Frankenstein, essay

TASK 4 : FRANKENSTEIN or the Modern Prometheus

In 1816 Mary Shelley and her husband Percy settled in Geneva, where Lord Byron soon joined

them. It was from their evening discussions on art and life – especially during a rainy spell when

they were reading ghost stories and Byron proposed: “We will each write a ghost story” that Mary’s

first and best work of fiction was written: Frankenstein. The significant of the name Frankenstein

has been in a centre of a discussion for many years. Mary Shelley said that it derived from a dream

vision but in German the name means “Stone of Franks” there are also many places that have as

name Frankenstein such as Castle Frankenstein. Maybe there is no story more important than

Frankenstein for qualify the meaning of “Romanticism” in literature. The creature is the typical

expression of the thought of this period. The consequences of a strong passion even if they are

catastrophic will have to take second place after the greatness of passion itself. The romantic love, if

not share with anybody turned into the hates, jealousy, remorse, desperation such as a typical hero

of Byron’s Works.

The story of Frankenstein is well known. Dr. Frankenstein is a brilliant scientist devoured by the

ambition to gain greater control over life and death than ordinary science allows. He pursues his

solitary research until one day he succeeds in giving life, by electrical shocks, to a human looking

frame he has assembled out of organs from dead men’s bodies, Frankenstein, however, is the first to

be frightened and repulsed by his own creature. The monster then runs away and later reappears in

the Swiss Alps, where he finds that all the men he comes across reject him because his monstrous

appearance. He is not so much physically ugly as an unnatural being, a patchwork of different

human features; it is his artificiality that scares people away. The monster’s desperate need to

communicate with other men is repeatedly frustrated. This gradually works him into a rage against

mankind that culminates in his killing Frankenstein’s best friend, his little brother, and his wife. The

story ends with Frankenstein sailing to the North Pole in order to kill the monster, who has taken

refuge there to avoid committing any more crimes. He wounds the doctor mortally, accusing his

creator and the rest of mankind of lacking all compassion towards him, and thus pushing him to

murder.“ I am malicious because I am miserable Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You,

my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph” in fact he became a murderer after being rejected

by men. All the human being that he meets refused him without giving him the time to prove his

goodness and sensibility. “Why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it

murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of

your own hands.” An important factor in this story is the absence of a female figure seen as “the

mother”. The creature was not born naturally but in a scientific way, builds as an object so he can’t

have a mother. Some critics have noticed in this intromission of a male figure in a process like

pregnancy a complaint of the author (daughter of the feminist Mary Wollestonecraft) against the

exclusion of women in the science world or in general from the world of culture. In the growth of a

kid the mother is the most affectionate figure between two parents. She can accept and forgive

everything even the most terrifying actions giving her love and her trust. The absence of this kind of

love aggravates the creature condition of isolation. And this is why the monster in a certain point of

the story asked at his creator to made to him a female companion so he could be alone no more. The

creature’s request is human, because the only thing that he wants is sharing the outcast with

someone like him. However the female figures in this book are less developed than the male one.

They are flat and manipulated to affect the character and actions of the male role, which are more

defined. Frankenstein is a scientifically update version of Faust. He wants to overcome man’s

limitations and acquire a God-like power over physical matter, taking life into his own hands “ I

had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body…

I had desired it”. Oh the other hand, the monster created by Frankenstein is a symbol of Romantic

concern for the isolation of the individual by society. We can find this concept in chapter 10 When

the monster, after saving the life of a little girl who is drowning he is shot at by the man who is with

her. Wounded he hides in the woods where he suffers from both hunger and physical pain. He

survives but with a sense of frustration at being repulsed by men “ too unhappy to enjoy the gentle

breezes of evening or the prospect of the sun setting behind the stupendous mountains of Jura ”.

From the point of view of its structure Frankenstein is quite a complex work. It is told in the first

person by three different narrators:

• The first part is in the epistolary form: an English explorer in the Artic regions, Robert

Walton, writes to his sister in England about how he has saved a Swiss scientist who seems

to be physically and morally borne down by an unspeakable grief;

• There follows Frankenstein’s own story;

• Within Frankenstein’s narration is inserted a written report by the monster himself, in which

he explains the reason for his “ monstrous behavior”

None of the three narrators is omniscient and so they are all needed to have a complete version of

the story. The three narrators’ interplay provides a very interesting and modern shifting of the point

of view. This allows for some psychological analysis, if not of the characters as single individuals at

least as typical of certain aspects of human nature. We are given first an ideal portrait of

Frankenstein by Walton, as of a man who nobly and undeservedly suffers; then Frankenstein’s

portrait of himself, where already his boundless ambition begins to show its less pleasant side; and

finally the monster’s indictment of his creator as a selfish and cruel man and tell to him that is

“Cursed, cursed creator!” because The monster dreams of the companionship and love of his

creator, but also feels deep bitterness because he has been abandoned by his own God. Looking at

the society of the time in which the appearances were more important than feelings and needs, light

assumed an important role giving organization and movement in universe. It is connected to light

the phenomenon of the aurora borealis in North Pole. Lights then is a synonymous of divinity and

of the power of an unknown God. Frankenstein belongs in part to gothic tradition, so popular at the

time, and partly to eighteenth century philosophical tradition that made of themes such as isolation

and social injustice fictional subjects. It can thus be defined as both a philosophical romance and

gothic tale. However in some parts of the story a new aspect show itself: “The different accidents of

life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature” the changes that take place within man’s

mind and affect his feelings are greater than any incidents that may happen in real life. Mary

Shelley here directs our attention to the fact that Frankenstein is much a psychological story as a

gothic tale. Of the tale of terror Shelley’s novel possesses the highly charged emotional language

and prevailing atmosphere of suspense and danger. On the other hand, it differs from many tales of

terrors for ignoring certain features – castles, and medieval or exotic trappings – and for substituting

the supernatural with the science. For treating the theme of scientific research and its ethical

implications, Frankenstein has also been considered by some of the forerunner of science fiction.

We can easily notice the Sympathy and the affection that Mary Shelley proved toward the Monster

and his sufferance, showing in her story a female point of view. In her work we find the capacity to

understand the fact that any human action, even the most terrifying is moved by a deeper and hide

feelings. She was trying to show us a fragile soul of an outcast person pushing us to see beyond the

appearances and help us to understand that the appearances doesn’t mean anything. It is presumable

thanks to the figure of the monster, which is expression of fear for the technological development,

that this romance became immortal. Frankenstein is one of the myth of romantic literature because

investigates deeply in human fears. Another important theme that the author clearly showed is her

blame against who challenge God just for his own vain.