The Concepts of Creation and Nurture in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 she had lost her own
mother and three children. It is against this background of loss that
many chose to explore the possibility of bringing the dead back to
life. As the daughter of William Galdwin, Mary would have known about
many of the major scientific developments during her days. In
particular she would have known Galvini and his experiment with frogs'
legs, and is likely this motion of electricity was one of the factors
that influenced her choice of the subject. Frankenstein is an
examination of scientific success, but also brings up the question
parental responsibilities, and how important nature and nurture is in
bringing up a child. What Shelley asks are the consequences of taking
a god like role? To answer this we must examine Frankenstein.
In the very first chapter of Frankenstein it begins with an account of
his parents' courtship and marriage and the first views of Victor.
'Broken in spirit'
Mary Shelley's very first description of Victor is described as
discontented. Therefore Mary Shelley uses this very opening to prepare
the reader for the horror to follow in her description of Victors'
despair. Nurturing could also be considered in this chapter where as
Victors' feelings are not taken into account by his parents where then
this is turning point in his life.
As Victor grew older he receives less attention and was not nurtured
as much. He is left to his own devices without much direction from his
parents. When he recalls the moment the event at the age of thirteen
he finds an Agrippa alchemist bo...
... middle of paper ...
...ole.
In Frankenstein Mary Shelley strongly shows that nothing is born bad,
but is the lack of nurture that decides whether a child is brought up
to become either good or evil. This is shown when the creature
discovers how to produce a fire, then nurtures it self that it can be
used to warm itself. However due to the lack of nurturing he uses this
fire for the wrong reasons such as using it to light the cottage. But
the prime example of the concept of creation and nurture Frankenstein
creating an monster, not realising the out come of this ambition to
bring the dead back to life, then also to failing to nurture this
creature and as a result brings unhappiness to this world. Mary
Shelley proves that even though Frankenstein was a scientific success,
he didn't nurture its child hence it is claimed as a parental failure.
Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein is a novel narrated by Robert Walton about Victor Frankenstein and the Monster that he creates. Frankenstein grew up surrounding himself with what he loved most, science. He attended Ingolstadt University where he studied chemistry and natural philosophy, but being involved in academics was not enough for him. Frankenstein wanted to discover things, but did not think about the potential outcomes that could come with this decision. Frankenstein was astonished by the human frame and all living creatures, so he built the Monster out of various human and animal parts (Shelley, 52). At the time Frankenstein thought this creation was a great discovery, but as time went on the Monster turned out to be terrifying to anyone he came in contact with. So, taking his anger out on Frankenstein, the Monster causes chaos in a lot of people’s lives and the continuing battle goes on between the Monster and Frankenstein. Throughout this novel, it is hard to perceive who is pursuing whom as well as who ends up worse off until the book comes to a close.
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, has captured people’s attention since it was first written. People often wonder how much of Mary Shelley’s life is documented in her novel. From the theme of parental abandonment, to the theme of life and death in the novel, literary scholars have been able to find similarities between Frankenstein and Shelley’s life. The Journal of Religion and Health, the Journal of Analytical Psychology, and the Modern Psychoanalysis discuss the different connections between Shelley’s life and Frankenstein. Badalamenti, the author of “ Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?” in the Journal of Religion and Health, primarily discusses the connection between Victor
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is more than just a regular novel. It is a book that conveys a deep philosophical message. The novel moved me to my very soul. It turned out to be a book not about an encounter against a monster but a misfortune of a scientist, who reached the goal of his work and life and realized that breathless horror and disgust filled his heart but all of these is on the surface. The inmost philosophical thought is covered and hidden, but is very profound. The author tries to say that life is a gift. After this gift is given no one can take it away and it transforms the accountability of the creator. The novel makes the reader anxious with the question: “Is a human being able to take obligation to provide life?”
This challenge which brewed deep within Victor makes him forget about his own life and leads him into isolation and a complete concentration on project. Blinded by his quest, Victor is unable to measure the consequences of what he is trying to do. Victor returns home feeling frustrated and feeling as though all his hard work had ended in the utmost failure. In addition, Victor feels guilty, realizing that his creation is the cause of his little brother’s death. During this time, he also encounters that an innocent victim, Justine, is sentenced and condemned, a person of great significance, someone like a sister, to the love of his life, Elizabeth. In analyzing the following paragraph, the reader is able to see the difficulty that Victor has in expressing his emotions.
Frankenstein Essay With the same hands Frankenstein built the monster, he holds his dying wife. Throughout Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein and his creation fight against each other as ambition, abandonment and the lack of responsibility result in the downfall of both. Frankenstein represents a parental figure in his creation. Their conflict arises through the years leading up to Frankenstein’s creation and continues for years while taking the lives of multiple people. Frankenstein’s knowledge and ambition, the creature’s life in isolation, and the poor relationship between the two result in their conflict.
Upon first discovering how to make life, Victor is overwhelmed with excitement and pride, feeling as though he has unlocked the greatest power on earth. His imagination is “too much exalted” by this newfound ability, and thus determines there is no “animal as complex and wonderful as man” for him to attempt as his first creation (Shelley 43). Frankenstein does not contemplate how he will react to or interact with the human he gives life to, or that he has created an extremely twisted parent-child relationship by creating a human from dead bodies. His general lack of concern regarding the consequences of his remarkable yet dangerous power is the root of the rest of the conflict between him and his monster throughout the rest of the novel, and it exemplifies Shelley’s underlying theme that science should not be pushed past morally and psychologically safe boundaries.
