Victor himself derives his character from three different figures, the mythological Greek sculptor Prometheus, the God of Milton's Paradise Lost, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary's husband. Although the plot is purely secular and is based on scientific explanations of the world rather than supernatural ones, there are elements of religious morality in the story.
Of the characters, Victor, like Mary's atheist husband Percy, has no overt religious beliefs. In his role as Creator, therefore, he fails to provide the spiritual nurture that the monster needs. Rather than looking on his creation and finding it good, seeing past the monster's outer form to its craving for love, acceptance, and moral teaching, instead Victor recoils from what he has done in creating his monster, and does not really take responsibility for his acts, leading to the deaths of innocent people.
Even at the end of the book, his seeking to kill the monster is not really a moral act, but rather one of self-preservation. In many ways, one can say that Victor is the moral monster of the book, brilliant, self-centered, and irresponsible (somewhat like Mary's husband Percy) and the monster a potentially good creation that was ruined by bad parenting.
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