"I was their plaything and their idol, and something better their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of the tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me." (19)
Victor Frankenstein’s childhood was lived with his parents devoting their every moment to caring for and loving him. Shelley perhaps used a seemingly perfect childhood to form a budding desire to create in Victor. This budding desire grew into an almost crazed need to create something that he could care for as much as his parents cared for him. When he looked upon his creation for the first time, however, he realized that it was not the perfection he had aimed for, and neglected it. The fact that he could not care for his monstrous creation as his parents had cared for him formed a beginning hatred for himself, and this feeling grew as his creation’s hatred of humankind grew.
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