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The theme of civic responsibility in Frankenstein begins with the book’s subtitle, "the Modern Prometheus."

Victor Frankenstein may also be in search of God-like secrets and claim only the best intentions, but his actions are corrupt and he dies without acknowledging his role in the destruction that has occurred.

A central concern of Frankenstein is the scientist’s shirking of responsibility for the creature he has created.

He remains underground, and begins to understand that one must remain true to one's self and beliefs and yet find a way to be responsible to the community at large.

Mary Shelley seems not to condemn the act of creation but rather Frankenstein's lack of willingness to accept the responsibility for his deeds. His creation only becomes a monster at the moment his creator deserts it (1)

Frankenstein warns of the careless use of science -

It shares also the sense of crossing lines or boundaries and of otherworldliness. The enormous popularity of the Gothic novel had actually passed by 1816, but the genre, with its emphasis on darkness, madness, the supernatural, and strange passions, has never been fully dead.

The society in which Frankenstein and Walton alike opt for the isolation of individual pursuits over the socializing impulses of human interaction proves to be the real agent in redefining the parameters of creative activity.

Acts are replaced by words, activity by passivity, responsibility by the irresponsibly ambivalent, and individuality by abstraction. The person is dissolved.

while Shelley's Gothic in Frankenstein (1818) urges personal integrity and social responsibility in an age of scientific progress, and represents the anxiety produced by the disruption of the traditional, known natural world order.

Based on these, he wrote that he no longer believed that all white people were evil and that he had found the true meaning of the Islamic religion.

Responsibility and obligation lie behind the macabre journey, since the dying Addie has asked to be buried with her kin.

A strong irony is at work in most of the monologues in the novel, revealing Anse and his children with their individual dreams and preoccupations, some of them utterly selfish, others not.

''it is tyranny that has most often drawn writers into politics.''

tyranny indeed draws intellectuals into political conflict, so do economic, racial and social injustice.

Lack of empathy, guilt, conscience or remorse Shallow experiences of feelings or emotions Impulsivity and a weak ability to defer gratification and control behavior Superficial charm and glibness Irresponsibility and a failure to accept responsibility for their actions A grandiose sense of their own wort

The immediate social environment is primarily responsible for criminality in our society, e.g., broken families, poor parenting, low quality educational experiences, delinquent peer relations, poverty, lack of equal economic opportunity, inadequate socialization to the values implicit in the American culture, etc.

Crime occurs when the forces that bind people to society are weakened or broken. When the social bonds that individuals have to parents, peers, and important social institutions like the school or the workplace are strong, they fear that their criminal activity may jeopardize their relative position in society and refuse to run the risk of losing meaningful social relationships, careers, etc. Generally, adolescents have weaker bonds to conventional society than adults.

An understanding of personal choice is commonly based in a conception of rationality or rational choice

he central points of this theory are: (1) The human being is a rational actor, (2) Rationality involves an end/means calculation, (3) People (freely) choose all behavior, both conforming and deviant, based on their rational calculations, (4) The central element of calculation involves a cost benefit analysis: Pleasure versus Pain, (5) Choice, with all other conditions equal, will be directed towards the maximization of individual pleasure, (6) Choice can be controlled through the perception and understanding of the potential pain or punishment that will follow an act judged to be in violation of the social good, the social contract, (7) The state is responsible for maintaining order and preserving the common good through a system of laws (this system is the embodiment of the social contract), (8) The Swiftness, Severity, and Certainty of punishment are the key elements in understanding a law's ability to control human behavior.