Interest groups are there to influence opinion, not to do things for personal benefits. That may have something to do with it, I agree. But overall, the main goal is to benefit the people.

Interest groups are not thinking of the government because they feel so strongly towards this one specific issue. They're not thinking "This will benefit the government in this way..." They're thinking: "This will benefit the people!" Which is what the people love.

Interest groups such as NOW & NAACP provide ways for political action and involvement for people. They provide up-to-date information to their members on affecting political issues. Involvement in a group often sparks greater political involvement, resulting in a more informed and active citizenry. Many people who have been involved in the interest groups, developed an interest or career in politics soon after. President Barack Obama entered politics after a brief career as a community organizer, organizing low-income people for political action.

According to Madison, competing interest groups are necessary to good government because they not only give people a means of contributing to the democratic process but also prevent any minorities from pressing its will on the majority. Interest groups therefore help create a healthy democracy.

You made a good point that the monster didn't request his creation.

I'd also like to mention that the monster and Victor had a father/son relationship. As a teenager, we do things to rebel against our parents and once it's too late, we feel guilty and blame ourselves. "That is also my victim! In his murder my crimes are consummated; the miserable series of y being is wound to its close!! Oh, Frankenstein! generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me?" (24.163). He is asking for repentance, as you said, therefore the monster is more commendable for sympathy.

As Dr. Frankenstein's curiosity resulted in the misfortunate event of his wife's death, it didn't start out that way. Victor was concerned and focused on the discovery of new life; so much that he consciously repudiated everything around him. However, once he realized what his creation actually was, he abandoned it. This may not be seen as the right thing to do, but Victor was trying to do right without doing wrong by murder.

When Victor made this choice, he was trying to carry on with his life and get married to Elizabeth. Before they married, the monster tried to convince Victor to create a companion for him and if he complied, he would perish. If he refused, something bad would happen again.

Victor agreed to fabricate another monster in hopes of being left alone forever. Half way through, he destroyed it. "The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it," (21.125). All Victor had to do was follow through.

Conscious of what was to come, Victor made the decision to destroy the female creation for the monster. Therefore when Victor heard the wails from Elizabeth in the room, it should have been foreseen. "As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended," (22.144). The monster evened out their misery.

If Victor had followed through with their agreement, Elizabeth would have stayed with him. After all, the monster only wanted a friend.

This is how I felt about Victor caring or lack-of caring for the monster as a "baby".

However, because Victor had little to no association in raising the monster, this benefits him in the way that the monster's actions are the monster's problems. Victor was never around for it, so why should he take the beating?

This argument is exactly right. Once you teach someone how to do something or how to act, it is only in their power or hands if they choose to oblige. Yes, Victor did create the monster, physically. However, he had nothing to do with what he learned mentally. Maybe we should blame the De Lacey family for this?

After Victor became so mentally ill due to the news of William and Justine's deaths, it became a more mental illness. "This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained," (pg 61). It was overwhelming to Victor, not to mention the fact that the thing that caused these deaths, happened due to his creation.

If you think about a parent and a child, the parent raises the child and teaches them how to feel, react, and teaches them in general. The monster never got this from Victor, his daddy, his creator. He had to go out on his own and learn everything for himself. Which is where he met from a distance, the DeLaceys. It is from them, he learned how to communicate; he learned emotion and right vs. wrong, ie murder.

Now a normal baby would be taught these things instead of striving to learn them themselves. However, when you leave someone, specifically a baby, on their own, you don't intend anything to happen because they won't have the brain power or general knowledge to become anything. This, as the creator/father of the monster, had to be what was crossing Victor's mind as he abandoned it. So as he abandoned it, who's to say he knew what it would become?

It's not his fault the monster became smart or learned something, so he doesn't deserve the torment or backlash he is receiving from the monster.

I too thought the tone of the monster towards Victor was disdainful. On page 104, the monster simply tells Victor, "You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede." It's as if the monster feels like Victor owes this to him, because of, as Ruby said, Victor cursed him with this miserable life.

I agree as well.

When Victor says, "His power and threats were not omitted to my calculations: a creature who could not exist in the ice-caves of glaciers....After a long pause of reflection, I concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request." he owns up takes the responsibility for his creation, although lying about making his female companion.