golden Rule as he flaunts “do unto others before it’s done to you”. The power behind Magneto’s momentum is the self-fulfilling prophecy that perpetuates itself as his enemies prove his point for him constantly. Normal humans are always hunting down his kind because Magneto preemptively seeks out and instigates the conflict, becoming the driving force behind his success.

A darker rhetoric is from DC Comics, namely the Joker. In this instance, the Christopher Nolan iteration with the late Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning adaptation is most disconcerting. The rhetoric of this particular Joker rests upon the terrifying charisma he embodies in his sophisticated nihilism. The ultimate complementation to Batman’s war on crime, Joker apparently is a one-man army able to challenge Batman’s rhetorical prowess to the point where it is no longer fruitful to engage in discourse and violence is the only way to achieve resolution. In the interrogation scene, Joker is pontificating to the extent where Batman is compelled to listen for whatever motive is unclear, but he hears Joker out until it gets personal. When rhetoric slips into pathos, things become unpredictable for the audience (Nolan). This Joker also corrupted Gotham’s White Knight, Harvey Dent, and encouraged him to inflict his dark desires upon the unsuspecting populace that still believed in him. What the Joker does in both situations is that he uses both heroes’ vulnerabilities and exploits them to see things his way, partially succeeding against Batman and excessively accomplishing his new intentions with Harvey Two-Face. More than a comic book movie, The Dark Knight was an exploration of when the villain wins and how he manages to do it in spite of the heroes not even being mediocre in their rhetoric like Victor Frankenstein. The Joker did it with mostly taking action that the heroes couldn’t match with just words. The Joker went to a place the heroes weren’t willing to go until they were desperate. Batman’s unethical supercomputer tracing cellular phones and using them to pinpoint the Joker’s location, as questionably effective as it was, paled in comparison to Harvey Dent’s ambush attacks on law enforcement, breaching the lawful relationship between attorney and police as well personal trust by abducting family members from a police commissioner’s safe house. This is the power of the Joker, turning authority into a farce.

Overall, Victor and his monster’s arguments have inspired many questions about the relationship between good, evil and rhetoric in between. From Victor’s inept conscience to it being overwhelmed by the monster’s rampage, his death is an omen for those whose reach far exceed their grasp. Victor wasn’t just playing with fire; he was dancing in an exploding volcano. If one is going to create demons, they are forgetting that demons aren’t created but are deformed angels. Victor took life and deformed it into something that he was deathly afraid of and refused to love. In doing so, the demon made its deformer suffer in more misery than Victor could handle. When rhetoric failed the monster’s quest for love, he turned to the typical path villains take when their fragile civility is futile. Beware the evil rhetor who fails to win over the audience. When that happens, discourse is no longer available as the rhetor has shifted to more subtle means of manipulation or outright violent evil.

On a broader note, Frankenstein raises serious questions about morality and how good relates to evil. Further research into why certain good things ought to be good and the nature of relativism require a substantial leap forward. Otherwise, the villain will continue to accumulate more moral appeal than the hero and society’s outlook on evil will devolve further in its appropriate aspect as people turn to evil for compelling rhetoric as has been the case for centuries but at a more alarming rate. When a medium has more room for morality than reality does, it is cause for concern. People with less inclination to seek rhetorical education from healthier means can do more damage than a comic book character who simply inspires emulation. This is why there ought to be more originality in rhetoric so that politics doesn’t escape with derogatory remarks about its merits while abusing it for useless reelection campaigns. Because by some twist of fate, politics is the one arena where binaries are drawn and rhetoric is the most potent and prevalent. Only in politics can nothing logical or credible be stated while still be accepted because appeals to emotion are in abundance while livelihoods are not. If all politicians can be construed as villains by each other, why can’t that be the official case and be done with it? Efficiency and progress would become more than talking points.

In the case of Victor Frankenstein and his monster, politics is the least of their worries. Rhetoric and evil had their part to play and Victor lost immensely because he was unprepared to face the immorality he inflicted upon his world. Victor’s villainy was in self-corruption, willful and ignorant at that, and criminal negligence that led to his downfall as a pitiful protagonist. From several perspectives refreshing the angle pointed at the odd couple, is the notion that the monster’s evil is rooted in Victor. Frankenstein is the tragedy of a mad scientist gone madder. When Victor’s love was murdered, he started to understand the monster with improved insight, having destroyed the monster’s would-be bride himself. Eye for an eye as a rhetorical device is effective essential in dismantling your opponent’s case with their own fallible logic. A pity Victor couldn’t do that as the creature was ahead of its time.

Including popular culture, the exploration of villainy and evil rhetoric should be enough to compel more research into the phenomenon of persuasive antagonists. With an uncertain horizon, it is important that the masses not be exploited or manipulated on the basis of shallow logic or fallacious claims. Even though fictional villains are an exaggeration and contained example of evil, it doesn’t negate the fact that real evil is predominant in the culture, and even denied its existence. Acknowledging evil is too painful for some so they outright ignore its reality. In a world where moral relativism is preferable to dealing with hard questions, people simply give up on them rather than pursue productive discourse, leaving the arduous task to less people to manage. Moral relativism is the bane of morality, and unless it is understood properly and without an agenda, then rhetoric will be more dangerous than fruitful in the public scene. What Frankenstein brings to the argument is that when the better rhetor has horrific ideas in mind, then it is imperative that the opposition is well-equipped to diminish the quality of abusive logic and replace it with a constructive mentality. Defamiliarizing moral relativism is the best way to do that, by offering a metric that both parties can be satisfied with and walk away in agreement. That would be something even Frankenstein’s monster cannot destroy.

Works Cited

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Couser, Greg P., and Jody L. Nation. “Save Yourself Before You Save the World.” Physician Leadership Journal, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 28 — 31. EBSCOhost,

Grizzard, M., Huang, J., et al. The Gordion Knot of Disposition Theory: Character Morality and Liking. Journal of Media Psychology.

Krakowiak, K., Tsay-Vogel, M. What Makes Characters’ Bad Behaviors Acceptable? Routledge.

Nagy, P., Wylie, R., Eschrich, J. et al. The Enduring Influence of a Dangerous Narrative: How Scientists. Can Mitigate the Frankenstein Myth. Bioethical Inquiry 15, 279 — 292 (2018).

Nolan, Christopher. “The Dark Knight- Interrogation Scene 4k”. Youtube, uploaded by Infinite Potential Media, https://youtu.be/X7LsBMA-rKg

Robert, Jason Scott. Rereading Frankenstein: What If Victor Frankenstein Had Actually Been Evil?

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