Wish Fulfillment in Mary Shellys Gothic Novel, Frankenstein Essay

Wish Fulfillment in Mary Shelly's Gothic Novel, Frankenstein Everyone stores hidden desires, ambitions, fears, passions and irrational thoughts in his or her unconscious mind, according to Freud's psychoanalytical theory. These secret feelings, often stemming from a person's childhood, can manifest themselves in odd and sometimes extreme ways. This phenomenon is called wish fulfillment. We do not always fully understand why we make the decisions that we do in life, but a certain amount of these choices can be accredited to wish fulfillment. Mary Shelly's gothic novel Frankenstein illustrates several accounts of wish fulfillment through the actions of Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein in an effort to satisfy their various needs. Robert Walton was raised by his uncle after his father died. On his deathbed, Walton's father entreated his brother not to allow Robert to pursue a seafaring life. Robert instead became a poet so that he "might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated" (Shelley 16). Unfortunately, Robert was very unsucce...