How does Victor depart from the typical tragic hero?

Frankenstein is a brilliant man who brings disaster on
himself and his family because he has a tragic flaw – pride. This tragic flaw causes him
to make a huge error of judgment in trying to create life. His problems are not brought
about by personal depravity but by the tragic flaw and error of judgment. In the classic
sense of a tragic hero, fate and external forces combine with the tragic flaw and error
of judgment to bring on the tragedy. I think it can be argued that fate and external
forces do not play a part in Victor’s tragedy, however, so in that sense, he departs
from the classic definition of tragic hero. Although I believe a case can be made
against this view, it is my opinion that fate has nothing to do with exacerbating
Victor’s tragedy. It is all on him – he created the monster, and if the monster did not
exist, then there would have been no tragedy. The monster teaches himself to talk and to
read and learns that he is subhuman. Everything that he does after this is motivated by
the fact that his existence is painful to him and Frankenstein is responsible for this.
Frankenstein refuses to create a mate for him, so the monster sets out to kill everyone
that Frankenstein loves. Frankenstein was caught in a dilemma of his own making – if he
created another monster, then he could have prevented other loved ones from being
killed, but Frankenstein was conflicted about compounding the problem and creating two
monsters. So again, he is the cause of the tragedy, not fate or external
forces.

The Aristotelian tragic hero had to be a noble
character – like a prince or a king. Writers have deviated from this requirement and
many tragic heroes have not been of noble birth. Frankenstein would fit this as well. He
is not a noble, although he is well-off.