Discuss justice and injustice in Frankenstein.

Frankenstein can be read in a certain way as a novel about miscarriage of justice and eventual guilt and punishment. Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist, is wealthy, powerful, brilliant, and well-connected. His personal qualities and his social position give him great power. Rather than using this power well, he acts with impunity, seeking only to satisfy his own personal interests rather than considering the common good, unlike his friend Henry Clerval, Elizabeth, Justine, and the members of the De Lacey family. As the monster points out, Victor is unwilling to shoulder responsibility for his actions. 

The first issue we encounter in thinking about justice is the degree to which we should be held responsible for acts of omission and the acts of others for which we are indirectly responsible. Victor himself, after all, is not a murderer nor does he as an individual lay false witness against Justine. On the other hand, Victor's failure to nurture the monster and instill in the monster a sense of moral values and membership in a community does make him complicit in the monster's murders and his failure to admit to the truth makes him complicit Justine's death for a crime she did not commit. Victor gradually, over the course of the novel, comes to this awareness and feels increasingly guilty for his acts, but still takes the easy road, in a sense, of attempting to kill the monster rather than attempt the harder task of rehabilitation. 

The monster also, like Victor, attempts to deny individual responsibility, blaming his circumstances for his acts rather than accepting that he had the opportunity to make good or bad choices.

In terms of issues of justice and injustice, the novel makes us think about several problems about the nature of justice. The first is the degree to which parents are responsible for acts committed by their children. The second is whether it is just to punish only criminal acts but not the forms of inaction that let crimes take place. The third issue is the degree to which we should take into account background and environment in thinking about justice.

Injustice is one of the themes that runs heavily throughout the text of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Here are a few incidents that support this idea:

Victor Frankenstein provides little support to the monster

While the monster himself isn't an ideal creature, Frankenstein does him no favors by refusing to provide him some basic instruction and guidance. As his creator, Victor functions primarily as the creature's parent, and one of the fundamental roles of parents is to help their children understand the world around them. By throwing him out to navigate the world on his own, Victor shows cruelty to this creature that was ultimately his idea and responsibility. The monster should have seen some compassion and been given some hope along his journey. By removing this fundamental need, Victor shows a lack of humanity himself and does great injustice by the creature.

William's death

The creature is not faultless. When he has had enough, he reaches out for revenge upon Victor and takes the life of his young brother, William. William is a young child and is completely faultless in both the creation of the monster and the way he is treated. This is an injustice to the innocent.

The Delacey family

Frankenstein observes this family from a distance for a long while. He transforms during this period and relates:

I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption; but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots, which I gathered from a neighboring wood.

The monster longs to be part of their family, filled with love, support, and kindness. He therefore begins to support them, bringing them supplies of firewood to help their physical needs. In the end, when he presents himself to them, they cannot see past his differences and drive him from the cottage with anger and stones. Not being able to see his heart because of his physical differences is an injustice that continues to play out today.

From the beginning, the creature (whom Victor Frankenstein usually calls the "monster" instead) is met with a cruel world that cannot accept him, even when he makes great progress toward being more human-like. Because of the anger this causes, he both inflicts and receives numerous injustices.

Discuss the theme of injustice in Frankenstein.

The first two answers include valid examples of injustice within Frankenstein, and I believe that those examples demonstrate Shelley's struggle with her father's (William Godwin's) theory on morality--he believed that a human could control himself and his thoughts and eventually reach moral perfection.  Victor and his parents (near the book's beginning) seem to demonstrate this view.  When they see injustice, such as a once-wealthy child living in squalor, they right the wrong by taking her in and treating her as one of their own.  Thus, through their striving for moral perfection, they justly respond to an unjust situation. Victor is brought up in this manner; so it is no wonder that he creates the monster without giving thought to his responsibility to the creature when it comes to life.  He seems to have believed that the creature would be morally good and glorious and that he would not have to teach it about morality, justice, and fairness.

As Victor's relationships with the monster and his family/friends deteriorate; so does the standard view of justice.  An innocent child (William) is needlessly killed by the monster; Justine (whose name means "justice") is executed for a crime that she did not commit; Henry is murdered, and then Victor is falsely accused of the crime.  Shelley seems to be implying that while the idea of moral perfectioncreating a "just" world is noble, it is very difficult if not impossible to achieve because human arrogance gets in the way and results in injustice.

You can argue that Victor Frankenstein is a very unjust man in this book.  You can argue that he shows, at least twice, that he is not willing to help cause justice to be done.

The first case is when he allows Justine to be executed for a crime she did not commit.  He does this out of fear that people will think he is insane.

In a second case, though, Victor in unjust in his dealings with the monster.  He acts as a judge, jury and executioner when he decides on what to do about the monster's request for a companion.  In essence, he is telling the monster that it is evil and must not be duplicted.  By doing this, he is setting himself up as the monster's judge.  You can argue that he has no just right to do this.

How do the varied points of view in Frankenstein contribute to themes of justice or injustice?

When Safie tells her story, it becomes clear how unjustly her family has been treated, as well as how unjustly her father treated Felix. All Felix did was attempt to help Safie's family, and he ended up much worse off because of his good intentions and kindness. When Victor's creature narrates, it becomes clear how unjustly Victor has dealt with him. First, Victor abandoned his creature almost immediately after it came to life. The creature was completely alone, almost helpless, and without even basic knowledge to protect himself from pain. Then, when faced with the creature's arguably reasonable demand for a female companion, Victor agrees at first but later tears her apart in front of the creature. Finally, when Victor narrates, he confirms how unjustly he has treated his creation. Therefore, we see the theme of injustice play out across several different narrators.