In conclusion, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is considered to be a historical novel, based on scientific advancements. In this novel Shelley depicts her own definition of human nature, by showing the Creature and the ways that humans reacted to him. The novel also showed the differences between morality and science. The differences of science from when Shelley wrote the novel until today, including the foreshadowing of what would happen if we use science for the worse.
Victor’s life starts with great potential. He comes from a decently wealthy family whose lack of love towards each other never existed. He is given everything he needs for a great future, and his academics seem to be convalescing. Everything starts to change once Victor`s ambitions become his life. He leaves to study at Ingolstadt where his destiny begins to unfold. This is when Victor’s isolation begins. The search for the secrets of life consumes him for many years until he thinks he has found it. For months, he assembles what he needs for his creation to come alive. The day came in which he was able to complete his life time research project. This day was described as the day “breathless ...
With the different trips that Victor endures individually, it hints a sense of individuality as he seeks isolation from the world. He is also a very emotional man, who loves his family. As death of his family members occurs, he becomes emotionally unstable and seeks revenge against his creation. Ultimately trying to end the life he so vigorously wanted to create. This reflects both the passion and individualism theme from the Romantic
An important subject that everyone has to consider at some point in their life, when making decisions that influence others, is human behavior. The make-up of human nature has been long contemplated in the fields of philosophy, psychology and sociology. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein once again introduces this question into debate. The interactions between Victor and his monster has readers question whether, despite appearances, the monster is just as human, if not more human, than Victor himself. Many of the characters of Frankenstein are prime examples of what it means to be human. Specifically, the characters Elizabeth, Victor, and Walton show three of the core building blocks of human nature: sympathy, revenge, and, lastly, a need for
As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that, combined with insufficient parenting, Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence, but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most distinguished of the republic,”(Shelley 17), Victor’s parents saw him as their “plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless Creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me,”(19). “The Social Order vs. the Wretch: Mary Shelley's Contradictory-Mindedness in Frankenstein Sylvia Bowerbank.” Bowerbank, "The Social Order vs. the Wretch", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/bower.html.
...her – the superior excellence – was instrumental in the development of the mind of Victor. Victor’s primary companion, his father, retained power over him until the end. Alphonse made sure that Victor was educated and taught him the ways of society. Although he showed Victor unconditional love and cared about his well-being until his death, his parenting can be seen as overbearing and lacking in true caring—the kind of parenting that isolates instead of embraces. It was this faulty fathering that ultimately led Victor to become the “mad scientist,” capable of creating life but with no capacity to love what he had created.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Creature educates and learns more about what he is through reading famous books of the past. One of the more important books The Creature reads in the novel is John Milton’s Paradise Lost. By having The Creature read Paradise Lost, Mary Shelley is able to contrast the very idea of creation, and what it means to be a “Creator” versus what it means to be a “Creation”. John Milton presents creation in Paradise Lost as a symbiotic relationship between creator and creation, as without one, the other will not thrive to full potential. On the other hand, Mary Shelley’s presentation of creation is completely opposite to John Milton’s. In Frankenstein, the entire novel focuses on an ongoing battle between creator
What is the creation of Frankenstein? Firstly, it is a creature artificially created by a person from parts of the body of deceased people and remotely resembling the person himself. Secondly, this being is self-conscious, learning, developing, and also able to feel. Thinking began to appear in him almost from the very moment of its creation, self-awareness, in the process of his acquaintance with nature and the surrounding world, which he perceived categorically enough, and language. The result of his observations of the inhabitants of the hut near which he founded his home. “ By degrees, I made a discovery of still greater moment. I gaunt that those people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by
To hear the miserable cry of an unfairly punished child weeping “I never asked to be born!” is a terrible sound. And In 1823, the first literary work to whimper those words was released; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published in London, England. Although many people think they know the real story, they don’t. A young man by the name of Victor Frankenstein, unable to understand the intricacies of giving life, is spurred on by his lack of knowledge into an intense urge to produce it. But when his creation actually appears before him, he is overcome and unable to submit to the responsibilities of his child. So instead he backpedals and leaves the child to stand on it’s own two feet. Therefore it submits itself to the cruel bashing and beating of the world, and in turn conceiving a broken and banged up child due to it’s lack of care and no one to look after it. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses Victor to act as a symbolic mother who thoughtlessly bestowed life, but after seeing the severe repercussions it can have on his future – he aborts. In turn leaving the creature to be battered and beaten alone in the world: “a man left to himself from birth would be more of a monster than the rest” (Shelley 46). Thus showing how the state of a child relies on the responsibility of the parent, for if not given the proper means of growth in a stable environment, it can turn into a monster. Specifically, if Victor had acted as an ideal adult bound by the moral obligation of a creator, the creature would not have become a monster. This is important to Shelley because her mother died giving birth to her. After her death, her father never forgave her; he alienated her as if she was an orphan. Therefore Shelley makes an urgent request to her readers ...